Yet another day with plans in the wind that turned out to be extremely successful.
I waited for two hours with a book for the senora to fetch me to milk the cows, and she never showed. Just while sitting there in plaza I ended up talking to an elderly gentleman I had not met before about the weather and watched him hustle kids to the municipality to get free blankets they were giving out today. When he left a triplet of teenage boys I had danced with in the festival last weekend joined me to inquire about the book I was reading. They said that the previous volunteer here read all the time, and they asked if I had read Harry Potter.
The conversation shifted to a quechua class, and it ended up being a good review for these boys who mainly speak in Spanish. Something about information exchange has a distinct beauty. Somehow, when knowledge can be traded at a balance, friendships thrive.
I put on my floppy straw hat and headed to the fields. Unable to find my host family I sat in the shade and munched on some raw carrots and green beans. These are the good "ponder life" moments. Nothing to do, nowhere to be, my job is to acculturate and learn for the next three months. I couldn't be happier with my present vocation. My host sister popped up over the side of the mountain and was happy to see me. I had purchased some wafers thinking of my grandmother the night before and they just didn't do the trick, so I offered them to Roxana and she gobbled them up appreciatively. We decided together I should cook dinner, and I hiked to a bodega for ingredients, and she to the house to get the fire started. With luck on my side, I was able to find all the ingredients in town that I needed to make spaghetti from scratch, and I have to say that 4-5 hours later, it was the best spaghetti I have ever eaten. Something about oregano, tomatoes, and garlic beats potatoes and rice any day. I used the family stove because my gas stove isn't set up yet. Do you really truly realize how hard it is to split wood? How about with a mallet and railroad ties? How about when your sauce is cooking and the flame is lowering and you need to get wood on immediately? I never realized the challenge of having three pots on three separate fires who's temperature you need to constantly maintain. It was kind of a charade with me running to the corral to collect sticks, back to the kitchen to stir, then split wood, then spice, more sticks, more stirring, more chopping, more wood. Roxana was just as entertained as I was helping me maintain the flames. Her favorite part was the carrots. She couldn't understand why I was chopping all those carrots, she had only ever chopped one at a time to put in a pot of soup. I had chopped, like, 5! I boiled the carrots and added salt, lots of sugar, and some cinnamon. She was stunned that this could be such a tasty dessert. Someday, grandma's carrot cake is going to have to be made here so we can really knock them out of the water. Then, I got a lesson on matte herbs we had around the house and their medicinal uses. Next time we go out to the fields she will show me what plants they come from.
Tomorrow, we hunt down the glass for my window and the other supplies need to finish the roof.
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