Rosalie has the house above us on the hill. At 56 she is a loving grandma. While her daughter is at work she looks after Carmila her granddaughter. When we visited she was doing the washing because, she told us, Carmila is a grubby little granddaughter, always playing in the dirt and mud. I had to admit she was right, when Carmila came out with mud up to her little shins and a purple stain on her shirt and cheeks.
This entry actually relates to Alicia’s photo. The guy in the photo is our favorite character in Chugchilán. He is a mute, and I think deaf. He communicates with in gestures and smiles. I’ve encountered him in the village and miles from anywhere walking around the hills. He walks around with his sack over his shoulder begging for food and the people of Chugchilán look after him, I have never seen him with an empty bag.
We give him something whenever he comes around and he gives us the biggest smile ever. It crinkles up his face and jumps into his eyes, then he shoulders the sack and ambles off, to I don’t know where.
Visibility 20 meters, that’s not a dive report, it’s the conditions on the volleyball court in Chugchilán, today. Twenty meters is longer than a volleyball court so play was not affected. And although it was cold the older men were still out on their bench playing cards.
I have noticed the older men tend to play more rummy and the younger guys Ecuacvolley. Those on the cusp of being in the old man camp but still energetic and able, play both.
Why would a child be walking to school with a bunch of spring onions? Maybe it’s all they had for lunch. What a terrible lunch.
Well at least it’s better than the kid who is going to school with a piece of firewood.
School lunch is provided in Chugchilán, not by the school but by children. Each child brings a vegetable to school or in some cases a piece of wood for the stove and the mothers take turns to cook up the haphazard assortment of ingredient into a meal for the kids. Hence the reason all the kids walk past with a vegi or piece of wood in hand.
Market day again, oh how great it is to see people, and strike up a conversation, or at least falter along in Spanish until we cover the basics and reach the limits of my vocabulary.
I met Alfonso today. He is 50 and has 5 children, the oldest is 26. He lives uphill from the village and is a farmer. He grows maize, broad beans, peas and potatoes. It was a rainy day today so Alfonso was wearing his red poncho. He told me it was made of the wool from his own flock, and would sell it to me if I wanted one. I looked warm but I needed the money for vegetables.
I worked out something, Saturday, today, is Kill A Cow Day. I walked into town and again there in front of me was a dead bovine. Today I arrived a bit earlier in the piece, the head was still attached. There was an upturned cow and a pool of thick red blood trickling its way down the road and over to the canyon.
Today I didn’t feel like another uneventful stroll through town instead I hiked the ridge above looking over Chugchilán. The landscape is a pure pleasure to behold. It is so grand and expansive. The mountains so majestically massive with canyons incised angular and deep at the foothills.
And somehow they farm all over it. A patchwork of greens with monopoly like huts dotted amongst the green checks, crease and crevices. Each monopoly house with its own dog barking, child laughing (or crying) and at least one per valley with the radio on full ball, bass lines reverberating across the fields.
There is a piglet loose around Chugchilán. Our worried neighbour came over this morning asking if we had seen a chancho (piggy). She motioned with her hands and showed an animal the size of a puppy. Just how far can an animal that small wander?
Today there was a cooking class going on in the town hall. I peered through the window along with the señoritas to see what was going on. The matronly lady giving the class was a little fairer skinned than most people from around here, so I asked the lady next to me where the teacher was from. I still stumble over Spanish words and what came out was not, where is she from? but when is she from?
The señorita giggled and replied “yesterday”.
“No, I mean where is she from?”
More giggling “from the day before yesterday”
They’re shy, but quick to take the piss around here.
I had a chat with José today. Jose runs a hostel that caters to the trickle of travellers that pass through Chugchilán. After we exchanged the usual pleasantries about how life is good and there is not too much work to do, José tells me he is off to work right now, then laughs and walks in the opposite direction from his hostel and over to the bench were he sits and plays cards most afternoons.
Rummy is the second game of choice in Chugchilán (volleyball being the first).
Market day again, looks like a busy day. I see plenty of lamb hocks hung up for the flies to rest on, but no beef from yesterday. There are only two ladies with stalls selling vegies and between them we spend $10. That’s the weekly food budget, which for us includes luxuries like papaya (not grown here). The staple foods and what most folks live on here are maize, potatoes and beans.
Today the cleaner was in town, and the butcher, in reality it was the same person and neither job was their profession, just the job they were doing when I was saw them.
Some guys were slaughtering a cow this morning. They just splayed it out on the concrete. Right in front of me on the footpath there was a severed head, cow hide with legs from the knee knuckle down still attached, a skinned quartered beast with two legs already hanging in the market place and the other two sitting next to the largest pile of guts I had ever seen.
A few hours later, I walked past the butcher’s concrete patch and the only telltale signs of the mornings earlier event was a neatly rolled hide with a broom stick on top, no blood, no flies, no mess. The cleaner is good.
Chugchilán is so quiet. There is just no background noise, no traffic, no bustle about the place, no wind even. The air sits, still, waiting to carry any audible noise vast distances. A small radio playing can be heard over a kilometer away. A single bird call can be startlingly loud.
There are things going on in town and people about. This afternoon there was a volleyball game on with over 35 people watching, laughing and cheering. Paradoxically the sound was not travelling. I walked away from the game and within meters I was enveloped in the silence of the clouds, a few steps more and I hear the melodies from a radio playing at the edge of town, eerie.
Today my encounter was rather primal in nature. It was me and the ram. It’s my job to take the sheep out to pasture every day and then secure them so they don’t wreak gastronomical havoc. This is a normal part of life in Chugchilán, and I am sure if Chugchilánians were connected to the net they could confirm this, but they are not, so just take my word for it.
So it’s me and the ram, every morning. All he wants to do is be with the ewes. If I deny him this right, (which invariably I do) he butts me. If he happens to be above me on the hill, his charge is aimed squarely at my chest and packs extra punch, today he came from above. Instinctively I knew those two steps back meant he was about the ram, I braced myself, and prepared to catch a flying rams head, I caught it, then fell back into a swale, ending up with a bucking rams head in my hands only inches from my head.
I am sure this was far more a dramatic experience, for me, than the average Chuhchilánian.
A very typical thing happened to me today. I went into town and passed the neighbour on my walk. We stopped and had a chat. I’m sure this sort of occurrence happens all over the world, but what do neighbours talk about in Chugchilán?
Pedro: Hello neighbour, how are you?
James: I am fine. All is good, all the time with me. I have no problems. And you?
Pedro: Well, your pig got into my place the other day and ate my potatoes. He ate loads of my potatoes; maybe you should pay for what your pig ate.
James: Oh, tell me what happened?
Pedro: (speaks more Spanish that I fail to comprehend).
James: Tell me one more time, what happened?
Pedro: (speaks more Spanish that this time I somewhat comprehend with the addition of hand gestures).
James: What day did this happen?
Pedro: Sábado.
James: Well come and find me after work, and we will inspect the damage the pig did.
Pedro: Ok see you later then.
As I walked away I realised that last Saturday I can distinctly remember not letting the pigs out for the day. Is that why all his mates were laughing?
Q. What is blue and yellow striped, gooey red on the inside and has 2 ears sticking out the top?
A. A pigs head in a plastic bag.
I was the fill-in English teacher at the local school, today. All was going fine, these timid mountain folk make for shy attentive students, then towards the end of the class I started losing students.
One boy excused himself and left, another excused himself and motioned for the bathroom, then another, then another before I decided to stem the flow of boys to the toilet. I had visions of kids smoking or toilet rolls flying around like streamers. I stuck my head out the door and looked in their direction, no smoke, no streamers, a good sign. When they did return I found out what they had been up to. They all returned with neatly combed hair; shiny, slicked, straight, black lines with a curvy wave at the front, pure latino.
Things are done by hand in Chugchilán. In the market today, Clara had little bags of fresh peas for sale. I know she hulled those peas herself, I saw her yesterday, her and her husband sitting down with a sack full of peas in the pod, slowly filling a bucket, pea by pea.
We bought some choclo (maize) from the market, 5 cobs for a $1, or I small bag of kernels, about the size of a cob, for 50c. Sitting down behind the stall I saw an old man pulling the kernels off the cob, kernel by kernel.
Probably the most skillful display of manual labor, I saw today, was the chip lady. She could peal a potato and cut it into chips all while surveying the market or talking to friends. She would pick up the potato, hold it in one hand, then draw the knife towards her palm, deftly peeling the potato and then slicing nice long chips with only the slightest glance down between conversations.
Chugchilan has three bars that I know of. I say that I know of because only one of the three has a sign announcing its presence, Bar Cervecero. The other two are just rooms with a table in the middle and crates of beer staked against the wall.
At Bar Cervecero I met Kerly and Joan. They were minding the bar and If I was buying, selling the beer, Joan was 11 and his sister 3. Joan was really helpful and knew the price of everything, Beer $1, Cola 25c and Bread 10c. Kerly was more interested in playing with her ball.
The milk truck makes the windy journey up to Chugchilán from Sigchos, every morning. It’s not just a milk truck it’s also a people mover. Actually, it’s more like a pick-up truck loaded with school kids, flapping shoals draped over cold shoulders, solemn looking gumbooted men and a vat of milk in the corner, than a “milk truck”.
Anyway, the milk is fresh and unaltered. It’s milked from local cows and probably just transferred from milking bucket to milk truck vat, unpasteurised, unhomogenised and with the odd cow hair. I bought 3 liters for a $1.05. Initially, I tried to buy it with a $5 note, they told me to go home and look for smaller change.
Ecuavolley is the number one game in Chugchilán. It is a variation of volleyball played fiercely all over Ecuador, using a soccer ball, three players per side and a higher net. All the serving is done underarm and since the net is higher spiking is not possible. Without spiking the game becomes rather non-aggressive, but it’s a hotly contested affair in Chugchilán.
This afternoon there were three games being played in town, at the same time. The main serious game involving the men of town, who had to pay to play in the league, the younger guys were playing a more informal game on the town’s second court and the kids were passing the ball over an imaginary net on the footpath.
It is curious that a nation populated by short people should love a game were height is an advantage and to counteract the unfair height advantage, a select few had, they raised the net even higher.
I will be honest with you, I didn’t go to Chugchilán today. It has been raining, all day. I have been wearing my new, hand-knitted, woolen beanie. The beanie is one I recently bought in Chugchilán, from the Grupo de Mujers de Chugchilán, which is the local women’s collective.
The women’s collective has organised wool spinning and knitting workshops and collectively run a shop selling items the ladies have crafted. There are cosy handmade hats, beanies, scarves and jumpers for sale. Each item has a tag on it, with the ladies name who knitted it, and the money goes directly to the knitter.
On the day I bought the beanie, I had trouble finding the shop, again. There is no signage and it only opens sporadically, when someone is available to mind the store, so if it’s closed it looks just like another closed wooden door in town. It was the third time I’d been attempting to seek out the women’s collective knitting efforts and it was looking like another Chugchilán moment, money in my pocket and nowhere to spend it. Then, a lady walked past, knitting, wearing a knitted shawl, and with a baby slung on her back wearing cute little woolen booties and hat. I followed that lady and she stopped at one of the many closed wooden doors and opened it. The Grupo de Mujers de Chugchilán were open for business.
Luckily Alicia takes more than one good photo a day. This one is from a morning stroll, a few days ago.
I met the neighbors on the way to town today. I didn’t know they were my neighbors but they knew who I was and where I lived. They didn’t have much to say, just stopped me to introduce themselves, Pedro y Tumbes.
Pedro and Tumbes were working for the council, extending the footpaths out of town and adding a gutter. Now, instead of the rain meandering across the road and gouging out which ever roadside verge it feels inclined to, it will soon have to follow the order placed on it by Pedro and Tumbes and flow down the road like the rest of the traffic.
Mixing cement is done here by hand, in the dirt. No mixers or cement trucks used. The guys just mix the sand, cement and water with a shovel, on the road. They build a little wall with sand so the mix doesn’t flow away and just slop it around in a puddle. Then shovel it into the wheelbarrow and into the forms. I guess the rain washes the leftover cement away because I never see patches of cement on the road. The simplicity and basic improvisation of it typifies how things are done around here. With the most basic of tools and a fair bit of improvisation to cover the tools they lack, things get done, slowly, but they still get done.
Maybe Chugchilán is hung over and stayed in bed today. The town itself feels lethargic and grey. The clouds lend a coolness of mood, and temperature, while they dampen the air and fallen rain forms little muddy rivulets that roll out of town and return to their mud brick homes.
Few people are in town today. The muddied wine boxes and rubbish in the streets make the town look even more deserted. Two kids wander buy, then wander back with a plastic bag of milk. The policeman is clearly bored. His office has the only lively music to be heard and he plays with a little girl dressed in pink,, then wanders up the street leaning slightly as he holds a little pink hand. A donkey wanders through with a gas tank strapped to his saddle and a piglet nibbles at the weeds growing through cracks in the road.
It’s cold, and the rain chases me back home.
Late afternoon on Easter Sunday is a loose affair in Chugchilán. First of all, it’s Sunday. That’s market day, the one day when everyone from down the valley or up the hill comes to town. Second of all, Easter weekend means plenty of extra folks in town, who have returned to visit family. And third, they remember being incredible drunk last Easter and anticipate doing it again this year.
Drinking in Chugchilán is done in a very social manner. It involves one bottle of fire water and one small plastic cup. The drinker stumbles over to a friend, leans on them for support, pours a cup full and offers it to the friend. Then if the friend has any booze they pour a cup for the stumbler.
By five o’clock in the afternoon the happiest (drunkest) people were congregating around a street band and were merrily dancing (stumbling), sharing (spilling) drinks and beaming smiles as if the Easter bunny had left them all golden eggs.
On Saturdays not much happens in Chugchulán, but in the nearby Zumbahua, Saturday is market day. Zumbahua is a little bigger than Chugchilán and its market is a lively regional event with people pouring in from the surrounding villages and farms. There are a few tourist orientated stores selling all things made of llama and sheep’s wool, but for the most part it’s local people buying local things.
In one section of the market there were six men lined up pedalling away on old singer sewing machines and next to them someone selling heavy woollen blankets. The deal was, you buy your pieces of blanket and take it to the peddlers to be sewn into a poncho. Then you can leave the market a whole lot warmer than when you arrived and blend in smoothly with the older men from around these parts. The blankets are bright red, so this also helps your friends find you amongst the clouds.
Today I took my walk into town following a cross laden Jesús, roman guards with cardboard swords, an Italian priest and 50 other children!
The Good Friday parade started outside our place and moved up hill, into the village, stoping along the way to re-enact the Stations of the Cross. The Stations of the Cross is a particularly Catholic ceremony where they retrace the steps of the Fallen Jesus as he carries his own cross towards the hill, to be crucified. I grew up begrudgingly Christian, but had never heard of it.
As I walked up the hill and watched the children listen to the story of Jesus and sing hymns in soft unaccompanied harmonies I had the sense they genuinely believed, and were sincerely asking for guidance. They were not overly zealous, or reluctantly following, they were just there, paying homage to someone who lived a good life and died a very long time ago.
I may have been a little misleading with my opening description of Chugchilán. It has two volleyball courts, not one. And although I’d be well within the limits of my poetic licence (who sets the limits of a poetic licence anyway?) to say it’s a quaint little place, unscathed by tourism and influence from the “developed world”, I’d be wrong if I said this.
There is a lovely colourful mural painted on a wall, by Peace Corps volunteers from the other America, encouraging the locals to use the rubbish bin, and the public toilets. I think it has been effective. The only poo I had to dodge in the street was that of dogs, chickens and donkeys.
As I sat by the road, pondering how funny that mural is and what the hell I am going to write about, Hércules pulled up. Hércules is the local beer and natural gas delivery truck. The driver jumped down, went around to the old lady next to me, helped her to her feet and shooed her back into the shop so he could deliver the beer.
Now, I know the beer truck comes on a Friday and this place is too small to have a truck come by on Thursday, as well as Friday, so why is the truck in town today? Tomorrow is Good Friday; I wonder what that means in Chugchilán.
