Day 5 - Afternoon by Chloë Niemann and Jonah Sachs-Wetstone.

         After lunch we got back on the bus and drove to the village of Santa Anita, Pulingi, where we split into two groups to help two of the women from the community, Jimena and Cristina, with their chores. One group went with Cristina to her land where they helped her mix avena, beans, lentils, and rye. They helped her spread the seeds on a small plot of land on a steep incline, which we learned helped prevent birds from stealing the seeds. Then we helped her till the soil with hoes, turning it over to cover the seeds.

         The other group went with Jimena to help harvest her potatoes. We used hoes to turn over the rows of potatoes, finding the red and yellow potatoes in the mounds of overturned dirt. We found a lot of other things in the soil, including silver grubs called gusanos, which eat potatoes, and shards of colored pottery, which Jimena said could be found all over the fields. Jimena was better than all of us put together at finding the potatoes underground. We put them into sacks which we carried back to her house, where we said hello to her cat. We also learned a new word, yupaichani, which means thank you in Kichwa, the native language of the highlands.

         After our chores, we took the bus back to the hotel and had a delicious dinner of quinoa soup, llapingacho, which is a traditional Ecuadorian dish that consists of mashed potatoes in a ball with cheese. There was also fried eggs (which went on top of the llapingacho and was great with hotsauce), avocado salad, and meat. Dessert was strawberry jello, until we held a surprise birthday party for Pablo. We had a delicious cake, and learned a wonderful new Ecuadorian tradition of shoving the birthday boy’s face into his cake. He then broke a piñata full of Ecuadorian sweets. 

Finally, there was a quintet of Kichwan musicians, playing traditional instruments, including panflutes, an animal hide drum, a guitar, and 12 string ukuleles. We danced for a long time, and we all ended up sweaty and wanting to take a long shower, no matter how cold the water really was.