San Clemente: Indigenous Prom and Cooking in the Dirt

Saturday morning we woke up before 6am (oh, how late!) and helped make fried plantain empanadas. Next we all donned indigenous outfits and had our version of a prom photo montage.

Me, Kaitlyn, Katie, Katy, and Jacqueline

Jacqueline, 2 of our host siblings, and me

We helped prepare all of the food (choclo, peas, more peas, sweet potatoes, potatoes, pineapple, chicken and pork wrapped and tied in leaves, cabbage and plantains) and dig the hole for the food.

After layering ALL of the food with hot rocks from the fire, we covered it in dirt and a small band began to play a song and stomp in a circle around the dirt. Everyone joined in the stomping dance and we did this for 30 minutes. An hour and a half later, we did the same thing again.

Adding hot rocks to the oven in the ground

Dancing and stomping on the soil over the "oven"

You have to wait until all of the dirt is flat because this signifies that the food is cooked. The total ceremony, called Pachamanca which is also to welcome the fall season, and cooking process took a little over two hours.

ALL of this food fit in the hole in the ground!

  After another short ceremony, we feasted and then siesta'ed. Later that night, we had a talk about indigenous medicine. First the midwife of San Clemente gave a presentation about child birthing in the community. It was really interesting because in indigenous communities, the mothers give birth standing on their knees while the father holds their arms for support. Additionally, after they give birth, the midwife massages the mother's abdominal area for up to a month to ensure that her body stays healthy. Next, we watched (and two members of our group participated) la limpia, which is where a medicine man uses a guinea pig to absorb the problem or illness and then observes its body to diagnose the person. It was kinda sad because it died when it was violently rubbed over the person's body.

The guinea pig being rubbed all over my friend Luis

Observing the body (the skin is floating in the water)

 Later in the night, we attended a "concert" with the same band that had played at the Pachamanca. It was pretty hilarious because they played the same song from the ceremony...9 different times (to be fair, there were different lyrics, but they're in Kitchwa, which we don't know).

Sunday morning we woke up and helped make plantain empanadas. Jacqueline and I actually shaped, flattened, and formed and folded all of the 50ish empanadas (#gringawin). Preparing breakfast took more than two hours and afterward, we all had a goodbye ceremony. We sang a goodbye song for them (we may or may not have sang Wagon Wheel. Oh whatever, it's basically a goodbye song...it has a slow tempo!) and they gave each of us a rainbow scarf, which symbolizes the indigenous struggle. Next, we rode the bus to Cotacachi-Cayapas, an ecological reserve with a giant volcano. We took a boating tour on what I thought was a giant lake, but it turned out that we were INSIDE of the volcanic crater of the active volcano, volcán Cuicocha! The lagoon formed 3,000 years ago after an eruption and the water was crystal clear and comes from snow melt and rain. Since there is no true bottom (it just drops off), there are no fish, but you can see the bubbling from the gas from the volcano. Afterward, we drove to Otavalo for lunch and for a short shopping spree in the famous market. More importantly, we convinced the program director to buy us all pie from the famous pie shop. Free pie? Yep, a great end to a fantastic weekend :)