Wednesday 1/18/17 - Baptism Preparations Begin Last night Antonio got home late from the community center. This morning he explained why. Apparently the village has been having problems with people stealing livestock. Criminals drive in from nearby towns/cities, load chickens, sheep, etc. into their trucks, and take off. Last night, they caught men from Ibarra in the process of stealing chickens. They called the police, who arrived around 10 p.m. The police looked on while the villagers performed their ancestral punishment. They stripped the men down to their underwear and doused them with cold water. It was very cold last night, as we are at ~9000 feet, and it had been rainy / drizzling all day. They then proceeded to beat the men with ortiga (stinging nettles), which are quite painful and cause red welts to appear on the skin. In addition to the physical punishment, the men were ordered to pay $200 USD in reparations to the community. Antonio provided us with this photo, which shows the men being doused in water. You can see that villagers are bundled up against the cold, and the ortiga plants are on the ground at the ready. You can also see the police. We find it to be very culturally interesting that the police sanction these traditional punishments. They were on hand to make sure that things did not get out of control, but they allow the indigenous community to punish crimes committed against them as they see fit. So it is not really vigilante-ism. If someone commits a crime against indigenous communities, they are punished via indigenous tradition, rather than being arrested by the police. It allows the indigenous communities to retain some semblance of self-determination which historically has been denied to them via colonialism. Moral of the story: don't mess with the natives! Things are buzzing around the homestead today as the family and neighbors start to prepare for Saturday's party. When I headed to my office at 7:15 a.m., there were already several ladies from the community helping Rosa and Antonio. One had her little son with her. He was adorable! For breakfast, we had juice, fried eggs, bread, plantain hash, cheese, yogurt, and coffee. Rosa and Antonio took a large bucket of mote (hominy) from the outdoor kitchen, and the ladies helped to wash the alkaline substance from it (not sure whether they use lye or ash). Then the ladies took the newly cleaned corn and laid it out to dry on the roof deck. The expansion of Abuelita's outdoor kitchen continued, and by the end of the day, the support poles had been secured and the roof was up, but the walls have to wait until tomorrow. For lunch we had soup, plantains, rice, beans, and beet salad with fresh lemonade. As I needed to work from 7:15 - 5:30 today (lots of meetings!) I took a short siesta in the middle of the day to try to get some laundry done. The sun was out and it was quite warm. Not 5 minutes after I finished and hung the clothes on the line, it started to pour. I had washed my alpaca wool sweater/jacket (a gift from the family several years ago) and I think now it must weigh about 50 pounds on the clothesline! At 5:30, we accompanied Rosa and the kids to a neighbor's house up near the school to check out their pig. Just as I was warning Craig not to stick his cane in a huge pile of animal poop, Tayanta ran right through it. It was so slippery from all the rain that, in seeming slow motion, her legs came out from under her and she landed on her bum smack-dab in the poop! Rosa did a good job of cleaning her up on the fly. The pig is big and fat and will be great for the baptism party meal - he will feed the whole community and then some. We went into the family's home to pay for the pig. They have a toddler named Yari (sp?). He had a little toy car to ride on, and our three kids started to play with it. He started to get a panicky look on his face, pointing to the car. We joked with his mom that he was thinking "Mio!" (Mine!) Rosa will walk the pig home on Friday morning. We stopped at the neighborhood store to pick up some supplies, and then walked home. After we returned home, we ate dinner: soup, beef in gravy, plantains, rice, and melloco. Sisa and Yupanqui helped Rosa to do the dishes, sharing a single tree stump stepstool to reach the sink.

Preparing for the baptism Preparing mote Preparing mote Sisa and Shina Tayanta The family from whom we bought the baptism pig See all photos from this day