Week 6/7Ancash
My family made real Pachamanca this week…in the dirt. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. There was soooo much food. I could have counted wrong but it was right around 10 whole chickens, 2 sides of beef, and 100 potatoes more or less…in three varieties. Just when I thought they were done pulling food out of the ground there would be another layer of food. It’s a traditional dish from the sierra.
After eating a mountain of food my friends and I attempted to bake for the first time in Peru. It’s weird going into a new kitchen but not know what to buy in Spanish made it even harder. So after about 5 hours we were able to finish to batches of cupcakes. Strawberry and Oreo….they turned out pretty well the Oreo cupcakes were a little burned but the icing made up for it. The strawberry won the cupcake battle that day. We are going to try again and hopefully this time around they will be almost perfect.
The mountains….OH.MY.GOSH. They are beautiful. So this week we went on a mini field based training to Ancash…home of the Cordilleras Blanca. We visited Huaraz, the region’s capital and ventured off to Mancos and Musho, two very small villages near Huascaran one of the tallest mountains in Peru. We were at a pretty high altitude…I think it was around 11,000 ft. So I had to altitude medication that makes your toes and fingers tingle. After about two days I no longer had that shortness of breathe that many people talk about when advancing quickly up high mountains and such. The mountain was snowcapped and completely breathtaking. But the town were poor, especially Musho. Many of the homes didn’t have latrines much less bathrooms. They also had piedra stoves, which is three rocks, a couple of pieces of iron, and a fire. This causes many people in the sierra to have respiratory infections and other common illnesses due to inhaling a lot of smoke most of their lives. They don’t shower and everyone is dirty or dusty is probably a better word. I’m starting to fit in because I too have not showered in about a week…pretty gross huh?
We visited homes talking to families about health concerns, which is what I will be doing in just a few short weeks. I learned how to build a latrine and cocina mejorada (an improved cooking stove). You wouldn’t believe how these two small things that most people take advantage of improve the quality of life of these rural people. While we were building the latrine we had about 10 children watching us mix concrete and dig holes. The first day our taxi driver slammed my finger in the car door so I was out of commission for most physical activities. Good news though…it’s not broken and it’s looking like my nail is going to stay.
The women wear bowler hats and about 4 or 5 skirts layered one on top of the other. Working the chacra (farm) all day they get pretty dirty so they just take of the bottom layer of the skirt and put a new one on top. I thought that was pretty strange. I really did feel like I had just stepped back in time.
No one is going to believe this next story but this really happened. So our trainers told us they had a surprise for Saturday and to wear close we wouldn’t mind getting dirty. We got really excited because we had heard the other training group had gone sand boarding. We left at 7:30 in the morning headed down one mountain and up another the view was beautiful but we kept driving and driving and finally arrived about 3 hours later and a small farm. We then proceeded to have a class on hugging…I’m not even kind of kidding. I wish I was believe me! We are at some sort of hippie commune/cult thing. I don’t even know because everything was in Spanish so I could got about 75% of what was going on…all I knew was I didn’t like it and I wasn’t alone. Most of our groups just kept whispering to each other because we weren’t allowed to talk, “ I feel like I’m in a cult.” I would respond, “ I want to get the heck of out of here.” They then made us blindfold ourselves and walk around and then we had to eat blindfolded. It was one of the most awkward times I’ve ever had. I, of course, being stubborn did not participate in the blindfolded lunchtime or the hugging class. After 5 torturous hours all of us left complaining that it was one of the worse surprises ever and was in fact the opposite of a surprise but a torture session, especially for people like me…who “love” to hug. Lol
Nonetheless, the mountains were amazingly beautiful and it reminded me of how wonderful our Creator is and I just don’t see how people don’t believe after seeing some of the amazing places He has created.
In just 2 short days, I find out where I will be living for the next two years. I’ll keep you guys posted, though Wednesday I head out to visit my site so once again it may be a while before I can update this bad boy.
Love and miss you all,
Ancash |