Checkmate!

Thanks to John, the PCV who lives in Latacunga, I now have something to occupy my nights. He found some cheap chess sets and gave me one. I´m currently trying to teach the kids next door how to play chess, or ajedrez, in Spanish. I´m on a pretty good winning streak against them, but the are starting to pick it up.

It has been a busy week and a half, starting off with another first for me. I got to help slaughter my first hog! I went to visit one of the families in town the other day, and right as I got there, they were getting ready to kill the pig. We muscled it to the ground and then the 60-something mother of the family stabbed the pig in the heart. It took only a minute for the pig to die, and then we put it in a wheelbarrow and poured boiling water over it. We had to keep moving the pig in the barrow to get the water over all of it, so I was glad that the clothes I was wearing were already dirty and therefore didn´t mind the bloody/shitty pig water getting on me. Next we ripped the hair and epidermis off the pig. We couldn´t get all the hair off, so my job was to shave the pig with a Bic razor (an activity I´m out of practice with as you´ll read). Then we ripped off the hoofs and cut it open and removed the guts to feed to the dogs. Next we separated the skin from the meat and rubbed it all over with spices before sending it to the next town over where they have big ovens that can roast a whole pig. The typical roast pork dish down here is called hornado and is very tasty. The family said I could come back the next day to eat, but unfortunately I had plans. My payment for shaving their pig instead was a plate of boiled potatoes with a couple of chunks of the pigs fried kidney. Not only did it smell like piss, but it was super tough (I only managed to try one small bite). Thankfully there were a couple dogs in the house who took care of the meat for me.

The other day my neighbor, Carlos, came into my house and asked me to help him cook some "American Food". He showed me a package with Mareican Army rations that he got from his work. Apparently the Ecuadorian Army is trying out some new MRE´s and Carlos got picked to see how they taste. The problem was that the instructions on how to heat it up were in English. I translated and we used the chemicals in the kit to heat up a nice spaggetti dinner. While WE were doing this, Carlos´wife, Sara, was gutting and ripping the hair off a couple of Guinea Pigs for their real dinner. When the pasta was ready, I offered some to Sara and she pulled away, shook her head, and wouldn´t eat. Disembowling a large rodent for your meal=OK. Chef Boyardee=Disgusting.

Another example of cultural differences happened on the bus back from the market this week. On the Pan-Americanthere was a bad accident about half a mile in front of us. As soon as our bus stopped in the traffic, litteraly 75% of the pasengers jump off the bus and sprinted up the road to the accident site to see the crashed cars. It wasn´t just the people in my bus, the side of the road was full of people running to try to see a dead body. I know that people will rubberneck in the States, but this is a whole different level. I don´t know, they think I´m odd when they see me outside on a clear night staring at the stars.

I spent my one free afternoon this week picking the radishes we planted last month. As I suspected, the ones I planted with a lot of space between them were huge, and the ones my neighbor planted were tiny. It didn´t matter to them though, because we fed them all to the rabbits. I found out that nobody in the family likes radishes, but then either do I. I then cleared and fertilized some more land for my new garden that I´m planting with lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, cucumber, and pumpkins. I´m goign to try covering this garden with a half assed plastic greenhouse that I´m making. I think it will help the non-lettuce plants especially, and may be an option for the families here if it works.

NOTES:
-I added another PCV´s blog link to the frontpage of my blog. He was a science teacher before he and his wife came down here. The blog is good, and I especially like the pictures of the poker game we had the other week. Check it out at http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/Puyo/blog-232911.html and scroll down to the pictures.

- Tungurahua, the volcano I passed on my way to the jungle for the Christmas party, is gettign ready to erupt. It is only about 40 miles away from me, and I can see it from the hills near my house, but I´m in no danger.

- This week I finally used up the first can of shaving cream that I brought down here. I hate shaving, and since nobody cares what I look like down here, I rarely shave. That is one of the benifits of life in the Peace Corps, but it does put you at a disadvantage when you have to shave a whole pig.