Surprise #2: Vegetarian Delight

Not too much to report from the workshop at the moment as the ladies have been busy working on an order of scarves and chullos to be finished by tomorrow, and I've mostly been trying to stay out of their way. The order they're working on is for a school in Milwaukee and will be taken back to the States by Richard Muirhead, the recently retired director of international studies at Mt. Mary College who accompanied the ISU program back in 2006. Here's a photo taken by Richard while he was in the workshop (please note the hand-knit Christmas tree in the foreground -- it's a Ñaña original):

The ladies finally took a break from their knitting yesterday for the cuy lunch I'd been promised (or threatened with, depending on your view) from the time the ladies found out I'd be returning to Alto Cayma. For those of you who are new to the game, cuy refers to that most beloved preschool class pet, the guinea pig, which in Andean cultures is served as a delicious dish at special occasions.

I met Andrea, Maria, Sebastiana and Frida at the workshop, then we headed down the hill to the home of Paula, my comadre (the mother of my goddaughter, or literally “co-mother”), where all of the other Ñañas were awaiting us. The usual greetings were exchanged with a kiss on the cheek, but when Paula walked into the room, Andrea pulled out the raw egg she must have been carrying in her purse and smashed it over Paula's head. “What is going on?” I asked as everyone cheered, and I was told it was also Paula's birthday. No one had the slightest idea of the origins of the egg custom, but they all agreed that it was good luck for the birthday girl. Here's Paula in the aftermath, trying to wipe the egg out of her hair:

We seated ourselves and began snacking on corn and habas (fava beans) and drinking the super-sweet wine that is popular in Peru, which would be followed later in the afternoon by chicha -- a fermented corn drink -- and Coca-Cola.

Soon plates were brought out with our main course: whole roasted cuy, complete with tiny head and claws, served with a boiled potato, ají -- the hot pepper condiment used in almost every dish here -- and chuño, freeze-dried potatoes which are a very traditional dish in the Andes, but of which I'm still not a huge fan. [Apologies for not including the chuño in the photo and for not giving the cuy a better backdrop -- I think he looks a little extra ghastly in this one!]

I had eaten cuy with the ladies before, but this was my first time with the whole thing and they laughed and laughed as they watched me try to tackle it. The best way to eat it, they informed me, is with your hands, pulling off pieces then nibbling each part down to the bone. After watching me struggle at it for a while, they decided we would have to start eating cuy once a month so I could be trained to do the job properly. Here's Sebastiana showing me how it's done:

I had every intention of eating the whole thing, but once I got to the face it reminded me too much of Nicodemus from “The Rats of Nimh” (one of my favorite literary characters as a child), and I just couldn't do it. Frida graciously took over for me and as she ate, she told me about cuy-related traditions from Colca, a nearby valley in Arequipa and her homeland. When she came to the ear, she cracked the bone and took out what they call "the little dog," a tiny bone that does, indeed, look like a miniscule carving of a dog complete with head, tail, and legs.

She gave it to me and told me to keep it in my pocket for strength. So far, I'm thinking there must be a bit of a delay before one starts to feel its effects, but we'll see what happens in the next few days....

Now, if you'll bear with me, a final word on cuy: While many vegetarians might consider this meal akin to a personal hell and others unfamiliar with the custom might see it as a little barbaric, I think you can also take the view that it is one of the better, more sustainable meat options out there if you can get past its rather gruesome presentation. Many people in Alto Cayma raise cuy in the yards next to their homes, feeding them alfalfa grown on site and table scraps, along with peels from fruits and vegetables. The cuy take around six months before they're ready to eat and are an excellent source of protein and other nutrients. It's about as local as you can get, the animals are generally treated well, and the overall carbon footprint is probably not much larger than the tiny paws that go with it. So I say, "¡Provecho!"

4th Time Around

Well over two years have passed since the last entry and my last visit to Peru, but another return has finally happened. After two-and-a-half days in transit with a bulging laptop case, unwieldy backpack, and two giant, 50+ pound suitcases containing, among other things, gifts, sample sweaters, and eighty pairs of self-proclaimed “wedgie free” underwear for the Ñañas (thanks, Mom), I was relieved to finally reach Arequipa late Thursday night. Not expecting anyone to be waiting for me except Max—my host dad from previous visits—I was surprised to hear my name called out as I crossed the tarmac and glanced up at the lookout railing to see balloons bobbing and Ñañas waving below.

We had agreed, I thought, that they wouldn't try to meet me at the airport since it would be late when my plane arrived, and would wait instead until the next morning to have our reunion at the workshop. They, however, had other ideas, and told me the next morning that they had nodded when Maria, the social worker who works with the church in Alto Cayma, had told them it would be too late to go to the airport, but apparently their feet just started walking and took them there. “You would need some pretty strong brakes to stop us once we get going,” explained Inés, and I nodded in agreement.

The smells, the street sounds, the assortment of people in traditional Andean clothing – wool skirts with leg warmers and straw hats over dark braids – mixed in with Arequipeñans in jeans and t-shirts, even the mustached fare collector hanging out of the Primero de Junio combi on my ride up to Alto Cayma are the same as when I left. But the babies of the Ñañas are no longer babies; new commercial centers have popped up around the center of town; and the workshop has moved to the larger space next door previously occupied by the wood shop – reminders that time has passed and things have changed. This was to be expected, but I was shocked Friday morning as the combi neared the workshop and I realized that the road hadn't switched from asphalt to the bumpy dirt and gravel road as it used to. After all of the years of campaign promises of “Pavement in Alto Cayma” painted on the stone walls along the way, paved roads had finally reached this impoverished neighborhood on the outskirts of town. Proof that progress, however slow in coming, is possible.

I was a little nervous after my last Skype session with the knitters when they promised that they had lots of surprises waiting for me, but I am happy to report that so far the surprises have been more along the lines of balloons and a proposed trip to the beach rather than mid-life crises, loss of interest in knitting or fractures within the group. There were some new faces when I arrived at the workshop Friday morning, but most of them were the familiar faces from previous years and those that weren't there I have been promised will return when there is work. The ladies kept up their knitting and crocheting as they shared news about the workshop and their families, discussed plans for the months ahead, and gave me a brief Quechua lesson. Once Frida and Teresa had finished distributing Field soda crackers and Coca-Cola to everyone, we raised our plastic cups and toasted our next project. ¡Adelante!

[I promised lots of photos for this round of blogging but haven't had my camera handy for photos of the Ñañas yet, so here's one of Lexi multi-tasking and trying to use her powers of spatial reasoning on my suitcases pre-departure. Now picture this spread over the entire first floor of her house. It was a valiant effort.]

An outing

Realizing that we don't have much time left together, the ladies of Ñaña decided last week that it was high time for an outing. After much deliberation, it was decided that we would go to Chilina, a lovely part of the city next to the river Chili, where we would make guatia (WAH-tya). Guatia is a traditional method of cooking that comes from the mountains of Peru. It is very similar to pachamanca, and they explained it to me as potatoes and cheese cooked in a stove of hot stones and earth. That was a simplified version...

Friday was a beautiful day after a strangely rainy evening the night before that left all of the volcanoes that surround the city snow-capped and lovely. We met near the workshop at 9:30 (9:00 Peruvian time), some of the women bringing their daughters who are on winter vacation, and began the trek down into the nearby gorge of the river Chili. After a while walking in the sun, we left the road to begin the steep climb down the sandy shoulder to the farmland below. Misti is the volcano in the background, "wearing its poncho" as they say.


As we made our way down the steep slopes, some of the ladies stopped off to hack away at dead pieces of cactus that would serve as the fuel for the fire. Some of the other knitters had already arrived and were busy finding rocks to begin building the stove. The construction of the stove was pretty impressive and involved the use of very selectively chosen stones, larger ones on the bottom and smaller ones filling out the top. To obtain the right sizes of rock, some of them climbed up higher on the slope and begin shoving larger rocks down, while Inés chipped away at stones with a pickax to get the smaller sizes.

Beginning with the larger rocks on the bottom, they began constructing the base of the oven with a small opening in the front.

Once the base was in place, they added progressively smaller rocks to fill out the dome.

As the dome took form, more and more hands were involved holding the sides in place until the final holes were filled and it was stable.

Once the stove was finished, Andrea began building the fire with the dried cactus pieces and brush they had gathered earlier. Then the brush was lit, and we waited for the stones to heat up enough to cook the potatoes.













As she worked, she shared stories from when she was younger and lived in the mountains of Puno. She remembered making guatia every day during potato harvest season, the women building the stoves while the men fished for trout that were later cooked over the fire. Each day a new stove was created and destroyed in the painstaking manner I was witnessing.

Once the stones were hot enough Andrea removed the sticks and brush and Rufina and Maruja began tossing potatoes in.

Up until now, everything was going pretty much as I had imagined it. Once the potatoes were inside, though, I was surprised to see Andrea take the pickax to the stove they had so lovingly constructed and leave it a sad-looking pile of rocks on top of the poor little potatoes.

Augustina then began shoveling sandy earth on top, covering the hot rocks and leaving a smoking mound of dirt.

Aware that they had years and years of preparing food in this way, I was still a little unsure of what to make of the whole process. A little worried about what we'd be eating for lunch now, I followed the ladies to a nearby patch of grass to play volleyball and soccer while we waited to see the outcome. After everyone grew tired of playing, some of us went down to the river where the kids played and looked for lizards on the other side. Here I am with Maruja and Augustina's daughters.

By the time we came back up, the potatoes had been retrieved from the collapsed oven and were laid out by Inés on a tablecloth on the sidewalk, our makeshift table.

Fresh farmer cheese and the warm potatoes were passed around with Inca Cola and alfajores, a traditional cookie I'd made the night before with Roxana. The potatoes had a very distinct flavor as the ladies had promised and tasted delicious with the cheese. I will never doubt again. Here, Yeni and Hilaria peel potatoes for their daughters.
















Little Andrea, my soon to be goddaughter, enjoys her potatoes and cheese.












Waiting for the combi to come pick us up at the end of our lovely day, we wandered back down to the river to cool down. As Maria was taking this photo, Yeni started splashing and we all ended up wet by the time we climbed into the combi, very tired, but full and happy. It was a wonderful day.