'tis the season

      Christmas eve started out as a normal day: woke up at 7:00am and debated running to the bathroom. I could hear my host mom already awake outside in the kitchen and I knew if she saw me she would assume I was awake and ready for breakfast; then just as I was falling back to sleep after my bathroom run she would call out my name exclaiming breakfast was ready and I wouldn’t get that hour of beauty sleep I love. On the other hand my bladder was about to explode because I have a full cup of tea right before bed every night, so I can never make it through the night, and my last hour of beauty sleep would be tainted by the constant thought of needing to pee. My bladder got the best of me and I made myself decent and ran to the bathroom greeting my host mom on my way. Returning to my room, I crawled back into my warm bed and sure enough just as I was drifting off the call for breakfast came. It was the classic bread rolls with cheese and some drinkable oatmeal, which I have grown to enjoy.  Afterwards I made my bed and got ready for the day, thinking about what I would be doing if I were home, and how packed the stores must be as commercialism lived on in the States.

Patoralitas practicing

I was just sitting outside on a rock catching some sun and reading when my host mom asked me if I wanted to join her to go see the pastoralitas. The tradition here is to have children ages 7-12 dress in traditional skirts and sombreros and they dance and sing in front of nativity scenes. The children dancing during Christmas eve were practicing for that night when they parade down the street with a band and go to the houses with nativity scenes to dance, the eventual destination of the parade is the old church we have in town. So there I was sitting and watching, taking a few pictures, and getting a little bored, as the dance was kind of the same with every song. My host mom had disappeared into another house so I decided to go find out where she was. I walked next door and into a scene of high-energy woman cooking up a feast, children running around wild, and some form of almost recognizable Christmas music blaring from radio. Soon my host mom pops out from the back and beckons me to come look at the guinea pig. I walk around the back of the house and there two women are working on chopping into the neck of a live rooster, while others watch and comment about the best technique to use to kill the rooster. They finally get deep enough into the neck and allow the blood to flow out into the outdoor drainage, then dump the rooster into the washing basin where four other seemingly dead chickens and roosters lay. They have one more to kill, and while they are just getting the dull knife past the skin layer one of the seaming dead roosters convulses up and flops out of the basin spraying the watching crowd including me with blood. The crowd yelps and laughs a little, as they throw the chicken back into the basin and we move onto the next step. This involves dunking the dead chickens/roosters into a large boiling cauldron of water, which is on top of a grate, on an open fire. They dunk the chicken in, then into a cold bucket of water and then begin tearing off the feathers. Well I have never de-feathered a chicken and this was my chance, so I rolled me sleeves, and dove in. They handed me my very own rooster to go after, and my first thought was that it was easier than I thought to pull this feathers off, then I thought about how gross it was that the wet feathers were sticking to my hands, and then I got a little said for the rooster. It was a rush of emotion all the while my stomach was turning a bit as I touched the still warm skin. While I am wrist deep in feathers they bring out the guinea pigs to which there are seven in total all squeaking around in a large plastic bag, the type they package coffee beans or flour in. One by one they take out the guinea pig swing them around by their head, again the technique is debated and it was usually some combination of flinging and stabbing in the neck that eventually killed them off, although as one was being dunked into the boiling water it was still putting up a convulsion fight. Turns out living things don’t really want to die. Well the pulling off of guinea pig hairs was a bit too much for me, so I grabbed a pinch of hair to say that I had done it, and then backed away.  They then put the hairless grey guinea pigs straight on the flame for a few minutes so that they became rigid and turned slightly brown. At that point thankfully my phone rang and I excused myself and went outside to talk to my sister, a much-needed reason to get out of the smoky deathly scene.

I was not sure who we were preparing the feast for, but more than ten mothers were there working hard to prepare these guinea pigs, roosters, chickens, and potatoes. They served us all lunch where I was awkwardly served first and then had to eat with the kids, because they were also served first, but the food was not what I had just witnessed the death of, it was made by another crew of women, so the fate of the meat was still to be determined. After lunch my host mom and I walk home for a restful afternoon of knitting and reading. That night around 9:00pm we hear the parade coming through and we followed the parade into the church. The pastoralitas danced and there is a bit of a service but mostly the people just talked through the service about how cold it was. We don’t make it to midnight and the putting the baby into the nativity scene, and instead go back to the house. I gratefully crawl into bed tired from the day, and thinking about home.

            The next morning after a good run, breakfast is the traditional Italian Pannetone with very sweet hot chocolate; I basked in the semi-familiar flavors of Christmas, and planned to spend most of the day talking to people from home, and other volunteers in Peru. I treated myself to a freezing cold shower, but the feeling of being clean, and the realization that a black head I had had on my upper lip for several years had finally swelled up so I could pick it off, and it was gone were the greatest Christmas presents I could receive. After several hours of phone conversation I emerged from my room and find my host dad and several friends were sitting around our outdoor patio sharing in a drinking circle of chicha, or fermented sugar cane juice. The tradition here is to pass around one cup and all share from the same jar in a communal drinking circle. I join in and we reminisce about the previous volunteer a bit, and compare his information about America to my information about America.

I made cookies!!!

            The cup makes its rounds through lunch and into the afternoon as my host dad proceeds to get more and more drunk. In his hazy state the idea of inviting the boto to our house comes to him and the whole group gets excited about the prospect. I am at this point pretty confused what a boto is, but it seems like the right idea to be excited about. Then we hear the band strike up and the pastoralitas are back at the dance walking all through town (Which I can see all of from my window). We ran down to the street and beckoned for the band to come to our house.  This time as the band passed the houses people were bring out boxes of food, papayas, mangoes, guinea pig, large laundry baskets of bread, chickens, everything you could imagine in a feast. Apparently it is the tradition to donate food to the boto, or what can be described as a band of marching people proud with food and dancing on their way to the church. They did not seem keen to stop at our house and turned the corner heading to the main plaza. I headed in for my afternoon nap thinking that was the end of that, but my host dad was still determined and stumbled off arm in arm with his three friends to go follow the procession.

            I was deep in a phone conversation with my brother peering out the window when I see the procession on the move again. They seemed to have grown in numbers, as they came from the church up the road. Leading the pack is a young man carrying three large stocks of sugar cane and he is making a v-line for our house. Very quickly I realize that most of the town is headed for our house. I tell my brother that it seems I must go entertain the entire town, hang up the phone and help my host mom arrange benches outside to accommodate everyone. They march their way in and set up all the food on the table, cover my host mom with rose petals and the band, set up in our garden, strikes up some tunes. The food is enough to feed the whole town for a week, and it dawned on my that the guinea pig and chicken that I had helped slaughter the day before were now the center piece of the table delicately stabbed with skewers and formed into a wheel of sorts placed on a mantel (see picture). Apparently my host dad had convinced them to come to our house, delivering all the food. The significance of this I am still trying to figure out, but what is for certain is that next year we are expected to host the party, and contribute a large amount of food to the boto. I think my host mom was less than pleased with this responsibility, as she prepared soup for everybody, and tried to keep the guests happy, but my host dad was very proud of himself. Crates of beer were brought in and the drinking circles continued as the band packed up we changed the music to CDs and danced the afternoon away.

The crafty meat and egg display

            Today for lunch I was served half of a guinea pig on top of rice, my stomach gave a turn remembering the pinch of hair I had just yesterday pulled off. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever tasted, but I couldn’t get over the fact that it was once a rodent! There are still three live guinea pigs now running around on our kitchen floor, and mountains of food tucked away in my host moms room. The tradition to me is still a little unclear, but there are guaranteed many parties at my house in the future!

A knitting adventure

Just a cow with no knitted hat

            On my third day here I was sitting down for dinner with my host dad and mom. I don’t remember exactly what we were eating but I’m sure it involved rice and potatoes. My host dad, in particularly good spirits, was recounting the days of the previous volunteer that I replaced, and what a great guy the volunteer was. Then he turned to me and said, ‘you know I really liked having a guy to hang out with but you will be a good companion to my wife so I think it will be ok.’ I wasn’t quite sure to take this as a compliment or just a fact but I laughed it off in a nervous sort of way.  The well-defined gender roles here make it hard for me to figure out where I fit in. I am served first for meals even if my host dad is not home yet my mom will serve me, but she will not eat until my host dad has been served food. This leads to many meals of me eating while she makes herself busy until my host dad comes home from the farm. I have mastered eating as slowly as possible on these days, wanting to be able to eat at the same time as everybody else. I am also not very good at volleyball and much better at soccer, but have not yet crossed that gender role line yet, and I’m incredibly slow and shelling green peas another mark against me fitting in as a female volunteer.

So in order to attempt to better understand gender roles here I figured I would try to dive in and become for female-esque in their eyes, and thus I decided to learn how to knit.  It is a common practice here, the women knit or crochet whenever they have a bit of free time or need to gossip.  We have a women’s artisan group here in town that knits from hand-spun wool, using natural plants to dye the wool. A very local, eco friendly concept, but unfortunately many of the things they are making are reported to be scratchy and still have bits of wood, or plants from whatever they were dying with. In other words the gringa is here to do a bit of quality control. The other problem is while the eco-tienda in town is selling their stuff; it is not selling very well. The eco-tienda has a focus on selling local natural products from around Amazonas and they move jams, honeys, and coffee through pretty fast, but it turns out the locals all knit and they don’t really need more sweaters. So the market isn’t great, and the products are scratchy, and the women all believe any day now there is going to be a boom in tourism, but I’m not as convinced that is going to happen. Twice the meetings have been canceled for some unknown reason, and the meetings I have made it to have seemed very unproductive, mainly just another excuse to get together and knit and gossip, but they do record what projects they are working on and there are all very talented.

            My host mom confessed that she used to be a part of the group, but then there was an important meeting in the regional capital city, and she was the only one of the group to go. She didn’t even have a title in the group, the president had no excuse for not showing up, and it became obvious that the organization of this group was far inferior to the organization of other similar groups from around the area. Then a month later there was a local cooking competition in town, and my host mom lent all of her vegetables, chickens, and food to the president of the group so that the president could enter the competition. Not as affiliated with the group just as a neighbor wanting to enter the competition. Well the president goes on and wins the whole thing with the prize being around 800 soles (275 dollars or so). This president gives nothing of the winnings to my host mom who donated all her food. Needless to say my host mom was not impressed and that was the end of her participation in ALTA (the artisan group). Its too bad because I see my host mom as a strong leader, and one that does show up for meetings and is pretty committed. Now I feel slightly awkward telling my host mom that I am off to help out ALTA, but they clearly need a little sorting out. They have also run campaigns to build awareness about a local conservation area that is under deep debate of being mined, and it is the water source for the regional capital city, so the area is pretty important.

My Host mom in floral shirt

            The point being that I was determined to learn how to knit so I could fit in with a women stereotype which I feel like at this stage will win me points, seeing as I was told my running style looked like a boys. The women told me that the next time I go to the regional capital I should buy some yarn of my favorite color and some knitting needles. And so that is exactly what I did, the woman at the store was excited for my color and picked out a very nice long metal pair of knitting needles for me that she told me would be perfect! The next meeting was cancelled as it was pouring rain, and all I could do was look out the window, tears rolling down my face, holding my untouched yarn still in its bag. Finally the next week rolled around and I get ready to leave for the meeting. As I’m walking out the door fashionable late my host mom stops me and asks if I’m going to the ALTA meeting to learn how to knit. I admit that its where I am off to, and then she questions if I’ve rolled my yarn into a ball yet, as if that was an obvious step I had to do. Well clearly I hadn’t so I go into my host mom’s room and watch a telenovela as she proceeds to wind my yarn for me at a ridiculous speeds. Once finished she wishes me luck and sends me out the door.

The teaching style here I’m not quite adapted for. Mostly they showed me what to do up close but not slowed down and then after what they feel like was a sufficient amount of time of observation they hand me the knitting needles and told me to get started. I grabbed them shakily and waved them around in what I thought was the right pattern, but by the looks on the women’s faces was clearly not, so I handed back the knitting needles to the woman helping me and she once again showed me at full speed what I should be doing. Full speed for these women is faster than a sewing machine, and to me looked like a blur of colors. Well after about three tries of this the first woman gave up teaching me and handed my hopeless cause over to another woman who is more my age. We laughed at my inabilities and she showed me over and over again what it was that she was doing. I would take back the knitting needles and determiningly will myself to be able to do it.  When I couldn’t I would proceed to stomp my feet and whine throwing a small tantrum in the middle of the room, then laugh it off, and we would go back to square one.

Rainbow at my site!

            I left the meeting more confused than when I entered and feeling like an unsuccessful woman, hoping my host mom could help me out. Upon getting back to the house my host mom first comments that I’m home early, and that the group shouldn’t end so early as she chuckles to herself. Then she inquires about my progress. I show her what I’ve got and explain that in two years it will be a small winter hat. I show her the first step of the stitch that I can do and encouragingly she says that it’s pretty good. We go back and forth for a while just as I had been doing with the other woman, but by virtue of time and effort I am starting to get the hang of it. Slowly but surely I started to get into the rhythm, and after some practice I proudly show my host mom my progress. While she did tell me I had a smart head she also looked at it and said oh ‘malo grado’ in other words not quite right. A week later I had very little progress, so my host mom decided she would take my knitting project to bed with her. I believe she realized that the next day was the meeting and I was going to return with only a messier ball of yarn. The next morning she proudly comes out and shows the beautiful rows of stitching she has done. She said she couldn’t do much because she got tired, but to me it looked like motherly love of a new female daughter!

            I have gotten the hang of it for the most part, in fact yesterday we were sitting outside on the grass doing our knitting thing and I kept showing my host mom my lines and asking if there were any malo grados. Her response was no your glasses aren’t working, you need new eyes, you’ve got the hang of it and its perfect. We knitted together through the sunset listening to the tap of our knitting needles, and the cough of a near by pig. It is an interesting feeling doing a work of what truly feels like a solely female activity and it is what you are expected to do. The men passing by when I’m knitting always comment that I am doing a good job getting used to life here. I suppose fitting in to some stereotypes is helpful, but I am still determined to break into the men’s soccer games!

Counting the Strikes

            As I type this I am listening to Christmas music trying to get into the holiday spirit, but none of the normal external clues are present so it’s a bit of a stretch. I am now my third week of adjustment and it’s going quite smoothly, although last weekend I do feel as though I might of hit a bit of a bump in the road. On Friday the small annex of a town next to mine had a celebration for a Saint, not quite sure who. As part of this celebration they had a cow show. The women at the cheese factory where I put cheese in to molds once in a while invited me to go with them. I was honored by the invite and we agreed to meet up after lunch. As is pretty usual this time of year during lunchtime it started to down pour, so I was trapped in the house waiting for the rain to pass. Every time I thought there was a break, by the time I got ready to leave it started up again. My host mom brought out her big umbrella and insisted that I take it along with me. I reluctantly agreed knowing that me caring an umbrella would bring more attention to my gringo self, and I already got plenty of stares on the street.  Not matter, finally after three hours of rain it seemed to lighten up and I made my break for it, hoping that my cheese making friends didn’t leave without me. I walk down to one of their houses, which I was given the instructions of ‘look for the house with the red roof, it’s the only one of its kind’, and sure enough it is pretty easy to spot. They are still hanging around and invite me in to sit on their couch, the first couch I’ve seen for at least three weeks; it was a pleasure to sit down on! They get themselves ready, commenting about the rain every other sentence, and we head out the door. I receive many comments on the umbrella, but I tell them they will all be pretty jealous when it starts raining again.

            The cow show was amusing if not a bit humorous. There were about 15 cows in total, so pretty small. Most of the men formed circles of friends where they passed around a beer and chatted, probably about the rain, while the women sat on the side gossiping and watching after the children. In groups the cattle owners would bring out their cows, walk them around in circles, but mostly struggle to get them to stand all in a line. The judge inspected them and pronounced a winner for each group, to which a spattering of applause followed. Mid way through this excitement it started to rain again and I pulled out the umbrella, which was then a sought after item, and we huddled under it, unable to see the action, but sticking through it as committed fans. Just as they are judging the last group of cows it really starts to downpour, we decide it is time to run for cover, and head out of the open arena, to the side of a house with covering. Huddled in we wait out the end of the judging and then start the journey home. Before I know it a car pulls up beside us and I am told to get in for a ride. We pile in all except two moms who have their babies on their back. They call to me to lend them my umbrella, which I quickly do, desperate to make any friends that I can here. Later I realized I have no clue who the women are or how to get back the umbrella. I arrive back at the house wet and tired, and I explain in broken Spanish what happened to my host mom’s umbrella, she does not seem to pleased about the whole fact that I don’t exactly know who has the umbrella. Strike one.

            The next day the same annex is having a sports day as part of their celebrations. I am invited to go with my host mom’s sister, because my host mom has to go to the farm to harvest potatoes. They come by my house right as I am getting out of our freezing cold shower. I ask them to wait five minutes while I get dressed to which they agree. Finally ready we head off to the games. We find a seat in the grass and watch the men play soccer (the municipality taking on the near by university), and we watch the women play volleyball. It is all pretty exciting, especially when balls come flying towards us, and I had a two-year-old girl to also keep me company. About two hours into this my host mom and dad show up to join us. All is going well when suddenly my two-year-old companion finds money on the ground around me, and proceeds to question whose it is. I deny it at first thinking I didn’t have any money in my pockets, but then I realize it can’t be anyone else’s so I embarrassingly say, oh yeah it must be mine. My mom demands that I stand up and they proceed to find seven more Soles in the grass where I had been sitting, which amounts to a little more than two dollars, but here is quite a bit. I am pretty embarrassed as they exclaim that I can’t be walking around with that much money, and I need to keep my jacket zippers closed. The next day my host mom proceeds to tell the shocking story to everyone she meets on the street, heightening my shame each time. Strike two.

            While sitting watching the sports on that same cloudy day we stayed passed sunset as the volleyball game got more heated. Every volleyball game you have to pay a small amount to get in, and then the winning team takes all, so the games are pretty serious. Anyways when the sun sets in the mountains here the temperature drops about 20 degrees, a pretty significant change. I hadn’t quite come prepared for this, and apparently the air in the annex is much colder according to my host mom, so I quickly start to feel my toes and hands freezing off. In desperation I look over to my host mom, who is snuggled under her poncho talking to the person on the other side of her. I figure that I will cozy up and prove that I am a loving daughter, so I borrow a bit of her poncho and cover my legs with it. I am pretty proud of my bold daughterly move, and I feel slightly warmer. Little do I realize that I may have crossed the line a bit, for ponchos are a point of pride to people here. When my host mom notices she is a bit taken aback and exclaims to my host dad that I have taken some of her poncho in disbelief. I sit there a little awkwardly, and yet for whatever reason still leave the bit of poncho covering my legs. We watch through the end of the game and finally head home, at which point I am so cold that I can barely speak or think straight. On the walk home my host mom exasperatedly explains what happened with the poncho, and then exclaims that she never shares her poncho with anybody. Too cold to do anything, I sort of try to laugh it off, and pretend that I don’t understand. Strike three.

            Well with all these strikes against me by Sunday I was feeling pretty unconfident. After a long afternoon nap my mom invites me to go play volleyball with them so we walk together to our court in town and I sit down to watch. The whole town is out so there are plenty of young kids to play with and the time passes smoothly. On our way home we walk with a neighbor that I’m not sure I’ve met before, just as we get to her house, she remembers that she is the one that has my umbrella, and tells us to wait while she runs in to get it. The relief seems to run down my shoulders, and I can tell my host mom is pretty pleased to get back her umbrella. Things since have gone very smoothly, and this week for the first time my host mom shared her gossip and feelings about certain people in town with me. I felt like I was actually on the inside for a brief moment. Patience in transitions is always hard to find, but I try to run with the little successes, and pick myself up after the cultural misunderstandings. I will always be over grateful for my host mom’s love of vegetables!