Harvest and School and Life

Harvest has begun on Taquile

We approach the Autumnal Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere and crops are beginning to mature.The major crops on Taquile are Potatoes, Quinoa, Oca, and Corn. Oca is a tuber in the oxalis family with pretty yellow flowers. Quite sweet if placed in the sun for an couple of hours before cooking.

Here we see the beautiful quinoa, tall stalks. Many people are now putting plastic or scarecrows around their quinoa to save it from the birds.

In the foreground is oca in bloom with yellow flowers.

Gonzalo and Pelajia have begun harvesting their quinoa. Here it is drying in the sun just after harvest:

The potato fields are all in bloom. We have been enjoying new potatoes since Carnaval. Up to now, most have been from "volunteer" potatoes among other crops, but some further harvest is beginning. We have some problems with a "guzano," a grub sort of worm in the potatoes, so sometime I hear the joke that our harvest is in competition with the guzanos. Most have looked very healthy this year so far.

A few fields were planted very late, these potatoes may be quite small and will probably be used to make chuño, or freeze dried potatoes. Sam and I helped Celbia cultivate this small field of late planted potatoes:

School Starts

Just as autumn signals harvest, it also brings the first day of school. This is a day of pomp, with gifts of pens for the students, speeches from teachers and the mayor, and the school student body president. And, naturally, confetti.

The grade school children get gifts of pencils, balloons and lolipops.

Fun and Play
We celebrated Eufrasia's birthday with pineapple and mangos in the afternoon, and then Sam and I cooked supper. Coconut cream in Asian style vegetables with quinoa on the side instead of rice. And no, I didn't take of picture of the meal. Darn!

Of course, playing with children is the most fun. Lisbet can be quite organized with flower blossoms:

Here she poses for us before a large cantuta bush (almost a tree) in full bloom:

Community Radio
I am a volunteer for KVNF, Mountain Grown Community Radio in Paonia, Colorado, so naturally, I am interested in this little community radio station on Taquile. Besides, I had a couple of announcements to place on the radio and a visit to the station was the best way.

This DJ uses his video pad and a cell phone to play the music. The other DJ I visited runs the music from his two phones. Checks the levels with a radio in the window. It works!

Fun with Food

People ask us what we eat, so . . . 

Miqui, SOUP, Quechua noun;
     Miqui, EAT, Quechua verb.  

The most fundamental food the indigenous highlands of the Andes is a juicy vegetable soup based on potatoes. Together with herbal teas,  usually made from fresh local plants, such as the perennial mint, muña, provides liquid as well as nourishment. The soups are varied, with quinoa or pearled barley or crushed corn, usually thickened with squash known as sapaillo, sometimes containing freeze-dried potatoes known as chuño. The soup is always the first course, but often a secundo follows the soup. 

Enhanced by varied sources of ingredients which come from the Amazonian jungle, the oases in the coastal desert and the high altitude plains, Peru has become known for its creative cuisine. The traditions and creativity have spread throughout the country. This year we took pictures of especially yummy foods and attractive presentations. 

Market in Lima reveals the abundance.

On special occasions, such as with well-paying tourist guests, dinner is served on the fish-shaped platters. Ruperta is an excellent cook and this trout was poached in a mixture of ginger, onion and red bell peppers. Note the plate of coca leaves for the after-dinner tea on the upper left.

potatoes, trout, with rice in a fish-shaped platter 

Ruperta was always happy when Sam bought checking to bring home. Note the muña for after-dinner herbal tea in the upper right of the photo.

Chicken stew with rice, soup

fried trout and potatoes with beets, green beans, sweet potato

City treat is to take a group out for dinner at the broasted chicken restaurant. We can host eight to 10 people for the price of the two of us at a moderate restaurant in the U.S.

Yaquelin enjoys her first restaurant meal: Pollo a la Braza

In Spain and Peru (in contrast to Mexico), a tortilla is an egg scrambled with onion and tomatoes or other vegetables:

Soup, egg tortilla, beet salad & french fries.

One day I travelled to Puno alone on the early boat and went out for a treat of a meal by myself: Ceviche served with camote sweet potatoes and toasted corn.

Ceviche in a restaurant in Puno

Celbia's sheep broke his foot, so we ate it. 

Delfin and Clever butcher the sheep.

The result was a meal of roasted mutton with camote (sweet potatoes, new potatoes and rice, with rocoto (fresh salsa) on the side.

Thanks, sheep, for giving your life for our nutrition

Sometimes food is too yummy to take the picture before it is half eaten. These baby new potatoes with a beet salad was one of these times.

 beet/carrot/onion/lime juice salad

In Lima, food is more summery, salads instead of soup.

Lentils with sea fish served with avocado salad

Stuffed Avocado--chicken salad

For really special occasions on Taquile, I mix up some banana cake and bake it in the solar cooker. This was Eufrasia's birthday, Feliz Cumpleaño! Definitely not Andean traditional, but becoming a Tara and Sam tradition.

birthday banana/chocolate cake in the solar cooker  

Harvest time on Taquile

Early Potato Harvest
We helped digging and carrying new potatoes.

Digging potatoes

 After harvest we  pour out the sacks so we don't carry the dirt home.

Small mid-morning harvest

Sam carries potatoes; all I have to carry are the hoes

Silvano repairs the Chakitaklya, the Andean Foot Plow,
for early sod-busting in preparation for next year's planting. He has made the curved parts from manzanita wood, carefully pruned and chosen for the right shape.

Brand new chakitaklya

assembled with rawhide

 After wrapping tightly with rawhide, Silvano drives sticks under the hide to make it even tighter. When it dries it will be a strong tool, ready to take busting sod to an art form.

make it really tight

Harvest time is also Back-to-School time. 
Here are some pictures from opening day celebrations:

Elementary school kids get balloons

Secondary gets confetti in their hair

Secondary School also had a bit stonger pomp and circumstance:

Seated in the upper right are the officers of Taquile

I am told that less than a quarter of the students show up for the first week. However, education on Taquile is getting more strict. They doubled the number of teachers in the High School this year, and most of the elementary grades have two rooms per grade. I hope this means more attention and smaller classes.

Turning the Earth

Agricultural rhythms on Taquile Island

The citizens of Taquile Island practice a 6 year crop rotation cycle: The first year are potatoes, the second, oca, a sweet delicious tuber in the oxalis family, and the third fava beans and sometimes corn and quinoa. The next three years are fallow, with sheep grazing which fertilizes the soil. When a field is ready to return from fallow to crops, the people dig up the grass near the end of the rainy season to recover over the winter.

Oca in the sun

Before cooking, oca is left in the sun for a day, which makes it sweeter!

Oca in flower

When people ask, "What do you DO for two months on Taquile?" we tell them we do what they do. In this case, prepare a field for the next planting season, voltear tierra, or turn the earth/the soil. Withe the strong tradition of reciprocity, or--in Quechua--ayni, within the Taquile culture, several men joined us to dig with the traditional foot hoe. The women worked to remove rocks from the field. This particular field was deep, rich sand-humus soil, very few rocks. I want to mix it up with my Colorado clay soil.

many hands make light work

Little Lisbet and Brayan have a good time in the dirt clods.

Children have fun while men dig

Blessing of the First Seeds

Llachon (with an accent on that "o"), is the last town on the end of the Capachica Peninsula.

We were honored by being included in the annual Blessing of the First Seeds Ritual. We are staying at the home of Asunta and Armando. Asunta is the big sister of our oldest goddaughter, Noemi, and is married to Armando who grew up her in Llachon. We borrowed traditional clothing. This is my outfit all set out on the bed:  montera or shade hat, jacket, chuco or head covering, and skirt.

The day starts with a procession from the plaza up to the furthest high point on the Capachica Peninsula, known as Apu Karu, or by an older title, Auki Karu. Leading the procession are three men carrying incense censers. They are followed by the village officers or authoridades and their wives, three shaman or pacos, the band, and then the rest of us. Sam and I filed in among the authoridades, giving them coca as Armando instructed us. I had given Armando our camera and we had permission to take pictures, so most of these photos are his work.

incense censer

The procession stopped several times to rest, giving us time to become more aquainted with others, to share coca and take up some of the weight that needed carried to the top of the mountain.

giving coca to the authoridades

We were given white flags to carry in the procession. About 45 people walked in the procession, but by the middle of the ritual over 200 people were present.

Sam looks dapper in his Indiana Jones hat, yes?

Our first ritual stop was at the cross at the top of the hill, blessing/smudging with the incense. Sam and I were both invited to swing the censer in front of the cross.

Then up the the sacred stone circle, a walled room where the ritual will take place:

First speeches and we pass before the authoridades and their wives, greeting--and being greeted in return--with hats in hand, "Que sea buen misa," or "May it be a good mass."

note Sam on the left

The stones that block the doorway to the sacred circle were removed and first in were the incense censers. Each of the authoridades swung the censer around the center stone table in blessing/smudging and the censer was handed to Sam. He also blessed the stone. I held back, thinking that we might be overstepping our welcome, but I was called forth to perform the rite. We were the only ones besides the central authoridades and their wives who performed this rite. I felt very honored.

Shortly afterward, coca was passed around and everyone got in line to bring our prayerful chosen coca leaves (known as a kint'u) to give to the pacos which they added to a despacho, a paper-lined collection of flowers and wine and incense. The pacos were focused and attentive to each person, to each collection of prayer-laden leaves. People have come from all over the region to present their prayers for health and good crops.

They also bring the new potatoes, samples of their first crops of oca, quinoa, fava beans, corn. These First Seeds are placed on the round stone table/altar in the center of the circle.

First seeds being blessed

Candles are lit and offered.

holding our candles

We take a little break in the middle of the day, as the long line of people are still in line ofering their kint'us. Asunta has brought lunch, knowing that the community food would be delayed. Armando takes our picture with Taquile in the background.

All dressed up!

Then the dancing starts! Three times around the outside of the stone walled circle, then three or more time around the center round table with the seeds. We spill wine on the seeds and pour it down each other's throats. Four dancers are supposed to represent four kinds of potatoes, but I don't know which ones--then suddenly they tell me that I am the White Potato (with my pale skin and white hair). It is great fun. I pause for Armando to take my picture:

The White Potato dances around the seeds

Those who brought their first fruits mix what was brought and take it away. Ceremonial objects in a cache under the altar are attended to and the cache is sealed. The pacos light three fires for each of the three despachos, which they burn, tending the fires until they are pure ash.

The sacred space under the table is sealed

We leave the sacred circle and gather for a community lunch. Steamed food is placed on clean cloths on the ground, as is the common way to make a picnic here. Sam and I are invited to sit with the authoridades. Again, I am amazed at the honors given to us.

lunch

Finally the doorways are sealed with rocks, The attendees have already begun to find their own way down the hill. We wait and complete the ceremony by joining the procession down, as we did this morning for the procession up. Armando gives me back the camera and climbs up to remove the Peruvan Flag and the White Flag that he placed next to the cross this morning. Sam carries the Peruvian flag down.

Armando climbs up to take down the flags

The next week is to be dedicated to blessing individual fields.
We visit all of Armando and Asunta's fields over the next two days, decorating with flower petals and colorful paper strands and sprinkling wine.

Sam, Asunta, Jhoel, Tara, Kusi, Sarita

Flowers in the air

Tara sprinkles wine on the potato field.

A thatch-roofed shelter near our high altitude field

Ancient Chulpa above Llachon