Saturday 4/7/2012 - Fresh cuy and chicken, a soccer game We woke up at 7:15 a.m. I had had some stomach troubles overnight and hadn't slept much after 3 a.m. Before I ate breakfast, Aida made me some manzanilla tea (chamomile) from the garden to help my stomach. For breakfast at 8:30, we had fried egg, french fries, bread, jelly, cheese, and pineapple juice. Craig had instant coffee with milk and I had mine with water. The rooster walked into the kitchen during breakfast. Rosa shrugged her shoulders and said "Almuerzo" (lunch). This must be the day when the rooster would meet its maker. After breakfast we went for a walk with Antonio and the kids. We saw the local football field across one of the ravines, and Antonio told us that would be where we would watch a soccer game this afternoon. When we got back to the house, we gave the kids a toy kaleidoscope and the whole family really liked it. Antonio went to Cotacachi to do some errands. Now it was time to dispatch the rooster. Rosa grabbed the rooster and Aida held a knife. They took the rooster to the side yard next to where the cow was tethered. They made sure that both kids were there to see the process. Rosa pinned the bird to the ground by straddling it and stepping on its wings. She slit its throat and let it bleed out. It was humbling for us, as we are not usually witness to where our food comes from. Aida didn't seem to want to watch. Blood spurted onto Rosa's blouse and she and Aida ran some water and washed it off with soap. Meanwhile Sisa grabbed the bloody knife and walked around with it. They said, "Now the cuy" (guinea pig). This was the first we knew about a cuy being any part of this. Antonio had mentioned that they raised cuy, but we had never seen them. They led us to the back shed. We had been in here the other day but had no knowledge that under that piece of plywood were some cuy in a wooden pen. They eat choclo leaves. Rosa and Aida lifted up the plywood and Rosa picked up a brown and white specimen. She held it by the back of the neck. She carried it out to the outdoor fire. She called Sisa and Yupanqui over, slit the guinea pig's throat, and let it bleed out. They had stoked a fire in Abuelita's outdoor kitchen, and they put a pot of water on to boil. The rooster was so big that all of him couldn't fit into the pot at once. Rosa dunked it in several times and then Aida held it while Rosa plucked off the feathers. It went very quickly. After several more dunkings, all the feathers were off and Rosa peeled the outer skin off the feet. There was a lot of nervous laughter. Rosa and Aida made jokes that Saturday was the rooster's bath day. There was a big pile of feathers and foot skin on the ground. Then they dunked the cuy into the boiling water and pulled its fur off. It reminded me of the fetal pig that I had dissected in high school biology, but slightly smaller. Aida talked about wild cuy and rabbits near lake Cuicocha. I asked if they eat rabbits. "No" said Aida and "Si" said Rosa simultaneously. We all laughed. Aida doesn't eat rabbits, and she said she doesn't eat cuy either. "Como todos" said Rosa proudly. Rosa eats everything. This is an advantage when you live a subsistence lifestyle like they do. Aida said that Yupanqui really likes cuy. Rosa took both of the carcasses to the outdoor sink, where she cleaned them with the laundry brush and gutted them. It was kind of funny to see the two whole animals laying there dead next to their toothbrush, toothpaste, and Head and Shoulders shampoo. Rosa chopped off the rooster's head (the Chinese food scene in "A Christmas Story" came to mind), and then she picked its eyes out. The rooster's heart was huge. Rosa cleaned out the intestines and put most of the entrails aside for the parrot, of all things, to eat. She showed us the rooster's "huevos". Craig thought from the looks of them that they were lungs, which made Aida and Rosa laugh. No, these were the rooster's..."eggs" (testicles). Eventually the rooster looked "processed" enough that Rosa might as well have been preparing a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Aida took the meat into the kitchen and started cooking it. Rosa then processed the cuy. We sent a geeky text to Steve: Rooster.Count = 0; Cuy.Count--; Lunch.Wait(); We played with the kids with the blocks. Antonio came home at 1:30 and we ate lunch: fresh-as-it-gets rooster soup, white rice, red cabbage, peas, and beef cooked in onions and peppers. We drank fresh uvilla juice. After Antonio finished his soup, he left to prepare for a football game which was to take place against another local village. It was supposed to start at 2 o'clock. After the rest of us finished eating we took a pickup truck up toward the school. We saw Antonio and stopped there to join him. We walked with him to the school. Behind the building some of the communal alpacas were down from the mountain. There are 115 total. The wool that they produce is distributed amongst the villagers, and they use it to knit all sorts of things. The big brown alpaca bared his teeth as I approached him. Craig warned that he would spit at me. I had always had a rapport with alpacas in the past, so I didn't think much of it. I backed off, but he still managed to spray a fine green mist at me. I had a piece of grass stuck to my sunglasses. We walked down the street which had eroded quite a bit in the rains since Wednesday when we had brought Sisa to school. Lots of families were out and about. We got to the football field where we found two small tented areas where women and children were selling food and drinks while their men play football. Natalie and her mother Rosita were there, as were Antonio's brother and some other familiar faces. A game was already going on. Antonio bought Sisa and Yupanqui popsicles. Women had fryolaters sizzling away, serving up fried dough, fried fish, etc. Rosa bought Sisa some gum and she shared it with us. After the game finished, the Morochos team (Amazonas) took the field. Antonio, older than most of the players in his early 40's, was the referee. Sisa had brought the kaleidoscope with her. All the kids and adults were fighting over it. Everyone thought it was cool. An ice cream truck with soft serve pumps in the back came down the street. Sisa had been showing us off to her friends (making a show of holding our hands when they were around) and we decided to buy ice cream for all of her friends. Natalie and two other girls took us up on it and we bought 4 cones of strawberry and vanilla twist soft serve for $1. Then the two little boys, Sisa's cousins from next door, came over with their mom. Since I had taken a picture of her earlier that she was embarrassed about, we made amends by buying them all ice creams as well. It was lightly raining off and on. We went back to watch more of the game, and we saw a rainbow appear above the field. After about an hour, the game seemed to end as some players from each side left. But then a while later they started up again. Rosa and Aida wanted to go home before the real rain started. We took the shortcut down a valley and back up the other side, popping out near our house. Yupanqui had napped for most of the game but Sisa was getting overtired. She hadn't wanted to leave the game even though most of her friends had already gone. She refused to walk once we got to the shortcut trail, so Craig ended up carrying her up the steep slope. As we approached the house, Max the dog jumped on me to greet me. We went back to our room while they put Sisa down for a nap and cooked dinner. We filled plastic Easter eggs with candy for tomorrow. We were planning a small Easter egg hunt. Since we were learning about their culture's Easter traditions, we thought that it would be fun to teach them an Easter tradition from our culture. Antonio came home about half an hour later. We took the netbook computer into the kitchen and showed them pictures from the trip thus far. They loved the still life with the shears and glove. They seemed a bit sad when they saw the rooster still alive. (We didn't get to the killing photos because we hadn't downloaded today's pictures from my camera yet. ) We had corn soup, and cuy (the thighs are the best part, and this was the best cuy we have ever eaten... so moist and tender and flavorful). Aida told us that young cuy are less tough and more flavorful than old. This one was fairly young. We also had mote and potatoes. My stomach still wasn't feeling 100% and I didn't have my full appetite, but I ate all of my delicious cuy thigh. At around 8:30 p.m., we called it a night went back to the room. I wrote in the journal, and we went to bed at 9:30.

Saying goodbye to the rooster Selecting a cuy Plucking the chicken Steph and Sisa Yupanqui Walking to the soccer game Community alpacas Soccer game Ice cream See all photos from this day