Thanksgiving

My town from the look out

              Ten weeks building anticipation for what site will be like.  Ten weeks of exchanging TV shows, music, and Engilsh soaking up as much American culture as possible. Ten weeks trying to determine why exactly I’m here, and what it will look like when ‘working’. Ten weeks convincing myself I can jump into a community and feel a part of it…no problem. And here I am now, in my room, not sure quite what to do with myself.  I feel like a middle-schooler after growth spurts, who doesn’t quite know how to handle her new body.  I suppose I am living on faith that I will grow into this new body, and my skin will become tougher with confidence its just a matter of patience. In all reality my first week has been better than what I ever should have expected, I'm just still spinning from such a drastic change of pace in my life.

            Yesterday was Thanksgiving, which was hardly recognizable as Thanksgiving in all traditional sense of the holiday. I woke up to my mom calling my name outside my door at 7:00am. Unbeknownst to me it was time to go to the tree nursery. I rolled out of bed, my hair sticking up in all sorts of direction due to not having taken a shower in four days and the natural greases were working great as hair gel. I frantically smoothed down the grease, put on a hat to cover it up, and threw on some semi-clean clothes. Breakfast was already served on the table as I stumbled in hoping for coffee, but instead the drinkable Quaker oats were in a mug and a tamale on the plate, all in all no too bad of a breakfast, just could have used some caffeinated energy. One day I will get up the nerve to ask for coffee every morning, but for now I am cowardly keeping my desires inside.

Yup those are all Pines

My host mom has had a pretty nasty cold since I got here, which she attributes to being outside in the heat, but it seems most of the town has a similar cough so I’m thinking its just going around. However her sickness has not slowed her down one bit, and she is ready with me to go work in the tree nursery. We arrive at the slow leisurely walking pace and are shown how to poke holes into every pine tree startling, in order to put little ball fertilizers into each plastic black bag that they are growing in. Looking around I see that there are thousands upon thousands of baby pine trees waiting for their hole to be made and filled with fertilizer, the task seems daunting. I am handed a wooden tool that has been widdled to a point at one end, and has a handle on the other and I stake out my endless bed. There are five of us there all women with two kids running around. They are incredibly hard workers and I pick up on snippets of conversation about water conservation, and issues with the water in the area. I want to chime in and ask clarifying questions, but I feel timid with my Spanish so I take the day listen, knowing that there will be many days in the future to ask questions. We work for five hours straight in the blazing sun, poking hole after hole, prepping the starters for their dose of fertilizers. Every so often one of the woman brings around Chicha, a local drink that is most similar to Kumbucha, made from fermented sugar cane, and is delicious but apparently does have some alcohol content. I gulp it down as if I haven't drank in months, not minding that every woman with the cold has drank from the same cup. At noon one of the little girls can no longer wait for her mom in the hot sun and starts to break down crying, I look at her and try to communicate with my eyes that I feel exactly the same way. But there is no way I could stop before my host mom who is sniffling and sneezing at my side, but still going faster than I am. We push through the blazing sun another hour until it is time for lunch. Before going we compare the skin of each others hands to see who has been most effected by the work, I receive sympathy for my red hands but nod of affirmation that I am a hard worker, and we pack up and walk back stopping to by some okra on the way home. It wasn't until the next morning that my real wound appeared on my back, I was unaware of the ever so slight gap between my shirt and my pants exposing just enough skin to the sun's fierce beams.

            Upon arriving home my body feels beaten and exhausted as I slump down on our bench in the kitchen. My host mom shows no sign of slowing down as she jumps into preparing lunch. Our neighbor, Leidy, who is the secretary for the municipality comes over and they prepare a classic Peruvian dish of boiled potatoes on a bed of lettuce, a boiled egg, and a sauce poured over the top. The sauce is made from milk, old bread or crackers, hot peppers, salt, and other spices, blended to cream, which is actually pretty good.  Midway through lunch I realized it was Thanksgiving to which Leidy nods knowingly and we begin to make plans of how we could make a Thanksgiving dinner. There is no turkey so a chicken will have to do, and we will stuff the chicken with bread, carrots, peas, and whatever other veggies we can find. Mashed potatoes make it onto the list, and bead rolls, but I draw a blank as to what more should come for Thanksgiving dinner. I’ m a little intimidated by the responsibility of having to make a dinner here, but excited to share some of my culture.

            I take a good nap after lunch awoken to our neighbors playing with a new toy where you can talk into it, and it repeats back what you said except sped up to chipmunk speed.  Their best capture was of the mom yelling at her son to put down the toy and help prepare lunch.  I decide to venture out to see the rain clouds rolling in. Wanting to make some contact with the outside world on this day I grab my cell phone and head out for walk up the hill to try and find reception. While I am unlucky in find reception I do stumble upon perhaps the most beautiful double rainbow leaping through the Andean mountains that I have ever seen. While this Thanksgiving does not feel traditional it seems to feel a bit magical. I turn around seeing more rain coming and head back home.

            My host mom and our neighbor are just getting back with the news that they were unable to chicken so they have beef slabs instead, and no potatoes only okra. With these ingredients it seems the cooking is out of my hands, but I do get to witness the creation of another typical food here called cecina. My host mom marinates the beef, and then proceeds to hammer it out. I am not sure what the desired outcome is here but she goes at those slabs like no other. Once they are satisfactorily beaten they throw them into a frying pan over the wood-burning stove and fry them up. Once partially cooked they take them out again and beat them a little bit more before frying them for the last time and serving them on top of rice, okra, and some well chopped veggie mixture of cooked carrots, beets, and peas. All in all it is actually quite a delicious meal that I share with my host mom, dad, and our neighbor who is essentially the host mom’s daughter. We share what we are thankful for, laugh at my lack of Spanish, and have a good meal. It seems like the essential parts of Thanksgiving are still with me no matter where I go.

Pounding the meat

Thanksgiving dinner