Pachacamac Part 2 Thanksgiving

I don't know if you can zoom in on your device, but this photo shows two parakeets (budgies). This is how they are in the wild! They are very pretty. I've seen them several times now.

I've been here just over two weeks. I've enjoyed many tasks, especially making "lasagne" gardens. On Monday it was Thanksgiving in Canada, so I made a "Thanksgiving Dinner" without the usual ingredients which were hard to find here.

For example, the pumpkin pie was made out of an unknown squash. There are huge green squashes for sale at the market. The vendors cut the squash for you and you pay for your piece by weight. I think it's called locro de zapallo but I couldn't say for certain. I added "coconut cream" instead of milk/cream, used coconut oil instead of shortening in the crust, and honey instead of sugar. I used cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger and it tasted great! It didn't quite taste or look like actual pumpkin pie but it was close enough for the occasion.
There weren't turkeys, so I stuffed a chicken. There wasn't any sage, so I got what I think was sage tea and used that even though it didn't smell quite right. It too, tasted great! We couldn't buy cranberries so I made a cranberry sauce using dried cranberries and really tiny sour apples. I didn't add sugar since the berries were already sweetened. I made brussel sprouts which were an exotic find here and red cabbage with carrots. We had whipped cream on our "pumpkin" pie. I was under a bit of pressure to represent all of Canada, so I was relieved when everyone seemed to enjoy it. One person finished off the cranberry sauce by spoon at the end. Not a crumb of pie was left. Whew! I didn't embarrass Canada!

There were eight of us. Stephanie, Francisco and Tauli, the family I am hosted by, and their four employees, Tony, Yulmari, Xenoria and Jose. I had them read the history and context of Canadian Thanksgiving after I translated it from Googletranslate. Then (through googletranslate) I explained my own family's tradition of writing down something we are thankful for to put in the "Jar of Thanksgiving".  Then I had them read the translation of the Quaker (Shaker?) song we always sing. Who knows if it sounded right in Spanish? Then I sang it!

For food in a world where many walk in hunger;
for love in a world where many walk in fear;
for friends in a world where many walk alone,
we give our loving thanks dear God.

We had the important elements of thanksgiving, if not the food ingredients, and it was a great joy for me to hear all the laughing! Yulmari and Tony are from Venezuela (here because of the problematic political situation), and they described special Venezuelan foods. Xenoria comes from the mountains and also described special foods from her family. Stephanie and Francisco enjoyed socializing and relaxing with their employees and talking about more than just work. It was a lovely hour and a half. Jose felt that I had "forgotten" the wine, so he brought out a homemade concoction and everyone had a glass of fortification to end the meal. 

There are many activities going on here. There is an operation of homemade paper, made out of palm leaves. Here are the prototype Christmas cards they are working on:

The paper operation makes notebooks (they're beautiful!) and they do complete wedding invitation sets. You know how wedding stationary has the RSVP and menu cards etc? Theirs are beautiful. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.

There is a temple (made of clay with palm leaf roof) for the practice of indigenous ceremonial practices. On Sunday, I was one of the models for photographs that are to be used in promotional materials. Even though Francisco is doing a "fake" ceremony, I found it very beautiful! He practises spiritual rituals from Andean (Andes) and Amazon influences. I learned a little about the details. There are many similarities to the Canadian indigenous practices. It's remarkable to me how big the world is and how small. Too bad one of the burning plants isn't sage like it is in Canada, or I could have used some in my stuffing!

My new friend is Christian, the new wwoofer. He's a 23 (24 next week) German. He reminds me a bit of Malcolm because he's a tall athlete. 

We're roommates in the Wwoofer house and co-workers on projects. We both found making this structure really fun because we got to imitate one of the bamboo structures:

We've cleared out plants and placed stones. 

Christian helped with the design of the chicken coop. Hopefully that will be built next week. I already bought the chickens, but we think one of them is a boy.

One of the things I've enjoyed over the past 2+ weeks is playing games with the family in the evening. Tauli's piano teacher lends a game each week. When I first arrived we were playing "Sushi Go", then it was "Kingdominoes" and tonight the five of us (Christian and I and the family) played "Coloretto". It was fun.

One of the great things about Christian is that he's made me aware of hot water! I assumed, because the shower only produced cold water that I was to learn to like cold showers! (it's common in Peru for example, not to have toilet seats, I just thought this was another thing to become accustomed to). Because of Christian saying that it was too bad that the showers were only cold, Francisco and Stephanie were shocked that I had been having cold showers. There was a switch that had to be turned on. I have been enjoying warm showers since Christian came to get rid of all the healthy dirt I accumulate during the day! Thanks Christian!!