Chicken Catching and Pulgas de Andy

Starting at the first of this week, Andy started getting mysterious bites all over his body. As many of us have been attacked by some biting insect, we didn´t really think too much about this. On the second or third day that the bites started showing up, we started to take more notice. The disturbing part about the bites was that they usually started showing up shortly after we woke up--which tended to make us suspect something was biting Andy while he slept. The bizarre part is that I had received none of these bites. Now a highly discussed and laughed about topic in the house is how a couple of us sleep in sleeping sacks or sleeping bags in our beds. I am rather paranoid about protecting myself from some super germs that might have somehow managed to crawl from the mattress and through the sheet and then manage to come into contact with my skin. I know, it is a little extreme and germaphobic, but when Andy showed up with bites in the morning and I wasn´t, he wasn´t laughing at me anymore. In order to really begin to tell when Andy was receiving the bites, we began circling them in marker, so that we could tell the old bites from the new.

The pink circles were day 1 bites, and the orange circles were day 2 bites.

As you can tell, they were biting him mainly on the feet and around his stomach and back. Despite the incessant teasing I had taken for my sleeping sack, that night I returned to the bed and Andy had stripped the bed except the sheet underneath and was sleeping in his sleeping bag. The next day though, no new bites in the morning. He then changed into his work clothes and boots, and within 15 minutes, new bites on his feet and mid-section. The culprit had to be his clothes. He changed and sure enough, no new bites. It seems that somewhere on the farm, Andy had picked up fleas in his clothes (it remains a mystery where he recieved the bites because it literally could be from anywhere on the farm: cows, chickens, dogs, dirt, etc.). We let the clothes sit in the sun for a few days and washed them. Andy is now, happily, flea free.

Another interesting event happened this week, Andy and Michael (a fellow volunteer on the farm) decided to catch, kill and cook a chicken for dinner. We were told we could do this and given four roosters on the farm that would be suitable. I went along strictly to document the process. The men were brave and fearless and chased, at one time or another, each of the four roosters through the chicken coop and into trees, up fences and into small buildings, and a mere forty minutes later they had caught themselves a rooster.

Picture One, the men had just started and they are relying on nothing but their hands to get the roosters. In Picture Two, you can see that Andy feels the needs for some chicken catching tools: a stick and a piece of yellow plastic siding.

The chickens got smart very quickly to what Andy and Michael were trying to do and begin to fly into the trees above their heads and even taking to climbing on the new fence the men had built that very day to keep them in. The chickens stood on the top of the fence and threatened to go AWOL unless the men stopped the chasing shananigans. Finally one jumped from the fence and escaped, and this would lead to its eventual downfall. The men eventually went outside the coop and were able to catch the chicken.

Andy and Michael each killed a chicken, plucked, cleaned and cooked it. A very educational experience.

La Casa De Josefina

Such a busy day yesterday with so many new experiences that I don´t really even know where to begin. But here it goes....

We were invited to the house of Jimena yesterday. Josefina is an Ecuadorian woman on the farm that is in charge of all the gardening and so we have spent every day here with her. The occasion of the day was for her grandmother. She died about a month ago and they were putting her tombstone in her grave. I don´t really understand the tradition totally, but it is a Catholic tradition. So she invited us to help her cook during the morning. We arrived at her house after a 2 minute bus ride and about a 45 minute walk.

When we arrived she was so warm and welcoming. She showed us around her home. In the largest front room she has two industrial size bread ovens and racks for bread. Her husband makes bread and sells it in the local communities. She promptly tells us to "descansan" or rest, and gives us fresh bread and makes us tomate de arbol juice which is delicious but made from tap water (which she assures us is fine, even though we boil all water we use at the house for at least 2 minutes). Not to be rude, we drink up, and it is delicious!

During our impromptu second breakfast of the day, we hear cats in another part of the house. Josefina quickly grabs a whip that was laying on a table in the front room, opens the side door and quickly whips the cats standing there. Let me say this again, she grabs a whip, the handle of which is a goat leg, and whips the cats. This will soon become a theme of a the day!

After we have finished as much bread as we can muster, and quickly put the rest into our backpack, Josefina takes us into the little back room of the whipped cats and shows us our jobs. There is a huge gas oven with two compartments and two shelves in each. One wall of the room is a wood-fired oven for pigs, she says. There are two full grown cats and one kitten in the room. As soon as we enter, they scatter, one finding solace in a corner window and the other literally climbing the walls and curtains. Josefina takes the first pan out of the oven and there is 5 cuy on it. Cuy (kwee) is a traditional meat in Ecuador and is spanish for guinea pig. The only thing you do to prepare the cuy is take off their hair. Skin, little claws, eyes and teeth and left totally intact. Now, I am holding the basket steady that the finished cuyes are going into. Andy is holding the pan of cuyes, and Danielle (another woman from the farm) is scraping the cuyes off the pan with a knife as their little feet and jaws tend to stick. I am also given the whip, to fend off the cats from getting into the cuyes and the raw chicken in a container on the ground that will go onto the pans after the cuyes are taken off. One of the more surreal moments in my life. As cuy feet are getting stuck and coming off and I am whipping cats away from chickens on the ground, it is all I can do to keep it together!

With the cuy in the bag (literally garbage bags), Josefina shows us how to lay out the chickens on the pan. It went something like this: Get a chicken, slap the cats away, get a chicken, slap the cats away....and so on. We then were to let the chickens cook for 20 minutes and then spread "colored butter" on it. A butter that was orange, which we found out was colored because of some pig product in it.

We continue the process of preparing the chicken, whipping the cats (and also some of the dogs that got into the house) and generally lounging around Josefina´s house for the day hanging out with her 4 year-old daughter and her 28 year-old brother. We have lunch which is a small piece of cuy, a salad, boiled potatoes and carrot juice with tap water. The piece of cuy we are given is a foot and leg. OK--cuy meat. First off it all has a tough dark skin on the outside that turns a burnt reddish color. All of the meat is dark meat, and as Andy said it tastes like a mixture of tuna and dog (not that we have ever had dog, but it seems most appropriate). We eat only about three bites of meat, and all of the veggies. As we are eating an uncle shows up and Josefina brings a plate of food to him. This is where we learn, you literally can eat ALL of the cuy. As he is talking to us he is tearing into the skin of the cuy and when he is finished literally eats the crunchy little foot and leg of the cuy, which seems a lot like eating a pork rind--crunching and munching as he is talking to us.

As we are feeling a bit queasy from the tap water juices, and cuy, we wonder into the kitchen to talk with Danielle who is cleaning our dishes. She informs us that she was told to cut the salad on the counter, not on a cutting board or plate, but on the counter. This wouldn´t be so bad, had the containers of raw chicken not been sitting on the counter earlier. I´m not entirely sure what to say about this, other than that there was nothing we could do....so we swallowed the vomit rising in our throats and luckily it was about time to go.


We walked into town and that is when we realized part of the ceremony was attending a Catholic mass. My first one ever. Couldn´t understand a word, except "sins." At the end of the mass, they said a few more words and then the tombstone of Josefina´s grandmother was carried through the church and out into the streets to the cemetary. Everyone in the church followed. When we get to the cemetary, they put the tombstone in, and we commence having snacks (crackers and hard candy) and fruit wine and a local fermented drink. Men and women would come around with a box of the fruit wine and one cup. They would pour a small amount in the cup, you would take a drink and hand the cup back, they would then fill it again and hand the cup to your neighbor. In this way, I am sure I got to know most of the community of Picalqui through the sharing of our saliva. All in all it was a good time. Ironically, while I am afraid to step into unknown showers without flip flops, or sleep in unknown sheets without my sleeping sack, I have no problem sharing glasses or passing drinks with others.

After the cemetary celebration, we decided to call it a day, and opted to not go to the dinner in Picalqui where the cuyes and chickens we had prepared earlier would be served.

All in all an absolutely incredible experience! I could not have dreamed up the day even if I tried. And, not one of the four of us who went got sick. We should probably give our stomachs more credit than we do, but more likely we just dodged the bullet on that one!

Colombian Days

We flew into Armenia, Colombia on Tuesday and on Friday, after three overnight cities, 3 buses, numerous taxis, and 15 hours of cumulative ride time, we crossed the border into Ecuador.

Here are some things we have encountered and learned:

1. Colombia is spectacular. The scenery that we encountered on the Panamerican highway between Popayon and Pasto was literally the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. However, the ride is not for those suffering from motion sickness or claustrophobia. Ten minutes into the ride as we are being hurled around the tiny bus, it is way too hot and I have yet to realize I can open my own window, we can´t see out the front, while I am trying not to lose my breakfast, a two-year-old a few seats in front of us loses his. Awesome, and we have 6 hours left in the trip. I am able to open my window and my situation improves dramatically. However, I cannot say the same for the two-year-old. Over the next six hours, when he wasn´t sleeping, he was throwing up.
2. The buses in Colombia were some of the nicest around. They were more like airport shuttle buses than school buses. While I believe the reason for this (as well as the numerous army posts and bunkers, and young men with machine guns on the side of the roads) is the safety issues of bus travel in Colombia, they made for very nice travel. However, also due to their smaller size and larger engine capacity, drivers were able to do incredible things with the buses. You think Nascar drivers can drive? Colombian bus drivers can drive! We were passing on mountain roads on blind corners going uphill. Think Cottonwood Pass for six hours, passing everything possible. The overall speed with which they attacked the road and curves was a tad disturbing. But we made it and so cannot complain too much.
3. The hospitality and generosity of the people in Colombia was incredible. There were so many people that were willing to help us with directions and buses and food. It made us very confident about our decision to travel through Colombia.
4. Gringos stick out like a sore thumb here. I am used to being stared at as we walk down the street or go into a store, but the way that people stare at Andy, especially small children, is hilarious. I don´t believe they see too many gringos with huge blond beards. Children stand open-mouthed at the site of him, and the spectacle generally includes pointing and or telling a nearby adult. Andy has fun with it, usually smiling or making a surprised face at them which generally elicits pure joy on their faces.

On a side note, amid the stress of crossing the Colombian border and dealing with two immigration offices, Andy and I found ourselves in the middle of a baby ferret chase. I am not sure where it came from, it seemed that it all started with a man running out of the back of one of the immigration offices behind a brown baby ferret. Despite my general objections to ferrets, Andy and I became players in the chase as we found ourselves in the direct path of the ferret. Before it was all over with there were probably 12 of us trying to stop the little animal before it ran into traffic. It made a beeline at one point, and so I am not sure if it was ever caught.

We will post pictures next time!
Lacie and Andy

T minus 14 hours

We have 12 hours until we leave, and things are still a bit crazy. We have been pretty stressed today, and somehow all the fun of the trip is sucked out of it as we make last minute calls that all end in a stalemate of, "well, we have to get this figured out, we are leaving the country tomorrow morning." What phone calls could we possible be making in the last 24 hours of our time here? You would be surprised.

This is partially due to procrastination, but in larger part due to my motto when traveling: wait until the last minute for everything (immunizations excluded, of course). Here is my reason: when I start packing and doing all of those necessary travel measures (calling to notify bank and credit card accounts, insurance, etc), I start to stress out. So, if I start all of that two months early, that just means that I will stress out about the trip for two months. Consequently, I start all of this within the last few days before departure, and consequently I enjoy my time, I sleep well, and only stress the last few days before I leave. So, here I am 12 hours before leaving and I am in hell....Packing and Planning Hell.

Here is a condensed version of some stressors at the moment.

1. As if flying into a foreign country with a different language is not stressful enough, Andy and I have chosen to make it even more difficult. Instead of flying as close to our intended destination as we can (Tabacundo, Ecuador), we have decided to fly into Colombia to save some cash. This means that in the first three days of arriving in South America, Andy and I must organize and execute travel including multiple bus rides totaling 19 hours, two separate taxi rides to and from the Colombian and Ecuadorian border, and a literal walk across the border. The bright side: this is by far the most technically difficult planning that we will probably due in South America and in the most "dangerous" country according to State Deptartment warnings (before the parents stop breathing--don't worry. The last tourist that was kidnapped was in 2003 and he was hiking in a remote part of the jungle.). So after this, our travel should be easy.

2. When it rains, it pours. A day ago, I woke up with red, painful bumps all over the sides of my torso, back, stomach, upper legs, and area covered by my underpants. They felt like a painful pimple does before they come to a head. We headed to the doctors office and was informed that they were hair follicle irritations (thanks doc for using the nice term for PIMPLES). So, on January 9, 2009, it was official, I was the most DISGUSTING person on earth. This day also coincided with Andy's birthday. Sorry.
(The culprit for the outbreak was probably due to using a new and/or too much detergent at my mom's house while doing laundry)

We head out at 6am in the morning and arrive in Armenia Colombia at 2pm. Once I get on the plane a lot of the stress drains away. I'm packed and ready, no more over-thinking, second-guessing myself. It should be good.