Bears, bats, barking dogs and Mingas
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2006
1
23
36
Trip End
Sep 01, 2007
Baeza,
Ecuador
Thursday, December 7, 2006
01.Magic!
Some folk were friendly, some were down right rude and obviously hated tourists but most just laughed at us. Was it our Spanish, did Nick still have that tattoo on his forehead or was it my flowery cagoule from Millets? Well we managed to buy lots of food but nothing we could actually make a meal out of. Brilliant. Through the lovely, English, dreaded, eco-warrior couple Ali and Meg at the Magic Roundabout, (www.magicroundabout.info) we had arranged to stay with a family for 3 weeks until New Year. As a community, Las Palmas is now thinking of ways to attract more eco-tourists and visitors to the Quijos region as it is of direct consequence that the area will become protected, respected and visited and so positively impacting on the local people in return and earning them more money than they get from the evil exploitative Nestle. One of their ideas has been to set up a `home stay programme` with neighbouring families. Travellers have the opportunity to live and experience daily family life in the countryside, be part of a well established community, join in with traditional farming, artesania, gardening and agricultural techniques, cook Ecuadorian food and practice their Spanish. We forgot to read the part that asked for a `good level of communicative spanish necessary`and set off early Monday morning to the Molina family's finca. Ali and Meg had thought of sending us to another family but the father apparently drunk alot and tended to be alittle letchy. Our first task was milking. Milking begins at 6am and is quite possibly one of the most difficult things to master at that time in the morning by hand.
02.His and hers
Well Estalin showed us how to do it, grasping those teets in his muscly, bronzed hands and managing to milk one cow in 5 minutes with 4 teets at once. Quite impressive but then he had been doing it for some 35 years. Our attempt was not surprisingly, pathetic, judging by Estalins reaction and the meagre amount of milk we had collected in one hour in the blue bucket. When I was asked to go and get some water from the stream I couldnt even manage this. Apparentely Estalin had said to go to the second stream with fresh water but due to not reading the `good level of communicative Spanish required` bit I went for the first stream with muddy water and what looked like some dead animal floating down it. Poor Estalin, his work was really going to be cut out.Although the Molinas have a finca in Las Palmas, their house is in the nearby town Baeza. There is a church, a school, a few bars with some dodgy characters, a couple of tiny supermarkets which sell mostly huge bags of sweets, fizzy drinks, pasta, hair gel and cleaning products (one with the most terrifying meat chopping rooms I have ever seen covered in blood from floor to ceiling) a panderia, a shop which sells anything from fake perfume and shoes all in the same size to plastic boxes and glitter pens, an experimental farm with adorably scary goats, a football pitch, there are lots of men walking around carrying machetes and alot of very poor people with lots of very expensive cars all bought on credit. We were extremely lucky to stay with such a warm and friendly family who very much liked to take the piss out of our Spanish.
02a. View from our cabana
Estalin (although his name gets shortened to Stalin, which I like alot) is a pillar of the local community and in the New Year would be starting his job as the equivalent of local MP for the region. His wife Raquel is wonderful and basically holds the farm, the house and the family together with the help from Mary a law student at Quito University, Boris (also, love the name!) a gentle and sensitive 15 yr old and the adorable Coralia, I'm not sure I have met a more clumsy 12 yr old. Without going into the family dynamics too much what Nick and I noticed straight away was how the family and local community pull together, something which is probably missing back home these days, and which is best seen at 'Mingas'. These are not occasions where everyone makes those less fortunate in the looks department feel better about themselves but where if something is needed done, from building a house or in our case building a football pitch, then all the families get together to get it done, the men mostly doing all the labour and the women cooking a huge free meal for lunch. Our first experience of a minga was knackering and involved breaking up rocky ground and lifting boulders for 9 hrs with the help of peach wine which is revolting. I'm not too sure what everyone thought of Nick and I but they seemed to find the fact that we found the work very tiring extremely funny. Nick became a regular at the local mingas while I stayed at the farm with the women making lunch. On one particularly rainy day Nick didnt come home, nor did Stalin.
03.Guinness
Apparently due to heavy rainfall someone decided to crack open the rum and everyone drunk it neat for about 6 hours straight. There's nothing quite like male bonding is there. So, while I was getting dressed after my weekly shower the first I heard of Nicks return was Coralia and Boris rushing into the room shouting 'Nick es barracho! Nick es barracho!' And much to granny's disaproval Nick was sick on the lawn while Raquel helped him to the house. He didnt surface for the next 18 hours. Ali from the Magic Roundabout got lost in a ditch but Stalin, being the macho hombre and a pillar of the community had to do one better and whilst drink-driving his motorcycle home got stopped by the police without his papers and was put in prison for the night. The house that night was full of weeping women and I spent many hours making cups of coca tea. Boris was quite happy about his Dad being behind bars and said it would teach him a lesson. How mature Boris.Most days we worked on the farm and this involved milking, feeding/killing the pig and chickens, feeding the rabbits, weeding the veggie plot, cooking, cleaning, washing clothes (by hand for hours by rubbing them on a stone surface) and general bits and bobs. The family have an amazing small Oyster mushroom business which is bringing them in more money as they send them into Quito to one of the big backpacker hostels restaurants. However a huge box of the most beautiful organic mushrooms is still only the equivalent of 30p! They also have an amazing fruit and vegetable garden which included just for starters the following; 4 different types of lettuce, cabbage, carrots, green beans, artichokes, tomatoes, beetroot, onions, potatoes, spinach, figs, raspberries, blackberries, limes and passion fruit.
03a. Our cabana in the middle of nowhere
They were totally self sufficient with regards to vegetables and cooked the most amazing meals. One of our first meals was breakfast after milking and consisted of trout (from the family up the road) fresh lettuce, boiled maize, egg, rice and a trusty plantain. Plantain is a South American staple and we know how to cook it in at least 48 different ways now but mostly we had it as fried patties, sliced lengthways, sliced across, whole in soup, half in soup, whole on side of plate, mashed, with breakfast, with lunch, with dinner. Their diet was quite bland in general so when Nick and I offered to cook a whole meal for them it didnt quite go down as thought. The kids wanted pizza, Raquel insisted on lasagne and an English desert. Although never having had lasagne, she was adamant that everyone would like it. Lasagne it was then. Trying to find the ingredients to make it though was near impossible and trying to get minced beef at the supermarket was an experience and involved getting out a rusty mincer from the 1930's but we made what we thought was a pretty tasty dish. Unfortunately the family didnt think so and it was just so awful to see them push it round their plates and not even want to taste apple and blackberry crumble - I guess our western palettes can just take richer food. Raquel had amazingly got in in a turkey for Christmas lunch however the Ecuardorian way of cooking is slightly different and we had it chopped up into tiny bits in a lime marinade boiled, fried and reheated twice. Delicious. The rest of Christmas Day was pretty normal though with Dad getting competitive in the afternoon games, Mum falling asleep on the sofa and the kids watching tele. Christmas in Ecuador however is totally void of the commercial nonsense that you find in the west with the emphasis being much more on the fact that it is religious holiday. Everyone makes a special effort with their nativity scene and no one spends ridiculous amounts on presents because no one has any money and the only presents we did see were those given to school kids by the local oil comapanies to spread a little joy while they continue to pollute water supplies and increase cancer cases in the region. We did visit church with Raquel, Boris, Mary and Coralia and it was full of Catholic hell, fire and brimstone, repent your sins or die. The priest himself was something of a local celebrity and shouted his sermon into the congregation. Although I couldnt understand everthing he said, I started to feel very guilty myself and wondered where the confession box was. Nick was enjoying himself though, with lots of people queing to shake his hand and wish him well, by the state of his beard I think they thought Jesus has made a personal visit to Baeza. At least I could join in with the hymns which has been composed to Simon and Garfunkels 'Bridge over Troubled water' and Bob Dylans 'How many roads' I knew the words to those.
04.tree plants
Our last day was the big New Years Eve party in Las Palmas. New Year is much more celebrated than Christmas and sees big street parties in Quito and everyone wears fancy dress and dons scary lifelike masks. For the Las Palmas community, it is a special time of new beginnings where they look back on the year but also to the future and what it will hold for them and what they will need to do to prosper. A speech was made by Stalin and Nick and I were made to do our own speech thankfully translated sentence by sentence by Meg and then the effigies which people had made were judged and burnt on the fire. The dolls symbolise things that need to be changed - my favourite was the local radio presenter with the annoying voice. The day of partying begins with a inner-tubing race down the river which was great fun and Nick came 4th out of 20 which everyone agreed was very good for a beginner. While the women prepared the evenings feast and the men set up awnings, the dancefloor and a sound system on the football pitch (which was only half-finished due to the rum incident), Nick and I helped Meg with her mammouth treasure hunt around the village. Nick was one of the clues hiding in a tree and I had to stand, after quite abit of fuss, petrified, opposite the house with 8 viscious dogs ( I found a big stick with spikes on it which made me feel abit better). The meal was amazing and consisted of trout steamed in plantain leaves, roast chicken, soups, salads, potatoes, rice and in the background could be heard forgotten classic 80's hits like 'One night in Bangkok' by Murray Head. Awesome. I got up to dance to Madonnas 'Like a Virgin' but I dont think anyone was impressed.
04a. Passion fruit flower
Then it was time for all the kiddies games which Nicholas and I had organised and which thankfully went down well due to a few old favourites; Egg and Spoon race, pass the balloon, sack races, apple bobbing and musical chairs. Some of the adults got slightly over-competitive with a few of the larger ladies breaking four of the plastic chairs during musical chairs while saving seats for their kids. However the highlight had to be Nick stacking it, twice, in the mens sack race. After some odd Ecuadorian dancing (a faster paced version of the dancing you do as a kid at a party when you dont know what to do so you step from side to side) everyone huddled round the fire wishing eachother a Feliz Anyo and thanking Nick and I for coming to live in their community and sharing in their lives. It was a very humbling experience and when we said goodbye to the family the next morning it all got abit emotional. Raquel started the tears off and we pretty much all followed, Nick was particularly moved although he said that he had an insect from the shower in his eye.
After our 4 hour bus journey back to Quito, which we spent standing, which wasnt that bad actually, what was hard to ignore though was the amount of people being sick out the windows after the New Years merriment, even a small child joined in and threw up all over his mother. It was the next day back in Quito that the itching started and we discovered we had caught fleas from one of the dogs on the farm.
Comments
Great!!!!!!!!!
Well I am supposed to be in my listening class, but my teacher reminds me of Penfold from Dangermouse I just coundn't bare to go. I came home to study for a few hours before my next class and thought I'd quickly check my mail got your link and thought I hadn't heard from you guys for ages so I'd have a quick read.
And I am sooo glad I did. It was one of the most enjoyable travelblogs I have ever read, It made me laugh until I cried esspecially the bits about Nick pucking up and the goodbye tears. I was also intreged by the idea of staying with a community/family. That sounds like such a good idea and a great way to really travel, understand cultures and appricate our global community. Not to mention spending Christmas and new years in the way you did. I am quite envious as I was in China and they don't really celebrate Christmas. Any way about the living with families would love to get more info on how they set it up as I would love to to the same thing here in China.
Cath you really have a great writting skill and am now looking forward to some free time to read the rest of your blog, and the future additions.
Carry on the good Emabssadorial work and be well!!!
(P.S. Fire and brimstone stuff I'd better say God bless too)
Love Paul
Ecuador
Very well written Cathy.
Go to the top of the class for telling it like it really is.
Love Nick's Mum, Pauline.