Dia de Gracias, Dia de Pavo, whatever you want to call it, it's still Thanksgiving Day to a Gringo – that end-of-season harvest festival we celebrate every year in North America. This year we'll spend it south of the Equator in the mountains of Perú during their early Summer, but since it's also their rainy season and temperatures are actually chilly, it feels a bit like Fall here.
Carolyn spent most of Wednesday baking two zapallo pies (their version of pumpkin), and one of her famous apple pies. Over nobody's objection, I might add. The aroma filled the immediate area, and anticipation was high. Today, she's very busy stuffing and baking the turkey our guests managed to score for the occasion. She has a very willing helper in Betsi, our host's Quechua cook, who's eager to learn several new and exotic (for the Andes, anyway) recipes. I had a few things planned to do but Juan, one of our host's sons-in-law, asked if I wanted to go up to Rumichaca with him and some other guys. Since I had absolutely no idea where Rumichaca was or what this all entailed, my answer, of course, was, "Sure!"
We left at 9:00 a.m. and the driver clipped along very rapidly down the few blocks that brought us to the Main Plaza of Ayacucho. We took a left up the steep and narrow streets that lead to the highway where he put his foot to the metal, dodging people, cows, trucks, etc. In a country where people are used to living in close quarters, barely missing someone with a car is not seen as unusual.
We reached the curvy highway that leads out of the city, and up out of the dry desert bowl of Ayacucho into the adjacent higher areas of the Andes. The road climbed. And climbed. And climbed, for the next 35 minutes. There were five of us in a newish Toyota crew cab pickup truck that swayed around each corner. I was glad it was a new vehicle with new tires and the road was a decent and wide two-lane highway, but a bit less speed would have made it more enjoyable, from the Gringo perspective. The driver and the other three passengers talked non-stop about crops, planting, and harvesting, all in Spanish while I tried, with only modest success, to keep up, and ignore the breakneck speed. Every so often, we'd pass the inevitable roadside memorial to those who hadn't made it around a given corner, but the message appeared to be lost on everyone but me. I could feel my arm muscles building as I clung tightly to the handle by my head. At least I was getting a decent upper-body workout just from trying to hang on to whatever was handy.
Finally, we crossed a pass and the road began a gradual decline into a valley of small farms, planted fields, and grass-covered hillsides. Along the road were flocks of sheep, a few pigs, some cattle and horses grazing the shoulders, tended by small boys, women and old men. Each little farm was marked off by ancient walls of large stones borrowed from the stony mountains which towered over us and demarcated the visible world. Stone walls crawled up the slopes as fields stretched up onto the flanks of the mountains on each side of the roadway. More fields were cut out of the hillsides higher up – anywhere there was sufficient soil.
It had been drizzling since early morning and the rainfall increased as the road ascended again, and we went onward into the higher Andes. Ayacucho is about 9,000 feet above sea level, dry, and surrounded by fringing mountains. We had passed into a very different zone. The rainfall increased with altitude while grass supplanted cactus, agave, and other dry land plants. Along the road and in valley areas, there were stands of trees. Eucalyptus trees, to be exact. We had also seen them on an earlier trip to Quinua, and I wondered how this Australian tree got here. It's a question I'd have to get back to at a later time.
After about an hour and a half, we arrived in Rumichaca (meaning 'stone bridge,' in Quechua), a small settlement with no stores or other apparent businesses, and we turned onto an unpaved and stony road leading farther up the steep side of a mountain to a small group of stone houses overlooking the valley below where one of our passengers lived. One of the reasons Juan had mentioned this trip was that he knew I had designed solar homes, and he wanted to show me some Trombe Wall projects in the area. The truck stopped and we got out to climb to a house with a Trombe Wall 'box' attached to it. We discussed the merits of this simple technology in a land where most homes were made of stone or adobe, so getting the necessary mass wasn't the issue. But in order for a Trombe Wall to work well, it requires the house be well insulated, which can be a big problem in poorer parts of the world. And then there's the problem of attention to details to get the best results. It usually requires more than just attaching a 'unit' to a wall. Still, it was probably producing some heat for the residents inside, and was far better than nothing. Some early solar experiments in the US weren't much better, and a friend of mine once referred to that era as "the flapping plastic period of architecture."
At the base of the old mud-plastered adobe wall, there was a band of left-over snow from a few days earlier. Late November, south of the Equator is equivalent to late April in the northern hemisphere, but at this altitude – even this close to the Equator (12 degrees South latitude) – they still get snow at this time of the year.
As I turned to look out over the greening valley and little settlement below, with small rivulets of waterfalls tumbling from the surrounding cloud-crusted peaks – the whole thing looking somewhat like an Andean Switzerland – Juan said we were standing at 4,800 meters (15,748 feet) above sea level. The settlement was perched on the side of a mountain and it must have been another 1,000 feet up to the tops of the peaks around us. Earlier in Ayacucho, when we got into the car, someone had mentioned the oxygen bottle we were carrying – just in case. Although I lived at the mile-high elevation of Albuquerque for 50 years, I've lived at sea level for the past 5 1/2 years, so I was glad we had it. We got back in the truck and went down to the settlement nestled in the valley below with the swift rain-fed river running beside it.
At the village, Juan said I could go with the other to guys who were heading to a different village, or I could stay with him and Carlos while they conducted a training workshop here in Rumichaca. I figured I'd stay to see what they were here for – some sort of workshop, as I understood it – since no matter what happened it was going to be some sort of adventure to me. As the truck – with its overly exuberant driver – disappeared onward into the Andes, I breathed a sigh of relief to be simply walking again, with little drama attached. I figured Juan had some kind of return plan in mind.
We walked through the settlement and greeted various villagers along the way, dressed in traditional Quechua clothing. Except for the Quechua people and the metal roofing on a few of the buildings, we could have been on a set for a movie featuring Middle-Age Europe. The weathered thatch roofs overhanging the old adobe and stone walls lining the rocky roadway made the place exceptionally picturesque – as long as you didn't have to scratch a living out of the stony ground. In the cold rain.
We found most of the villagers in a small field by the river harvesting big leaves of delicious-looking acelga (chard). After a few words of welcome, we walked onward through the settlement and waited by a corral. Not many things happen out in the campo on some kind of tight schedule. In hard-scrabble farm country, the crops and animals come first. We waited while they finished the harvest, then the villagers gradually gathered and the workshop convened under a porch overhang, as the person with the key to the school was gone for the day. The overhang accommodated at least most of the people and the rest didn't seem to mind the drizzle. It was just a part of life, and a blessing that meant it was time to plant crops again. I even stood in the rain for a while to take a few pictures, and I was glad I'd worn my wide-brimmed Tilley Hat and slicker. Watching these people in the rain, I realized why they wore those characteristic little felt hats here in the Andes. Also because the sun is fierce up here (so I hear) in the winter dry season, and protection is a good thing. There was only one adult not wearing one of those little hats – a man wearing a kind of traditional knitted chuyo. They were short and solidly-built and, at 6' 2," I stood head and shoulders over most of them. After the initial shock of seeing the tall Gringo appear in their midst, they were careful not to stare, although I really didn't mind. But they are a circumspect people, careful not to offend.
Juan and Carlos grabbed a rock and a few old nails and hung their workshop banner on the wall. Then Carlos engaged the people in a process of figuring out what their community needed, and how they were going to get it done. He's a very outgoing and likable guy, and after overcoming their initial reserve, they were all working together to plan their future. Along the way, he brought the need for decent nutrition into the discussion – especially for the young children and the elders. They were a beautiful group of people, sitting there at the workshop with their children, dogs, and a young sheep, leading a seamless, ancient life for whom the Spanish Conquest (only five hundred years ago) might represent a relatively recent development. While there's a tendency among outsiders to view their life as "primitive," there was lots of intelligent participation, and ideas filled the papers taped to the banner. It was good to watch this process unfolding so well for these ancient people, given their recent past.
Perú has a long history of terrible bloodshed. Several centuries of mistreatment of the native Quechua-speaking population led to a bloody Maoist revolt in the 1970s under the Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path). It was met with equal brutality by the Peruvian military, and the resulting terrible civil war left around 50,000 dead or disappeared. Today, the country seems to want to leave that painful era behind, and there appear to be efforts to rectify many long-standing inequities while developing effective ways to fight the endemic poverty. As a result, 'help wanted' signs are common now in Ayacucho, and people generally appear clean, decently-fed, and decently-dressed. And other than a few feeble old people sitting on street corners, with a old plastic bowl to catch a few coins, there are very few beggars. While private cars are rare, there's good transportation and people aren't living in the streets. Overall, the people are hard-working – as I suspect they've always been in this harsh mountainous country – and appear to be reasonably happy. These days, the country seems peaceful and, to an outsider, there appears to be room for hope.
As a result, the villagers of Rumichaca seemed to be very willing to engage in the worship process, and try to craft a plan for the future. To me, at least, it seemed they felt it would result in positive change, and was much more than an empty exercise.
Juan and Carlos work for Atinchik, a Peruvian "Alternative Development Services" organization. They are part of a consulting staff that works to coordinate the efforts of various NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), and government agencies with the needs of the local communities. I was very impressed with their on-the-ground workshop approach, their willingness to get to the people in need (no matter how uncomfortable it may be), and their skill at delivering the service. It helped, of course, that they were educated, well spoken, and fluent in the Spanish language, and also understood sufficient Quechua to be effective. It looked like a more effective approach to rural development than the wasteful 'mega-schemes' of the past.
After the workshop, the truck failed to materialize and we walked back to the road where we stood, along with two village men, and waited. In the rain. The rain drizzled gently onto us as we stood near the road since there wasn't enough room to escape it under the overhanging roof of the old stone house beside us. It was early afternoon. There had been no food offered in Rumichaca and I hadn't seen any places to eat on our way up, so I figured lunch was probably not on the agenda. There was nothing to do but wait. And maybe think about that magnificent feast waiting for us back in Ayacucho. Juan mentioned it a few times, as he stood shivering in the light-weight, and now wet, jacket he was wearing. It was time to think of other things, of llamas, perhaps.
It occurred to me that I hadn't seen any llamas in the area, so I asked Juan about it. He said it was summer, and they had moved up to higher ground (!), and anyway, since it was now the wet season, the people are planting and they run the llamas off because they eat the young plants. I guess the Quechua people long ago – maybe about a thousand years ago – stopped thinking the llamas were cute.
After a while, the rain still drumming onto my Tilley hat and streaming down my shoulders, I asked Juan if we were waiting for the truck to come back. He said no, we were waiting for a vehicle, like a truck or car, with room enough to take us back to Ayacucho. Or maybe a 'combi' would come along. Combis are usually tinny 15 passenger vans that commonly service villages in the back areas of most of Latin America. But if no Combi came along, we were essentially hitch-hiking back to Ayacucho – probably seventy kilometers away. "Ah well", I thought to myself, "the mountains surrounding us are quite beautiful. I'm lucky to be here. Life is good".
A few well-loaded trucks rumbled by, with no room for us. After a while we heard a beeping horn as a combi announced its arrival. We clambered in and Juan suggested I sit in the 'jump seat' by the door because there was no room for my long Gringo legs where he was sitting in the back, and all the other seats were taken. Off we went down the highway with 13 people in the 15 passenger van. At each small settlement, the driver beeped his horn and picked up a few more folks along the way.
Soon we were flagged over by three men standing by the road with three large chanchos (hogs) that were lying on their sides and were, well, "hog-tied" by the ankles and ready for market. The wiriest guy dragged one of the chanchos over to the van, tied an old rope through his legs and handed the loose end of the rope to another guy who had crawled onto the roof. With one guy hauling, the other pushing, and the hog screaming, they got one onto the roof and nestled into the roof rack. The guy on top tied the hog down while the other guy got another one ready to lift. After all three screaming hogs were on the roof, two of the guys got inside the van and the other one stayed on top. It was only drizzling a little and we had only another thirty or so miles to go.
We pulled into a small town, with a few stores and a school, and the van stopped. We opened the side door to allow 6 school boys, about 8 years old and in uniform, to board, along with 2 teachers. I had figured out a while back why there were a couple of empty 5 gallon buckets in the van. Those were extra seats. But by now, several folks were sitting two to a seat. It's lucky the boys weren't tall yet because they had to stand wherever we could jam one in. The driver put a "cumbia" CD into the player, which seemed appropriate as we bounced on down the road with a lively musical accompaniment, carrying about 25 people, with three hogs and a guy on the roof.
At one point along the curvy road, a newish-looking pickup truck pulled beside us and stayed there while a lady in the passenger seat took our picture. While the ride wasn't the most luxurious, and I was contorted like a sort of Gringo pretzel, at least the driver was going a bit slower now. At one point I wondered where the van would stop, and whether we'd have to walk a few miles to the Plaza, but decided not to worry about it as most things here tend to sort themselves out.
We stopped at a place where the road widened on the outskirts of town, and we all spilled out as the driver collected 4 soles each (about US $1.40) from all the passengers. I don't know what he charged the hogs for their 'Sky Box' vista ride all the way to Ayacucho, but it probably cost them an arm and a leg.
Juan turned to the road and flagged down the first taxi he saw headed our way. Within minutes we were back – cold, wet and hungry, and ready for that fabulous Thanksgiving Dinner Carolyn and Betsi had spent the day preparing.
Footnote:
There were thirteen of us to enjoy a large Thanksgiving Dinner set in the home of our Peruvian friend, Aquiles. They were mostly members of his large family, with a couple of Gringo expats and a Dutch friend thrown in. There was a large bird in the center, prepared in a new “brine-bath” method that made the white meat more juicy and delicious than usual. I’m sure Carolyn will use that method again. Accompanying the bird were potatoes, gravy, dressing, broccoli, freshly-cut fruit salad and sweet potatoes (camotes, which they sell already baked at the mercado) and four bottles of decent Ocucaje wine, a Peruvian brand from the Ica area . This was followed by the two pumpkin pies and an apple pie with whipped cream topping. By the end of the evening, all the food had evaporated from the plates, and I thought Juan was ready to eat the plate.