Las Indiginas

To stress the importance of cultural integration, the PC sent us to various indigenous communities these last two days. I was picked to go to Carabuela, a small little town whose economy relies heavily on handicraft sales. And so the adventure begins!

We arrived early Friday morning and spent the better part of the morning learning the entire process of making knitted clothing. It was pretty interesting because they allowed us to participate in all the steps. First, they cut the wool from the sheep, then washed it in the river and hung it up to dry. After a couple hours, we took the clean wool and teased it with big combs until it was in long fluffy tubes. We then spun the wool tubes into yarn, which was used to crochet or knit the goods. So in theory I could make my own sweater with a sheep, scissors and a crochet needle!

After the yarn making, we walked around the town observing various other trades. We made bread in a traditional wood oven, watched a man make shoes from twine and saw a woman making pottery from clay she literally dug up from the ground.

That night, we all gathered at the shaman's house, and he did a 'cleaning ritual' on us to banish bad spirits. The process is quite simple if you would like to try this at home:

1) Make an alter out of stones
2) Spit chicha (fermented banana liquor) on foot-long plants
3) Smoke a cigarette
4) Smack the cleansing recipient's body from head to toe with the plants (linger on those who are especially full of bad spirits)
5) Spit more chicha on their feet

He didn't spend too much time on me, so I guess my soul was relatively clean.

After the shaman, we were herded to the community center for dinner and general festivities. As guests of honor, we were served an Ecuadorian delicacy: guinea pig (cuy). I was quite disappointed with my portion because I received a piece of the back which doesn't offer much meat... After the meal, we danced to bands that played native music and watched a group of locals perform a traditional dance- all the while we passed around a big bottle of chicha for shots.

The party ended around midnight, and here is where the night took a turn for the worst. Apparently the planning committee didn't think too hard on sleeping arrangements, as we slept on concrete floors. Combine that with arctic weather, a general lack of blankets, a homeless handicapped man blowing a whistle outside the house till 4am, a girl banging on the door in search of her mother, a man loudly vomiting downstairs and frequent dog barking-- one might have problems sleeping... I really wished I braved a few more shots of chicha. Naturally I woke up a little pissy, only to discover they don't drink coffee. Let’s just say I was quite happy to leave after we ate lunch...

All-in-all, the trip was a successful; I came back with a couple hand-made hats, a bag and added a few Quichua words to my vocab. Fun times in Carabuela!

When I woke up this morning at 8am (which is very late given my new sleep schedule), I was taught how to do laundry. But don´t you already know how to wash your clothes Jason?!? Yes, I do know how to operate a washing machine, however that´s not an option here… Washing clothes by hand is really not as time consuming as it seems though; It takes about as much time as a machine. Granted, its more labor intensive, but the clothes get cleaner in my opinion. This is just one in a series of things that never crossed my mind when thinking about life in the PC :P

After the laundry fun, I went to mass, which is different than in the States. The order is the same (although it’s in Spanish) but the people literally talk throughout the entire mass… Literally, during the Homily I had trouble hearing the priest for all the noise. Another difference was that relatively few people took communion. I would guess that only 30% of the participants partook. Also, instead of offering the blood separately, the priest dips the host in the wine and will only put it in your mouth. I plan to go weekly, so hopefully that assuages Mom and Grandma´s worries.

Now I´m off to the fiesta! Today is one of the bigger fiestas for San Pedro. Hooray for dancing!!!