Just behind the adjoining cornfield, we see a small adobe house, with a dirt yard surrounded by outbuildings. The enclosed yard is impeccably swept and clean, with just a few chickens and a friendly small dog there to greet us. From this habitation, set in cornfields, emerges a Quechua family – grandmother, father, mother, teenage children, and a lovely tiny girl.
We are greeted by all of them, even tiny Cindy, with smiles and handshakes. Although they speak only Quechua and a little Spanish, we understand that they feel honored to have us visit, and in return, we also feel honored to be made so welcome.
We are all – all thirty of us - invited into their home, and shown into a low ceilinged room with blue adobe walls, and a woven reed mat in the floor’s centre. Most of the furniture has been removed to make room for the lovely crafts that they offer for sale – cozy hand knitted alpaca sweaters and hats, ponchos woven of natural wools, tapestry rugs, patterned bags, silver jewelry, and even the ubiquitous T-shirts with Ecuadorian logos. Here, out of the rain that is falling outside, we are dry and warm.
Don Carlos explains, through our guide and translator Steve, that we will be offered food. This is an integral part of the ceremony we will participate in, a sharing of the bounty and blessing of Pachamama, the land that sustains the people.
A large clean white cloth is spread over the reed mat in the centre of the floor. Don Carlos brings in a huge steaming pot of boiled corn, with oversized kernels on each cob. Next is a pot of new boiled potatoes, round and brown-skinned. These are heaped onto the white cloth, and they smell very appetizing. Plates of sliced local cheese, mild, creamy and white, follow, along with dishes of the local pepper sauce and an enormous basin of a drink that is made from pulverized dried corn, slightly fermented, sweetened and diluted.
Don Carlos offers a blessing and we are invited to eat; and, using our hands, we dig in. The corn is firm, meaty and very good. The potatoes, along with a slice of the cheese taste delicious. We share the two cups available, and sip the corn drink. It is warm and uniquely tasty.
After the meal, we return outside, to the field and the rain, where Don Carlos has drawn a large circle in the earth, divided into quadrants with a charcoal fire at the centre. We space ourselves around this circle, with Don Carlos at one side where a division line intersects. All of us, including the Quechua family and our intrepid bus driver, are there to participate in this blessing. Rain is falling and the mists have closed in on the peaks as the ceremony begins.
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