Time in Tunibamba

The other night A and I went to stay with a local family in the community of Tunibamba, about 30 minutes from Otavalo. We were told there would be ¨activities¨ and we would get to know how the locals lived here in Ecuador. When we arrived we met Carmen, the woman of the house, and after a few minutes of chatter, she said she needed to go get some beans- so of course we followed. She took us to one of their fields, where they were growing frijoles and corn. Such a good use of space, they planted the frijoles in between the corn so they would have both. She showed us which ones were ripe and we helped her pick some and just asked all these questions about the farm. It was great to finally get some answers about why and how they do things on the farm. After picking the beans we helped shell them all for dinner later while Carmen told us about the traditions for Day of the Dead, which happens immediately after Halloween. Families bake bread in the shape of animals for the people in there life who passed away in a way of honoring them, and keeping away the evil spirits. They spend all Saturday baking the bread, and then visit the cemeteries on Sunday. It is a pretty big event here, so it seems.

After shelling beans we relaxed a bit. I saw Marco, the 8 yr. old son playing soccer in the yard. I couldn´t resist going over to play with him-and he loved it! I love that just playing with a kid can cross all sorts of language and cultural boundaries. Before we played soccer he was a little shy, but that definetly broke the ice. Even later that night he asked me to play again, after we took the cow to drink water and put her away for the night...I had to let him win- so he gloated over dinner, saying that Ecuador beat the United States!

In the afternoon the husband, Alfonso, came home and took us for a walk. We went to see the community potato field. Such a good concept, they have a few fields that they grow crops for the people in the village. If you participate in harvesting the crops, you get to take some home for your family. ¨Working for Food¨ is really the motto here. Alfonso explained that they have 3 or 4 days to collect all the potatoes, and they have to do it when it´s not raining. There were about 40 people there when we arrived, all taking a break. Before we knew it, we walked into the field and were handed a bag to start collecting potatoes! Of course, this brought a few rounds of giggles from all the locals, but we tried our best. Adrian and I filled about 3 huge bags of potatoes, and then everyone was done for the afternoon-except for the loading of the potatoes into the tractor. I left that to Adrian, as the bags easily weighed 70 to 90lbs!!! Good times.

We had a lovely dinner that night and we chatted with Carmen and Alfonso. It was really interesting and we had a great time. The two were really involved in their community and thinking of ways to improve it. They were trying to establish an animal market in the town in addition to their weekend vegetable market, and she also volunteered to help people with medical problems in the community. Who knew that goat milk cured so many things?!

I really enjoyed our day there, it was nice to catch a glimpse of how the Indigenous people of Ecuador live. It was great of them to open their homes to us and share their lives with us, if even for a short time.