Turkey Day

Well, to be more accurate, Turkey Slaughter Day. Instead of gathering the family together in the scenery of late fall, my friends and I rented a cabin on a tropical beach. The weather was hot and sunny on the scorching sand, but comfortable and shady under the coconut trees. We maintained a continual fire of coconut wood for the duration of our stay, building it up to large proportions after sunset. We surfed, drank batidos and beer, ate seafood, swam, hiked, and played american football.

The premise of Thanksgiving is of course family, friends, and food. Our perception of how to rightfully celebrate the holiday morphed along with our reconaissance of information. Before our arrival (and in the weeks leading up to it) we pictured fish and fried plantains in an open fire. To accomodate this fantasy, we stocked up on tinfoil at the grocery store in a larger coastal town. While this idea was valid and served us well for the first night of our retreat, the tinfoil ran out quickly and the owner of the cabin lent us a grill to place over the fire. This opened up a world of possibilities.

Idea number two came when we saw the fisherman bringing in the catch on our second evening. A few others and I ran over to their truck, which was loaded up and ready to head out. We figured on buying some smaller fish to cook that night. None of us were ready for the sight of that truck. Instead of the typical sea bass, flounder, and bagre, the fisherman had eels the width of telephone poles, weird fish with fins coming out of places I never would have imagined, and manta rays with 6-foot diameters. When asked how a manta ray may be cooked, a local woman told me breaded and fried. ´Muy rico´, she said. This sounded quite interesting as a thanksgiving day meal, although none of us had experience slaughtering anything close to a manta ray.

Idea number three came when we saw the owner of our rented cabin´s poultry raising operation. She had one main house with full-grown animals that roamed her beach front property, as well a separate building for the babies. In addition to the normal chickens, she also raised turkeys. Not only this, but she had a beautiful alpha male turkey ripe for the chopping block. This of course was our most appropriate option, but she would not sell it for less than $60. With our collective turkey appraisal experience, we deemed this pricing not extraordinary. After all, what are the chances that this lady would have such a unique turkey ready for us to eat?

The decision to buy took us another day. Once we woke up on Thursday morning, our minds and wallets were in acccordance. We walked over to turkey´s house, brought it over to our fire pit, laid its head on a makeshift chopping block, and took its head off with one smooth gesture of the machete. We then proceeded to defeather, clean the insides, and cut up for cooking. Without a rotisserie spit, it would have been difficult to roast a whole turkey over an open fire. So, we grilled as though it were midsummer in the northeast. Some of the tastiest and most unique turkey I have ever had, enjoyed under the shade of tropical coconut trees, with feet in the sand, hand on a beer, waves a-crashin´, and friends all around.

Slaughtering ones own animals surely induces an ambivalent feeling among many of my readers. While I understand the apprehension to embrace this aspect of the food chain, I will also repeat many people who have come before me and say: to all of you meat eaters, this death must occur for you to enjoy animal protein. No matter how far away it feels from your Peter Luger steak, your meat chili, your chicken burrito, or your thanksgiving turkey, this death is closely connected to your food. Modern society allows us to look away and forget this link in the chain of life, but it is still there, and we should all engage it when given the opportunity. One should feel the full karmic gravity and pay the emotional price of enjoying their food.

Click the link on the top right for more pictures of the events described herein.

Pondering Purpose

After almost 7 months at site, I have had a lot of time to reflect on my role as a Peace Corps volunteer. Without much of a mandate, starting projects has been hard and free time has been ample. As you may imagine, it can be difficult to find motivation when you have no fixed work plan and you rarely report to your superiors.

There are many days in which I find myself without a schedule. I wake up and must decide how to fill my time. On these days, I end up reading a lot, going into town for sundries, cooking an intensive meal, baking a pie, walking the countryside, talking with people in my village, working in my garden, handwashing laundry, taking care of my chickens, or playing soccer with local kids. Some of these days are supremely satisfying, especially when I make a new connection, learn something new and interesting, or at least not sit around and do literally nothing. Some of these days, however, I feel futile. What is my position here? What can these people really learn from me? Am I intergrating as well as I could be? Will my community be better off when I leave? Am I giving as much as I am getting out of this experience? These questions fill my mind on those days in which I feel purposeless. While that is a shame to ever think of oneself, Peace Corps work requires patience, persistence, and the ability to fail.

Instead of allowing these darker thoughts to permeate my person, I try to use them as a point of motivation. (What better than lack of purpose and futility as a means of motivation? Or what worse?)

On the days in which I have something scheduled, I of course feel much more purposeful and utilized. This may include english class at the school, working in the school garden with the kids (which is starting to look quite productive), or cooking class. Yup, my zuchinni, banana, and apple-carrot breads have enjoyed such wild popularity with the Ecuadorians with whom I have regular contact, I have begun a weekly cooking class. Wednesdays at 2 PM in Messi Astaya´s house, for any of my readers who may be interested.

The first week I put up flyers around town advertising a ¨Clase de Hornear con Jacobo¨. I had originally hoped to teach the village mothers how to bake these sweet breads. Their children would certainly be grateful. However, only three such mothers showed up for the first class. I instead got a nice slice of life (mothers, children, fathers, teenagers). The same group met up the following week to make pizza, and I mentioned the possiblity of turning this into a microenterprise. We would bake during the week and sell our product at the Sunday market in town. As momma always said, ¨We shall see¨.

Although I find myself pondering my real purpose here during slow times, I look around at the place in which I live and consider myself lucky. If all it takes is a few flyers around town to get a project started, there is nothing holding me back from making a real impact.

School Garden

The greatest challenge thus far in my Peace Corps service has been creating my own work. I was placed in my town of 400 people with no real counterpart to help me in the process of integration or give me direction in my work. So, I fill my days trying to get farmers excited about organic agriculture, talking to them abstractly about building a composting toilets, tending to my garden and chickens, as well as walking the countryside. Beyond this, I work with the school both teaching English classes and running the garden. Because it is a consistent obligation (rather than sporadic meetings with random campesinos), I get to work closely with kids, and I can directly view the results of my work, what I do with the school has given me the most satisfaction of anything yet.

The previous volunteer had a school garden as well, but only used a small portion of the land available. After negotiating with the town´s group of mothers, I have full license to use the land as I see fit.

Each 7th grade student gets their own plot of land, upon which they plant, tend, and harvest. I provide the seeds (some of which I got donated, some of which I bought) and help them with both techical knowledge and the physical labor. Anything harvested goes directly to the kitchen to feed the entire student body during lunch.

The degree to which they take pride in their own land is incredible. I expected to constantly provide motivation for them to work on their plot, since after class every afternoon, they find themselves working their family´s land as a chore. Yet, even when I am not present, they are out in the hot sun watering, weeding, or simply admiring their work. Must be either the spirit of competition or challenge of doing it all by themselves, but I have some good gardeners at my disposal.

Looking into the future on this project, I would like to make it sustainable. Instead of just a few students planting vegetables during the school year, I want to include more grade levels, build a greenhouse and composting toilet, as well as get some animals to 1) provide pest control, 2) manure, and 3) protein in the student´s daily lunch diet.

Unfortunately, these fine ambitions require money, the likes of which will not come from the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education. Therefore, in the next few weeks, keep your eyes out for a means of donating both to this school garden project and my composting toilet project.

Pictures Explained:

1) Me distributing seeds wearing my indigenous outfit.

2) 7th grade students showing the seeds they are about to sow.

3) Happy face.