The "Cuy" May 15, 2009

Wow so it has been two weeks that I have been in my community and the time has flown by! Things out in Pucachicta have been quite interesting. On day two in the community I began my assessment of the community. The assessment consists of visiting each of the families (there are 43) and interviewing them, with the hopes of getting information on what exactly the community needs. So on Saturday afternoon my counterpart asks if I wanted to start the interviews and of course I say yes. I had on some flat dressy shoes and didn’t think much about it. We head out down the main stone road and then he was like oh this family lives a bit more “adentro” (meaning more in the jungle). I was like ok, not thinking that just the day before it had rained really hard. So we start walking off the main road and onto a smaller, muddier side path. My shoes started getting stuck in the mud and the mud was seeping in and I could feel the cool mud on my feet. Good thing the path was very flat and it took like 3 minutes to get the families home and I was relieved. Once we finished interviewing that family, we where heading back and my counterpart asked if we should interview another family. I was like sure, more mud won’t hurt. So we veer off the same narrow muddy path to another muddy narrow path, but this one was not so flat. So needless to say I totally slipped and fell on my ass! Then the path ends and we are at the river bank and I see no house. Meanwhile my counterpart is taking his shoes off. That’s right he is taking his shoes of! We are crossing the river on foot! So then he thinks of telling me what we are going to do. He was like, ‘oh yeah we are going to cross here on foot and then when we get to the island there in the middle we are going to take that canoe over to the other side.’ I was like ok, let me just do this. Well, they walked across the river like they where walking on water and I looked like I was walking on sharp pointy, slippery rocks (which I was). Man was I a sight to see! Thank god it was only knee deep. Then we get to the island and we wait for the canoe. The canoe is a canoe that was seriously carved out of a tree trunk and a narrow tree trunk at that, it’s about 2 ft wide. Well riding that canoe was another experience that I will never forget I thought it would tip over many times. But we reached the family and we did the whole thing one more time on the return trip with no incidents.
Monday we went to the school because they had a community day of work where the community comes together to work on a project a.k.a. a minga. This particular day it was to finish the addition of a classroom to the school. On this day I experience the making of the chicha and the way to distribute the chicha. Chicha is a drink that’s very popular in the Kichwa culture. It is made out of mashed up yucca that is then fermented. So it has some alcohol content. I personally do not like it at all but it’s a big part of their culture and they find it rude if you do not drink it. So I just take a sip and then say thank you and hand the bowl back (that’s right they drink it from a bowl). The distribution is done to the men first and then the women. I was asked to do the distribution, at first I was quite offended because I thought I was being asked to do it because I was a girl. Later I realized that is a big deal to be the one serving and making sure everyone gets some chicha. So I’m glad that I didn’t protest. They drink chicha at least 3 times a day at these events. Everyone drinks chicha from the babies to the grown ups. I should also mention that whenever you visit a family that is the first thing you are offered. My host mom that day was also helping with making the food for the workers. It was going to be chicken soup and there I saw the slaughtering of the three chickens and the feather plucking of the chickens. I have to admit it was not my first time witnessing this but it’s the first time I see it and am then able to eat the soup without any problems. The soup, by the way, was great.
Then on Tuesday I’m asked by the family if I would like to go with them to their chakra, which is another way of saying piece of land. So I say yes but first ask if I should wear my rubber boots. They say that I should. So we head out about a 10 minute walk up the stone road then veer off onto another path going into the jungle. There we wait and meet up more people from the community. Then we begin the work. The work is to clear and acre of land. When I say clear I mean clear there is no distinction between maybe not cutting down a certain thing or not its just chop everything in the way. We did all this with a machete and a stick that was cut for the purpose of pulling back things to be able to chop better. I get blisters like in the first 30 minutes but keep on chopping away, it was really fun to use a machete. Then we get the first chicha break. My host dad was like let me see your hands and I show them and they where like omg you have to stop. One of the blisters had popped, like an hour before, but they where like you did good just go over and baby-sit the kids for a bit. Well the kids would not have that they did not know me and would just cry at the sight of me. That has to be the first time a baby cries when it sees me. So I decided to get out of there and go take a shower since all the kids are in school and most of the grown ups are out working. Things are a bit hard when it comes to showering, since everyone just shower out in the open and there are no closed shower. My host family put up a piece of plastic for me to shower in and even that is not enough privacy since it only has three sides. So I have to find on my own something else for the other side and then hurry and take a shower. Well that night for dinner my host family makes more chicken soup and invite the people that where out working with us to eat with us as a form of payment. Then after dinner they where chatting and they ask me if I like cuy and I tell them that I have not had cuy (I know it just hasn’t been possible to have it). Well they were like, after you left today we found a cuy and here it is roasting in the fire. I was kind of shocked because one, I had no idea that cuy lived in the Amazon and two, I don’t think ‘cuy’ had a tail. So, it might be that the cuy out here have tails or it might have just been a rat, I don’t know. I did not have ‘cuy’ but I feel that I could have had it already and not know it, since there are times I have had unidentified meat for lunch or dinner. I would rather just not know really.
Well on Wednesday night I discovered my new friend. I had heard him scurry around the roof all the nights before but never thought that we would meet. I was sitting in my room reading, when all of a sudden there he is, a rat running up the side of my room. So I don’t panic, I’m just screaming on the inside, thinking how the hell it go in my room. Granted the room is made of wood boards that don’t completely meet at points, but I had no idea how it got in. (Wait for it), then I see it scurry out from the bottom corner of the room where I thought there was a rag just laying on the ground, but turns out it was a rag that was stuffed in a hole. So I try to find something to cover the hole because as much as I like company I do not want to see that rat in my room again. I find some broken glass in my room (don’t ask I think the room I live in use to be a storage room of some sort) and I place it over the hole and there was enough to stack it so that it can’t be pushed up or anything. So that night I decide to tell my family about my “friend” and think that they are just going to freak out. Nope I got the opposite reaction. They where like oh yeah there are lots of rats that come around the house there are even times when we have hoards of them that come thru our fields (omg).
Thursday was another work day where the community had another minga. This one was one where an organization donated banana seeds to the community and the community just has to plant them. It’s much harder than it seems because it also meant we had to clear a spot and make the holes. It was a good experience just to see how the banana seed looks like and to be part of an almost community wide project.
This past Saturday I went out to the chakra with the family again and this time we colleted cacao.
On Tuesday we had a community meeting and that lasted from 8am till 4pm, no breaks! It was intense! On this night we where having dinner in the kitchen like always when all of a sudden Mario, one of my host brothers, runs up to the door and slams the door into the wall. I was quite startled because I was sitting right next to the door. The host dad was like what is it? He was like oh it’s a mouse. AHHHH! So he opens up the door and sure enough there is the mouse all banged up and then the family dog, Mariposa did the honors of taking it out of the kitchen, thank god for that.
It has been two weeks in my community and they have been an awesome two weeks full of surprises.