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We woke up to a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning. With no work and no school today, we would have plenty of quality time with the kids. Sisa told us that we needed to go to the store to fetch Yupanqui and Tayanta. We walked with her all the way up there, and they were nowhere to be found. So we walked back to the house and met them along the way.
Aida was at a minga today (community work project). For breakfast, we had fried eggs, bread, jelly, French fries, juice, and colada (a sweet hot drink that the children enjoy). Rosa did all of the kids' hair. In their culture, it is very important for their long hair to be tidy and fancy, in braids, ponytails, or wrapped in woven textiles. After breakfast, the three kids took us for a walk down the road to the family's other farmland. They have been growing quinoa and chochos (lupins) here. The lack of rain has caused the quinoa to fail, but the chochos have been thriving. They produce a legume which is edible after soaking in water for several days (Wikipedia tells us that they have been used as food for over 6000 years here in the Andean highlands). Of course, we can't help but think of the classic Monty Python Dennis Moore sketch... On the walk down to the land, the kids made a chain, alternating holding hands with each other and Craig and their stuffed animals. It looked like Dorothy and the gang off the see the Wizard of Oz. We passed a house which had several puppies in their fenced-in yard. The girls were enchanted and a puppy came out into the street to play with them. Once we had returned the puppy to the safety of its yard, we continued walking to the farmland. The lupin plants were extremely tall, and created a field of purple. The soil was incredibly dry and dusty. We walked from the road back to where the land dips sharply down to the river. As we gazed down to the valley, we saw two very large birds soaring on the updrafts. We thought they might be Andean condors, but when we told Antonio later, he said they were probably eagles. Whatever they were, they were majestic and very close to us. Unfortunately, I was unable to snap a photo until they were significantly further away. This was by far the hottest day we have experienced here on this trip. Despite our high elevation, the equatorial sun is incredibly hot and strong. Craig had brought his bottle of Gatorade just in case he needed to rehydrate, and was glad that he did. He drank the entire bottle during the outing (except for a few sips which he graciously shared with me, seeing as I had been naive enough to think that I wouldn't need my own). The kids were exhausted. Yupanqui was getting a little cranky and wasn't listening to us. He was moving very slowly, as was Sisa. Tayanta needed me to carry her back to the house. Sisa and Yupanqui would have preferred to be carried as well, but they are too heavy for me to carry for any distance. We huddled in the shade of a roadside tree for a few minutes of rest. The walk to the house is not far, but it was brutal. We were all overheated and exhausted by the time we got back to the house. Craig immediately went into the casita where it was cool to take a rest. I decided to take advantage of the sun and did our laundry by hand in the outdoor sink. The tap water is quite cold, so doing laundry in the warm weather is preferable. Then I hung it on the line in the sun to dry. We brought a thermometer with us, and I hung it on the clothesline as well. It registered 95 degrees in the direct sun. Quite a switch from the 55 degree overnight temperatures in our casita! The kids helped Abuelita to roast uvilla (goldenberry) fruit on wooden skewers over the fire. Lunch was soup, habas beans, potatoes, and chicken. Antonio had brought home a treat: a 3-liter-bottle of Coca Cola. The kids were very excited. And we were excited to see that Ecuadorian Coke uses actual sugar rather than corn syrup. We enjoyed playing with the kids in the afternoon. We had given them each die-cast metal cars (a VW bus which says "Peace and Love" for Sisa, a Mini Cooper for Tayanta, and a Gumpert Apollo 5 with gull wings for Yupanqui). They enjoyed racing them around the various wood planks which would eventually be used in the house construction. They bounced up and down on the lumber, creating a makeshift trampoline. The kids are very good at entertaining themselves. They don't require elaborate toys; they use their imaginations and their environment to have fun. It is quite refreshing in this day and age and harkens back to our own childhoods. Antonio bought glass for the windows today, and he spent some time in the afternoon sanding the wooden window frames. Antonio plays in a traditional Andean band called Chasqui Ñan. They had a gig at a wedding in Otavalo tonight. The group gathered at the house before heading into Otavalo. There were three older men in the band, and four who were much younger. It is nice to see the traditions being passed on to the younger generation. Maybe one day Yupanqui will play like his grandfather!  Chasqui Ñan practicing for their gig Craig has always had a love of campfires, and Antonio's mother builds a fire each night to cook her dinner. Craig sat with her in her little fire shed along with Max the dog and Chipi the cat, enjoying the light and warmth of the fire. Though they don't have a language in common, they enjoyed each other's company. After Antonio and the band left for their gig, we ate dinner. We had chicken soup, red cabbage, rice, peas, and tempura battered plantains. For some reason, each of the kids ended up spilling their juice at the dinner table. Yupanqui scored a direct hit on Craig's sneaker, which is now drenched. The kids were being really silly and there were a lot of laughs. It started to rain as we went to bed. |
 Rosa and Sisa with Chipi  Off to see the farmland!  The kids at the family farmland  Steph cleans the laundry by hand  Tayanta 
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