We walked our usual 4.5 miles early Monday morning; it had rained all night Sunday so it was beautiful and fresh as we walked. It still amazes us that we walk every morning in Cusco, Peru! There is such a history here and incredible remains of Inca ingenuity at every turn. While Julie walked to work she pulled something in her foot so that impacted her walks for the rest of the week. She was frustrated to say the least.
We brought bags of dried New Mexico chilies with us so finally found the right corn, more or less, and he made a pot of Posole. It wasn’t quite the same as he makes at home, but it was DELICIOUS never-the-less and Peru now has tortillas in the stores! We have been happy enjoying a “close taste of home” this week.
On Wednesday the young couple from upstairs came down and Julie taught Kati how to make “No Bake Cookies.” Kati’s husband Paul had a North American companion who made them on his mission and Paul has wanted some ever since. We had a fun evening with them and their 1 year old baby Matías. The baby sure makes us miss our adorable grandchildren!
Julie is happy because we finally got a stove with an oven. We haven’t tried the oven yet because we have no oven pans. We’ll have to go shopping this coming week. The stove had been in the church and used very little. It required some cleaning but looks great now. The funny thing is the oven control has markings for “Min and Max!” No numbers of any kind. Julie will have to do some experimenting and we’re sure it’s not at all efficient. We’ll see what happens with it.
We saw a few stores this week with some plastic Halloween pumpkins for sale, Peru really doesn’t do Halloween …or so we thought! On the morning of the 31st Julie saw a costume parade of the preschool just up the street from us. Many of the stores had orange and black balloons and “spider webs” in the windows and the employees were dressed in costumes. In the Tupac Amaru Plaza up from our apartment, the place was full of vendors selling costumes, plastic trick or treat pumpkins and other Halloween paraphernalia. Suddenly, overnight and in true Peruvian fashion, it was Halloween everywhere!
Later that evening Rich went to the center and it had become packed. Thousands upon thousands of trick-or-treaters jammed the whole center. They do not generally go from house to house; rather, they hit up the various store owners. Cars could not circulate there and it teamed with kids in Spiderman costumes and the knife-through-the-head motif came in a close second and seemed particularly popular. Some were truly creative, check out the little ladybug in the pictures. The tradition was virtually unheard of six or seven years ago, now it has gone nuts.
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| Halloween Cusco Style |
At the same time that we saw the Halloween paraphernalia in the plaza, bread vendors had set up dozens of stands to sell the traditional t’antawawa a very stylized sweet, bread loaf, shaped sort of like a papoose with a sugary baby’s face on the top. T’anta is Quechua for bread and wawa means baby. They also have a class of these bread loaves that are shaped like a horse with a horse’s head incorporated. They sell thousands of these loaves between October 31 and November 1, Day of the Dead. A national holiday, Day of the Dead is celebrated by taking food to the cemetery where a plate is laid at the front of the tomb of the departed and the family sits around and enjoys a picnic with the Spirits there. They also take advantage of being in the cemetery to tidy up graves and nichos and even paint a bit should the tomb in question be of the painted variety. The bread goes to the cemetery and is part of the meal there.
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T'antawawa, Day of the Dead Bread
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| Ordinary, Daily Bread Dealer |
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Typical Baby T'antawawa
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An interesting little linguistic detail here has to do with the difference between, “t’anta,” “ tanta,” and “thanta.” The a’s are all soft. “T’anta,” means bread and is pronounced with a distinct stop with the toungue, almost like a d behind the upper teeth before saying the, “anta.” “Tanta,” spoken with an English t means old and with the word for cloth means a rag and is used as a derogatory word for a useless person. “Thanta,” spoken with a very soft t, means, greasy filth.
Anyway, the story behind baby bread is fascinating. We have heard three possible parts:
1) When we first lived here we were told that the bread making activity falls 9 months after Carnaval and represents a sort of validation of the babies conceived during that bacchanalian month.
2) Now we are told that they represent babies who have died and that does seem to fit with the Day of the Dead activities.
3) Finally, those with the candy horses heads, represent the horses that transfer the souls of the dead to alaq'spacha (where the sun, moon and stars hang out in indigenous mythology)…
Horsey T'antawawa
Also on the Day of the Dead, Cusco tradition has everyone eating roasted suckling pig. In the parks, they have stalls dedicated entirely to pork. Now this roast pork smells decadently divine and irresistible. They also eat tamales that are nothing like Southwest tamales except for the masa and the corn husks. They make them with a tiny portion of pork and they make varieties that are sweet flavored. Not divine, they are just very good! The pork is divine and the closest thing to good Southwest barbecue that we have found. We are pretty sure that this will offend someone somewhere but, “them’s the breaks.”
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| Roast Pig Festival |
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| A Heap of Slow Cooked Pork |
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Traditional Day of the Dead fare: pork...and more pork
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| Day of the Dead beverages |
We went to Curahuasi, that we are pretty sure is spelled wrong now that Rich has been taking his Quechua classes… Because it fell on a holiday, cars were scarce when we got to the “terminal.” We wound up taking a microbus, called a combi. It takes one back to the sixties, although these do have seats in them and not just a mattress and there are no peace signs or flowers painted on the sides of them. They crammed thirteen people into the combi and we got in the very back seat. The driver was responsible and drove well despite rain the entire way.
Upon our arrival in Curahuasi, in a pouring rain, we found the town completely closed up for the holiday. With a little panic seizing our hearts, we made our way to the hostel, past every shuttered building. How relieved we felt when the door to the hostel opened and there was room at the inn! Indeed, by 7pm businesses began to open up and we even got our charbroiled chicken and fries!
Rich has decided that no such thing as male pattern or any other pattern baldness has ever happened in Apurimac. Nearly everyone in the polleria gaped and pointed at the bald, white devil while they ate. In the morning, he was accosted by a recovering drunk who wanted to know, in Quechua, what a bald man had any business doing walking up the streets in Curahuasi. In fairness, he was drunk.
At church we taught a lesson on genealogical research and we returned to Cusco in a good and comfortable car, without event.
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The pictures are, as usual, wonderful. I especially like the one of the cute little fellow with the toy car. Wondering what beverage(s) is(are) in those large containers. I'm also wondering from what the drunk "recovering drunk" is recovering. Thanks for another fun trip.
ReplyDeleteI miss chupe de camarones so much! Looks like you had a fun day!
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