Campeonas, Incas, Huertas, Bufandas, y Biscotti

September 2, 2008
Tuesday
1:10 PM
Sayausi
Living Room



Campeonas
As you already know I am a member of a women’s soccer league here in Sayausi. What you do not know is the story of my rise to fame and glory within that league.

Two weeks ago my team played in the semifinals for the end of the year tournament. It was a tough team we played against; at least one of the players was taller than 5’0” and they wanted to win you could see it in their eyes and the eyes of their many children watching from the sidelines. The game began as all do 0-0 until a spectacular breakaway by yours truly and an absolutely perfectly placed kick into the net of the far post. The score 1-0 but an entire half remained and that team’s sweat wreaked of lust for gold and glory. With that sweat and a free kick from outside the penalty box the score was tied 1-1. Shortly thereafter the game ended, tied. Unlike regular tournament play there was no overtime, no sudden death victories, only penalty kicks.

Humble though I am I could not refuse my team’s request that I take one of the five penalty kicks in attempt to make our way to the finals. And not that I am one to brag, being modest and not keen of the spotlight, but I took the final and winning kick for our team. Yes we were on our way to gold and glory: the women’s soccer finals of Sayausi, Azuay, Ecuador. To celebrate my teammates bought two entire bottles of beer and divided it among the ten, yes ten, of us. However, they asked Mike to pour the beer because they didn’t know how to without making lots of little, tiny bubbles. My team is tough; really, really tough.

Two weeks passed but not one day where I didn’t think about running to get into shape for the upcoming game. Day after day of rigorous mental preparation and minimal actual preparation until finally the day arrived: August 30, 2008.

We took the field and stood proud as the national anthem played and the crowds cheered wildly. The team we were playing was scrappy and you could tell they wanted to draw blood or at least win (although not all of them showed up and they had to play a few people short so really I guess maybe they didn’t want it that badly). But their little elbows and big attitudes were no match for a team of women in tight red pants and a gringa….though really my role in this game was more of a psychological boost for them as I had a bit of stomach bug and really just hobbled (though it was a very athletic and graceful hobble) for the entire game. Nevertheless you cannot suppress the victory energy that I emit even on my sickest of days and as such we won 2-1 and became the campeonas of Sayausi.

Again we celebrated, this time with an entire 5 oz of a 20oz bottle of Zhumir (a locally made and mass marketed alcohol) mixed with agua de remedio (a pink super sugary tea that everyone drinks here at every meal). Nothing says champion like one tiny plastic cup of heavily diluted, sugary tea-alcohol passed among eleven sweaty women.

Later that night there was a medal ceremony during which we all received a medal and the team received a cash prize of $60.00 and a gigantic trophy. I don’t know what happened to the money but the trophy, at the behest of my fellow teammates and campeonas, was gifted to me. Yes the trophy that measures at least 2 feet in height but with a heart five times that size was given to me for being such a buena futbolista.

La gloria tiene otro nombre y es Mary.

Click below to see a video of our victory lap at the medal ceremony…I’m the one running with the giant trophy...



Inca Trail and Mike’s Mammal Guide
Several weeks ago Mike and I were supposed to go on a camping trip into Cajas to help with a mammal and bird study. However, it was cancelled and rescheduled for the following week because Cajas couldn’t find available horses nor an available park guard to accompany us and the other biologists (no one mentioned that it was because they tried getting these things the day before we were supposed to leave). In any event the trip was cancelled until the following week.

The following week we woke up at 5:00am and go wait with all of our things on the main street of Sayausi. We wait…and wait…and wait. After waiting four hours we made the mutual decision that they were not coming and returned to the apartment. We later learned that a few tourists had gotten lost in the park and all of the park guards were busy with that fiasco and so never came to pick us up.

Having given up (for now) on the idea of camping in Cajas we learned of another study that was going on that we could hike in and out from in one day. Mike planned it with another park guard that we would go out with him on Wednesday to help with the deer study and come back that same day. So, again we wake up at 5:00am and take a bus up to the park guard’s house where we were going to meet him to drive up into the park and then hike out.

After waiting ten minutes outside of the park guard’s house he finally emerged and said, “Habia un malcordinado.” He goes on to say that the study finished the day before and as such there was no reason to go out. We are now zero for three and so we decide to go for a hike by ourselves in Cajas as our packs are filled with snacks and all things hiking and our luck with park guards and biology studies seemed low to nonexistent.

We caught the next bus that passed and within 20 minutes we were in the middle of Cajas starting out on a nice little day hike. However, as seems to happen with Mike and myself our day hike turned into a day trek as we spent the next nine hours traipsing up and down hillsides, swinging from branches to avoid muddy pits, scooting down giant rocks, and generally enjoying ourselves on the Inca trail of Cajas where hundreds of years earlier the same trail was used for traveling to the coast.

My pants are still soaking to get the mud out.

On a somewhat unrelated yet geographically relevant note, Mike is still working on the Mammal Guide of Cajas. As of right now it is 150 pages, details the description and distribution of 43 species found in Cajas, features a picture of a wolf-fox taken by Mike, and has Mike’s name four times on the first page (he didn’t put it there but he did put my name in it once because I helped with some of the editing).

PeaceCorps is a little different the second time around.

(We included this Mike update because of the almost 200 pictures we have for this week he is not in one of them. Yes, this is partly my fault as he took almost all of the other pictures but he is also not one who jumps at the opportunity to have his picture taken. I specifically asked him if he wanted his picture taken with my trophy but for some reason he declined. Don’t worry he looks the same, better than ever. Unfortunately, for those of you who need visual confirmation the next post will probably also be lacking in Mike pictures as my dad will be here and Mike will most likely be taking pictures of me and my dad. I will try to drag him into a few so you can all see he still exists and that I just don’t make up random stories about him and what he is doing. We promise to dedicate the month of October to Mike and pictures of Mike.)

Huertas, Biscotti, Bufandas, and more…
PeaceCorps told us to try to avoid helping people fill out visa applications but when our old host mom’s sister had already received a visa to visit her son in Canada (who she hasn’t seen in five years) and wanted help filling out a transit visa so she could take a flight that stopped in the US, we figured it was OK to help. To fill out the transit visa (The visa that allows a person to take a flight with a layover in the US) her daughter Maribel came over to our apartment. After filling out the visa, I taught her how to make granola. A few days later she asked me how to make cookies (biscotti) because I had brought some over to her sister’s house and they were a smashing success. Unfortunately the visa application did not have as much success as the cookies. After a lot of money by Ecuadorian standards, a trip to Guayquil, and a lot of time, the transit visa was denied. Dona Rita is now looking for a direct flight to Canada, maybe for Christmas.

On a happier food related note, a week ago Sunday I taught Maribel (Rita’s daughter) how to make Biscotti Runa (Runa means people in Quichua). We called them biscotti runa because we used home hatched eggs which were much smaller than factory farmed eggs and as such we had to use four instead of three. Biscotti are now taking over the southern hemisphere.

While we were at her house making biscotti runa it came up that Maribel was going to be planting vegetables in their garden (huerta) this week. Mike then mentioned that I wanted to learn how to sembrar (plant) and cuidar (care for) a huerta. And so it came to be that four out of the next five days I was at Maribel’s house gardening in the morning and then giving cooking lessons for lunch.

I left out one cute part of this story. On Monday night after we made biscotti with Maribel and her family we were at home in our apartment when we heard a loud series of knocks on the door to our building. Our apartment doesn’t have a bell and we can’t see who’s outside the building door from our window so we usually just wait and see if the person goes away. The person did not go away so I went downstairs to see who it was.

It was Maribel.

Maribel was standing at the door with a bag full of yarn and a pair of knitting needles. I had mentioned on Sunday that I really wanted to learn how to knit and so she bought me yarn and needles when she went into Cuenca on Monday then came to our apartment to teach me how. So she stayed for close to two hours teaching me how to knit using the reverse stitch!

I have since brought the scarf (bufanda) that I am knitting up to her house several times when I go to garden and cook. The gardening and cooking are going well but the bufanda is definitely taking its time to grow to scarf length. However, Maribel can now successfully make cream of carrot soup, garlic knots, quinoa stew, biscotti runa, oatmeal cookies, pizza with sauce, and a white, cream sauce with vegetables all by herself…and her kids like most of it and being 5 years old on average that’s quite the victory.

Maribel has also showed me how to make a few Ecuadorian delicacies including aji and rompope. Aji is like mexican salsa but instead of using tomatoes (“tomate rinon” here in ecuador) you use “tomate de arbol” (“tree tomato” there in the states…if it existed there). You can see a few pictures of this native tree tomato fruit in our slide show. Look for it on the stove top next to the biscotti bar…something that has probable never happened in all of human history.

“Rompope” closely translates to “egg nog” which this is not. To make “rompope” you beat egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Then you beat in the yolks with a spoonful of sugar and two drops of wine (or Zhumir if that’s what is available). Then, you eat it with a spoon.

That pretty much sums up a few weeks in the lives of Mary and Mike in Sayausi; spreading cookie goodness and mammal madness the world over.

If you’re not already sold on coming to visit us in Ecuador, my dad is coming next week so our next post will be filled with specific examples of why you should come and what we could do while you were here…and if none of it appeals to you keep in mind that Ecuador has the Amazon Jungle and the Galapagos Islands as well, or we could meet you in the Caribbean somewhere as it’s halfway between here and the States.

As always, doulble-click to enlarge the image and see the slideshow and captions.