Hecho con Manos

The last two weekends I have spent in Coporaque. I forgot to mention my fun farming experience. We made the slippery trek down to the river after working with the kiddos two Saturday´s ago...the sun was still strong and it felt good to be walking, free of worries. After finally reaching the little plot we were headed for (no one every says how long it will take to get somewhere) we find ourselves first in front of the borrows. They are being prepared to be loaded up with corn stalks and huge sacks filled with dried maize to carry back to the village. The weight is enormous, and takes 2, nearly three people to pick up the bag and heave it on to the back of the donky. None of the three donkeys is excited. After watching them pull the final donkey´s by the ears as hard as humanly possible into submission, loading this one up with less weight because he is in training, we went to the next little plot. There we met our enormous pile of recently cut corn stalks. They are all piled together like a sequoia. The task is to shuck the corn. The corn stalks are about 4 or 5 feet long, and lay in a pile (the system I chose, because you get to sit). You sit on the pile, and pull stalk after stalk out one at a time, find the corn cob, take it in one hand, use the little fat tool sharpened like a pen cil to pierce the top of the leaves, split it in half, rip the leaves off, then throw it in the pile. Most of the corn is semi dry. They harvest the corn much later than we do. What is really cool is that every cob is different. Some are purple, some are purple and white, some are orange, red, yellow or plain old white. My favorites, and of course the rarist, where the red ones. The next day, in the morning, we picked out the still fresh ones and pulled off all the kernels. The kernels were then boiled and we used them to make a delicious salad (nearly the same as a pasta salad, only with corn instead, flavored with cumin and black pepper, yum!)

I can´t remember the last time I was truly so content, sitting out their in the sun, chatting away with new friends, shucking corn. I surrounded by nothing but land, mountains and sky, with the river just a ways away. The only trouble I had was that I was wearing someone else´s shoes, which were entirely too small. Long story short, I brought only street shoes...and thought smaller sneakers would be safer than my clogs. I still can´t say what would have been better. Maybe bare feet.

AFter the long trek back up the mountain, and a long wait for our dinner, I had one of the best sleeps of my life. Nestled up in my sleeping bag, and piled on top of me was 5 or 6 more wool blankets, I didn´t want to leave my little nest the next morning.

My second experience, full of surprises, was fishing with the father and son of the family we stay with. Complete with a huge fishing net, a couple of sacks, and an truck tire inner tube. What the hell are we going to do, I wondered. This was after we walked an hour straight down the side of a mountain to get to the river...a different part of the river than I had been to before. This path is not nearly as...clear. I carefully made my way through many spiny plants...and shortly before arriving at the river, I slipped, fell on my ass, and caught myself on a cactus...just the left hand. OW not again, I thought. I looked, and there were just three or four 1.5 inch spines sticking out of my hand...I quickly ripped them out...whined for a bit...and then carried on. Now, we are at the river. We need to cross, they tell me. I look around, up and down stream...there´s not a really great place to cross rock hopping, I think to myself. Meanwhile, both father and son are rolling their pant legs up. They have sweatpants on, and sandals that stay on well, made of recycled tire rubber. I have my hiking boots on, and jeans. No matter how well prepared I am, I am never fully prepared. I can´t roll my pants like you, it doesn´t work, what can i do? I can´t soak my pants or I will freeze. Right...off with boots...and the pants. Here we go, holding hands with a grown man, father of 4, so I don´t slip on the river rocks...jeans and boots around my neck. I cannot believe my life, sometimes. It was cold, but not freezing...the freezing would come later.

So, we´re on the proper side of the river now...in a canyon. Cool. Ah, and windy. Here are some hot springs...very small. Might come in handy later. By now, its about 3 30pm. They lay out all the stuff we´re to use...including the net that looks like a tangled mess. The top half is connected with little white pieces of styrofoam. The bottom has litte rubber bands to tie to rocks so the net stays upright.

Christian, the son, who is 14, blows the inner tube up while we deal with the net. Then, he ties the two sides of the tube together to make it more oval shaped, puts a tarp on top, brings it to the waters edge, fully clothed, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, belly down on the make shift boat, and Chocolate, the dad´s nickname, as it were, shoves him off into the river. My god, I think, I Hope he knows how to swim. I do not want to go in there after him. The walk home would be horrible. So, little by little, we send off the net...one hour later of swimming and squirming arond in the river...still not sure exactly what he was doing moving up and down the river...one can only assume he was getting the net just right, he swims down stream (paddling with hands and forearms, rather) with the rope of the net in his mouth, makes a big circle, Dad grabs the net, and painfully slow, pulls the net in. During this time, helping, holding the wet rope, wet rocks, etc, my fingers are going numb. I watch him pull in the net, fetch what fish we have trapped (they are all tangled, yet relatively calm), and in the bag they go. 9 the first time. well, I think, at least I know there are enough fish to feed us all tonight. (4 family members, and me).

Half the reason we are even fishing is beccause Rosio, the mom, is in Lima, working on a artisan vending project...and Chocolate doesn´t know how to cook very well, he says.

So, I tell him I want to go home, because my hands are numb. Just 20 minutes...half hour more, he says. I know I can´t leave...I don´t know the way, and it´s getting dark. Dammit. Warm your hands in the hot spring, he says. Good idea. I do so, and a half an hour later, my hands are finally getting their feeling back...but they are still multi colored.

I go back during the second, faster round of netting the fish…4 more. Sweet…I have to say it was really exciting to see him pull the net in, little by little, to make sure they don´t escape. And just barely befote he pulls them to the beach, you can see their shiny silver skin. Trucha…Trout. They are spotted trout.

Quickly we gather our things…and set off, straight up the mountain. I asked if we were going to take the same route, because I know how hard it was comino down…literally sitting on your butt to asend various drop offs. He considered an alternate route, and decided it wasn´t worth the risk…there are bad dogs, he says. They are big, and bad. Oh Lord…I don´t know which is worse…the route we took, or the dogs. I had no choice. We took the same route back. It was really dark, but it was a full moon. I actually had to shield my eyes at times from the blinding Light. Despite being terrified I was going to grab on to a cactus, the walk home was incredibly beautiful. I will never forget it.