Food

Hey all,

This week has been more of the same, although I did walk to the town across the canyon to visit another volunteer Saturday, which pretty much left me burnt out. It took four hours of descending into the canyon through all kinds of terrain and then climbing back up and out to the highway. This is particularly difficult at altitude, and as skinny as I’m getting I’m still in terrible shape. Should probably start up that running pretty soon… Getting back was as difficult, but only an hour as I hopped a ride from my fellow volunteer’s town back home. As far as work goes, I got to talk to a local governmental agency called Sierra del Sur about a variety of projects, including a women’s savings club that will be meeting next week. I’ll also be meeting with a residential tourism group that needs revitalizing and the mayor to talk over some possibilities, including starting a town library. Still no dice on the radio show though, although I’m working on getting the radio key.

This week’s topic is food, then. For the most part, it’s pretty tasty, although after they butchered a sheep we ate random guts for a week straight. Not my favorite week. They have a different approach to meals in the canyon. Breakfast and lunch are the biggest meals of the day and more or less the same. Dinner might be a smaller plate of food or just tea or coffee and bread. I don’t get a whole lot of meat, although when I do it is usually sheep jerky or on good days chicken. We also get alpaca, a llama-like animal, every once and awhile. Yesterday in my friend’s town we even had donkey, which was tough but not too bad.

Generally, though, we eat rice with some sort of side that usually involves potatoes, including a type of sun-dried potato, called chuño, that tastes awful in most settings and the very strong regional red onion. One of my favorite meals is spaghetti with a sauce made primarily from shaved carrots. Soup is another constant, and is usually quite good and sporting potatoes and chives. My mother also makes a simple cheese that is quite good and often makes tostado, which is just corn fried until it is nice and crunchy. To drink we get fresh milk, tea brewed from local herbs, coffee, or chicha, which is kind of like a sour beer brewed from corn that usually isn’t alcoholic. Overall I can’t complain, and going into the capital once a month gives me the opportunity to get hamburger now and again so I can’t really ask for more.