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The next morning, we woke up at 7 a.m. Despite the roving mauraders celebrating in the early hours, Craig had managed to get his best night's sleep yet. We got dressed and went over to the kitchen. Yupanqui was playing with the foam alphabet puzzle. Sisa and Craig traced around the fish puzzle pieces and colored them in. Yupanqui moved on to the number puzzle, and Tayanta played with the alphabet.
For breakfast, we had slices of a large omelet. It was delicious. We drank anise tea and a hearty juice containing oats. We followed the omelet with a small sandwich of bologna, cheese, and cream cheese on fresh bread. We heard peeping and looked to see that the baby chicks had entered through the kitchen doorway. Sisa and Tayanta ushered them back outside, and not for the last time. Aida showed us some videos of Sisa singing that they had taken on their camera. They let us copy their photos and videos to my netbook. We looked through them together, seeing some photos of the community that Antonio had taken for tourist promotion. We showed them some of our videos from past visits (our first meeting in 2010 and Sisa's baptism in 2011). We went into our casita for about half an hour and took nice hot showers. Then we went back outside and colored and drew pictures with the kids. We peeled some uvilla with Sisa and Yupanqui. This fruit that grows on their property would be made into juice at lunchtime. In 2010, we had visited a community project where uvilla and other fruits are processed for sale, as dried fruit and jelly. Rosa knelt down and ground some corn with the grinding stone. She went inside the house and Tayanta sat on the grinding stone, getting white starch all over the back of her pants. At 1 o'clock, we ate a lunch of uvilla juice, carrot soup, potatoes, chicken, and vegetables. It started to rain and we had to leave the table mid-meal to run outside and gather the baby chicks. Most of them were in the side garden and proved difficult to catch, as they darted from one side of the chicken wire fence to the other. We were much too big to get at them easily. Luckily, Sisa is a very adept chick-catcher. She would gather them and then hand them to us to put into their cardboard box. Once all eleven were safe and warm, we went back to the table and finished lunch. After that, we walked up to the community center for dancing to a live band, the closing event of the three day fiesta. As we approached the community center, there were many cars parked along the side of the dirt road. We passed the kids playing foosball. The band was set up on the stage that we had seen them erect several days ago, spanning the road. Antonio sat in with them on saxophone again. Aida found a place for us to sit on a bench under one of the tents. This would be good if the light rain continued, or if the afternoon sun came out. There were people selling food and $1 grande Pilsener beers. Others were passing around plastic cups of homemade chicha and hard liquor. Many people, including the man sitting next to Aida on the bench, were extremely intoxicated. We once again refrained from drinking the alcohol of unknown origin. Craig was really doing pretty well health-wise, and we didn't want to jeopardize that. Our last visit here had been so affected by Craig's health, that we wanted to try to do everything we could to ensure that this would be a happy, healthy, and enjoyable visit for all. Sisa and Yupanqui ran around a bit. Yupanqui picked a nice bouquet of wildflowers for Craig. We enjoyed listening to the band. They were very energetic and fun. Even though it was early in the afternoon, the majority of men were drinking way too much. Their biological susceptibility for intoxication is quite high and their tolerance seems quite low. As we watched people around us, they would go through cycles. Someone would dance and drink so much that they can't keep their balance. A friend would try to hold them up until it became too much and the guy just faceplanted onto the concrete. When people pass out at home, they are usually out for the long haul. Not so with these folks. After a brief reprieve, they would pick themselves up off the ground and start dancing very intensely and adeptly. It was hard to believe that they could go from passed out drunk to elaborate dance moves within the course of 15 minutes. A little girl in a blue sweatshirt kept staring at us. She was really interested in us and it was very cute, but never got the courage to approach us. Sisa and Yupanqui asked us to dance a couple of times. Antonio had told us that Yupanqui had been looking forward to dancing with his Achi Taita at the fiesta. We stood holding hands in a little circle, moving closkwise for a while, and then switching to counter-clockwise. We had a lot of fun dancing with our godchildren. After dancing, we sat down on the bench again. Then man next to Aida was barely conscious, but he and his friends keptt drinking. One of them stumbled over to talk to him, and promptly passed out cold, several inches in front of our bench, literally on top of Craig's foot. Tayanta used the guy as a footrest. Inebriated men asked Aida to dance, and she politely declined. I was asked to dance by several men. I like to dance and I usually like to participate, but I also said no thank you. We wanted to spend time with the family, and since Rosa and Aida weren't dancing, and we wanted to conserve Craig's energy as much as possible, we only danced with the kids. Craig felt guilty not being able to particpate as fully as he'd like to, but he needed to pace himself. We had no idea how long this event would last (from prior experience, it could go until midnight!) The showers had now passed, and the gray sky was replaced with bright blue dappled by white puffy clouds. The kids got ice creams. We ran into Chris the Canadian from the preschool. He asked if we had been to see the dancing last night. We said that we had been home celebrating Rosa's birthday at the house. He said that it had been crazy. People were dancing in circles with chickens and even two bulls. They were trying to get the bulls all riled up, and it got very intense. Chris had climbed the stairs to watch from a balcony to be out of harm's way. Just as he had mentioned this, two concentric circles formed on the dancefloor. In the center circle, people were stomping around in Inti Raymi-style, carrying poultry. The kids wanted to join in, so we joined the outer circle with them and stomped around, first in one direction, and then another. After the group dance was done, we joined Rosa back on the bench. I went up in front of the stage to film Antonio playing the sax. I felt a tap on my shoulder and assumed that it was a drunk person wanting to talk to me (this happened several times over the past day or so, including one older guy who insisted on kissing first my hand and then my cheek). But to my surprise, it was Sisa's friend Natalie once again. I gave her a hug and pointed her toward Craig who was sitting on the bench, who also wanted to say hi. I got a picture and promised her Mom Rosita that I would send it to them as I had in the past. Over the PA, they announced something we didn't understand and everyone gathered in front of the band. Tayanta got away from Aida and I helped to try to find her. Meanwhile, the reason people were congregating was that food was being thrown from the stage. Most was just little hard candy, but there were other larger things too, like oranges, which needed to be dodged. I was worried that little Tayanta, with her impaired vision, might get trampled in the fray, but I found her safely with Natalie and Rosita, though Tayanta was crying. Aida was so relieved that she was safe, and quickly calmed her down. Sisa and Yupanqui were each given some money and they wandered off, returning a little while later eating ice cream. There was a man passed out face-down right in front of the stage. Aida came over carrying a tiny infant; the child of one of her half-siblings. Then she introduced us to her half-sister. The kids got lollipops which were made in a factory in Quito where Aida's half-brother works. They were big lollipops and the kids got ultra-sticky, as well as an ultra sugar buzz. We asked what flavor the lollipops were: fresa (strawberry), ceresa (cherry)...Sisa thought we said "cerveza" (beer). She and Yupanqui started singing about beer lollipops, and fell down pretending to be drunk. Alcoholism is obviously a serious problem in the community and should not be taken lightly, but we couldn't help smiling at their little skit. At 6 p.m., we left Antonio with the band and headed home for dinner. If we had known that we would only be staying a few hours, Craig probably would have danced more. So when we got home, and the kids still had some energy, we danced with them outside on the patio. Then we went into the dining room and made puzzles and drew with them. Tayanta fell asleep before dinner. Dinner was pineapple juice, chicken soup, lentils, cabbage, rice, and the stalk of a plant which grows iun the nearby river. The effects of the sugar wearing off combined with a day of activity made the kids crash, with Yupanqui falling asleep at the table. Antonio was not home yet, but we wanted to give Rosa and Aida a chance to rest, so We called it a night shortly before 9 o'clock. |
 Tayanta sits on the grinding stone  Sisa, Craig, and Yupanqui peel uvilla  The band  Craig, Sisa, and Aida  Rosa and Yupanqui  Antonio's beer break  Rosa, Steph, Sisa, Yupanqui, Aida, and Tayanta  Fiesta 
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