19 Marzo 2011

What an exhausting day.

We rose around 7 to greet family members that had come into town to help with today’s potato harvest. Then, they all played 20 questions with me over tea and bread.
The hike to the chacra was up the canyon, so we all arrived tired and decided to eat lunch immediately. The fire was made and a potato alpaca broth was served.
The offerings to pachamama-Mother Earth were made (basically pouring food and drink on the ground while saying words of appreciation and aspiration- my host dad encouraged me to ask for a baby boy, ha, I said I need a man first), and we began planting.

Being the bull guide has become my job. I think it tends to go to the oldest son, but as we don’t have any brothers that live with us, and I love the crap out of those bulls, the job has fallen to me naturally. So, I am in front of the two bulls that are attached to the plow directing them on keeping the line straight and turning them around at the end of the line (which often involves my entire body weight pulling their horns or pushing their butts every 10 minutes for about 5 hours). And any time I think that I am getting tired I just look at my host father who is directing the 50lb plow. The man’s shoulders are to be desired by any football player. I have to say, between the four of us (2 bulls, host dad, myself) we have come to read each other pretty well and sweep through the field quickly with little or no hitches.
Well, the husband of my host mother’s daughter who lives in Arequipa City offered to give my host dad a break and run the plow. When my host father was showing him how to manage the plow, and when I realized I had never heard the man speak in quechua I realized this was going to be an adventure. He was learning, but refused to admit so. He was not strong enough and his work was sloppy, tiring our bulls quickly due to bad alignment and leaving the edges of each row unplowed leaving usable land, unused (apparently that is a pet peeve of mine…). All of that was fine, until… he told me to stop the bulls before the end of the line (my job as guide to decide, very culturally disrespectful), I told him we need to finish the row yet (knowing very well that he was not going to respond well to probably the first woman in his life ever trumping him, I knew I was picking a fight at that point), then he responds,
-“whow, look at the gringa teaching ME how to farm, shit!”
Even that I could have been bothered by, but shrugged off in a few minutes. But then, the women laughed awkwardly. The thing is, I could see in their eyes that they knew I was right, and there was guilt in the laugh and they looked at my eyes to make sure I was OK, but they laughed so they would’t make the man uncomfortable. AHHHHHH.
What makes it even worse, was the man was flirting with me mercilessly right in front of his wife the entire day.
I can’t stand latino men, and you women, mothers, sisters, and wives carry some of the blame. Stand up to them, damn it. Demand the respect you deserve.
I found myself talking to my American foremothers the rest of the afternoon. My lips sealed, my eyes to the ground, stopping short of each row, “thank you for giving me a place to go home to where I don’t have to feel like this. Thank you for fighting for me. Thank you for risking yourselves so that I can have a partner to come home to that not only loves, but respects me as an equal.”
When Don Juan, my host father, returned to the field he laughed and gracefully insisted on taking over the plow again.

The fume spouting from my ears calmed, but there wasn’t an ounce of me that wanted to go to the town party tonight. With the way that man had treated me all day, with how he has made me feel like a toy to be played with and bossed around, the last thing I wanted to do was go dance Huatiti with a hundred drunk latino men. But, my family so wanted me to celebrate carnival with them in the plaza. I decided to go with my host parents for a little bit, then come home way before bedtime.
The tradition for carnival is pretty darn cool. Yeah, they dance huattiti like always, but they do it around a tree that has a bunch of gifts tied in it. Then they chop the tree down and everyone jumps on it to get the blankets, toys, pots, etc. I thought the tree would be about the size of a Christmas tree and the “chopping” would be a figurative act. Yeah, no. it is a gigantic, full size eucalyptus (2 stories?). They dug a hole in the ground and stuck it in there sturdily. The most brilliant part is while the entire town is dancing in circles closely around the tree, they hand dancers a shot of strong alcohol then an axe, and they take a swing. The images of an axe in a head or the tree toppling onto a kid wouldn’t leave my head. But, it was a pretty darn cool spectacle that one would NEVER see in western, prevent-anything-that-could-possibly-go-wrong society. It was when the head of the axe started sliding off the end of it’s rod that I just had to laugh.

But, what did I spend the evening doing other than dancing with every hand that pulled me into the circle (age 5-60)? Running from foam spray. The teenage “thing” for carnival here is to spray your friends (or the girl you like) with foam spray. It took me straight back to football games in high school watching the girls pretend to stroll in one direction to get a little closer to the guys they like and pretend to not want to be sprayed by the guy they like. These boys would never spray a teacher or their parents. But, when one little guy tested my reaction with the tiniest of sprays on my arm and I took the foam and smothered it in his face it became a free-for-all for all my students. My hair, my face, my scarf, my jacket, my hat, my face again, it was all covered. I had SO much fun. Defiantly the oldest individual playing the foam game and not drinking, but SUCH a blast. And the kids felt so mischievous to get me, and the parents thought it was just the funniest thing in the world when I snuck up behind their kid and covered their hair and face in foam.

I retired to the curb with my host niece and we painted each other’s faces with foam until she fell asleep in my lap and my host dad took her in his arms as we headed home.

I am pooped. G’night.