We left our community training sites super early Friday and arrived to Carabuela at about 9:30am for a weaving demonstration; we met one of the abuelitas (grandmothers) of the town down by the stream and watched as she washed the lana (wool), during which one of my fellow trainees, Sabriga, jumped into the river to try it out. Afterward, we tried out dying, carding and spinning the wool on our own. Next we met with various textile artisans in the community to see them at work, some families knit by hand, others with a manual machine, and others weave on lap-looms. It was really interesting to talk with each of them and get a sense of their work and life. Some were young woman, educated only to the 2nd grade, others were college students working between classes and housework; but generally each household works together in their arts and for their livelihood. Overall, they earn very little money for the time they put in the and the quality work they produce. The community later held a small market place for us to purchase items, and it was hard to stomach that completely hand-knit sweaters sold for $12, hats for $2, bags for $5 and such. We all gladly purchased from the producers, as generally the community sells their products to an intermediary and receives around ten percent of what the item is sold for in the general market in Otavalo.
After our textile demonstrations, we walked to another small community to see an horno de casa (house oven) at work. During fiestas in the Sierra, families bake special whole wheat breads and whole chickens, pigs, etc, and each community has a few of these ovens which are shared. (My host family has one that has been hard at work for the past few days!) So of course we crowded into the small, smoky room to see the fresh bread emerging from the oven and got to sample a bit too. Friday was one of our language facilitators' birthday, so the family made a horse and rider out of bread for her as a gift, which was really cute! They also made little dolls out of bread which are traditional for a celebration in the fall and there is a special ritual to eating them too! Head first!
From there, we climbed a big hill to an orchard where we were were set loose with buckets to cosecha (pick or collect) fruit for our evening juice. The little fruits we collected are called uvillas (and for my Spanish-speaking readers, they are nothing like grapes), they are orange when ripe and about the size of a marble, they grow in a papery type shell, much like what is around a tomatillo, and they contain more vitamin C than an orange - among other health benefits. They are a little bitter and seedy to eat just as a fruit, but pureed into a juice, they are buenisima (very good)!
Our afternoon activities wrapped up with a mini-Quichua lesson (the indigenous language of the Sierra) which is still widely used in this community. As the evening began, we visited the local shaman for a group limpieza (cleansing) to get an idea of what the ritual is like here in Ecuador. It was very interesting, similar and yet different to the limpieza that I experienced in Mexico. In this community the main elements of the cleansing include special leaves which are tied into bunches and then sprayed with chicha (a locally made spirit) by the shaman before they are brushed, rather beat, over each of us from head to toe. The shaman's son, who is training to be a shaman, followed behind and sprayed the chicha and blew tobacco smoke at our feet to complete the ritual. It was just a taste of the custom, but they provided us the opportunity to ask questions about the ritual and their beliefs.
After our cleansing, we arrived to party in our honor at the local school! We were served a meal of potatoes (of course!), large fresh beans (the exact kind is unbeknown to me, but not like anything I know!), tomato and onion salad, campo cheese (fresh cheese, kind of like queso fresco in Mexico but with a different flavor), and cuy (guinea pig, yes, I'm serious. And I ate it. And I liked it.) The evening continued with the community performing various dances, playing music and singing. I gladly found some adorable children that were more than willing to dance with me, of course. :D At about 10pm we were partied out and exhausted from a day of climbing the hilly town of Carabuela at such a high altitude and learning so many interesting things!
Liz (a fellow evacuee from Madagascar, and my saving grace in many moments here in Ecuador,) and I shared a bed in a community member's house. The bed was small and hard (just a reed mat and about a 1 inch pad on boards), but we slept warm while little bugs made a meal out of our exposed flesh! (i.e. our stomachs, hips, backs, ankles, and one made it inside my bra! rude!) I wouldn't say I slept soundly, between feeling things crawling on my and for the fact that the party we left lasted ALL NIGHT long! People were singing and dancing and calling into the night until about 6am! Family of the house we stayed in came and went several times, and never quietly! lol! Needless to say, it was not the most restful night of sleep, but I was grateful to have a warm, safe place to sleep, nonetheless.
We woke in the morning, and were greeted by an adorable local young woman, named Sofie, who was our “cultural” guide for the day. As we walked to each of our different demonstrations for the day, she shared stories and histories about the Inca descendants in Ecuador's Sierra. She was so wonderful and interesting, it was a shame that there were so many of us and it was so difficult to keep the pace and hear her as a group.
We watched a demonstration by a local shoemaker, traditional shoes are still worn by many people in the Sierra, as many choose to keep a “traditional” dress as their everyday clothes. We also learned the history and significance of the dress and why men where white shoes and women black. Women of the Sierra wear dark skirts and shoes because they are always en luto (mourning) for the death of the last Inca King. My group of trainees have arrived during a big fiesta season, celebrating San Juan, San Pablo, and San Pedro. Consequently, these fiestas celebrating Catholic Saints, correspond with the Summer Solstice and a time of ancient celebrations called el intireymi – an Incan tradition recognizing the power that the sun gives and celebrating their King (as I understand it). So in this tradition, in the town of Carabuela, you will find the women dressed in traditional blouses with dark skirts and dark shoes, as they are always in remembrance of the last King, and the men maintain their traditions, dressing all in white, with white shoes, and wear dark ponchos. But outside of the traditional communities, people dress as they wish, and women wear which ever shoe matches their outfits for the fiestas!
After a lunch of delicious cauldo de pollo (chicken soup), we split our group into two and headed back to our host families in our separate communities, this time by public transport. I'm going to be honest, finding a bus to put 12 gringos plus 3 language facilitators on wasn't difficult, but it wasn't comfortable. We were clearly a gaggle - a gregarious gaggle of gringos on an already packed public bus. We looked quite out of place, but by now I should be used to this right? By the time we got back to Cayambe, we were all exhausted, dirty, and a little grumpy. Our bus back to Olmedo was standing room only, and what usually takes 40 minutes took over an hour. When I got back to my host family's house, I gave my saludos (greetings) and headed to bed for a late afternoon nap.
Some views of the surrounding volcanoes of Otavalo and Carabuela, the legend says they are Mother and Father to the rest!
