Chicken Feet

Happy belated Turkey Day to all!!! Susan and I spent our Thanksgiving in El Chaco with a few Peace Corps friends and a 24lb turkey. We got up early Thursday morning and caught the bus to Tena. This trip seemed to drag on longer than it should have, and a mere 5 minutes from the bus station, the bus stopped at the gas station (mildly irritating, since there is a gas station at the bus station and since it caused us to miss the 9:30 bus to El Chaco). So we got to the station at 9:35 and purchased our tickets for the 10:30 bus to Baeza (if you’ll remember a previous journal entry, Baeza is the town next to El Chaco). We killed a few minutes in Tena at an internet café and then got on our bus. We were carrying with us quite a bit of food for Thanksgiving. We had a cheesecake and carrot cake, both of which I made in the toaster oven - we had cheese and crackers, peanuts, Reese Cups (a PC favorite), and some wine. This second leg of our trip also seemed to drag on and on. We did get two movies though, which was nice - both were WWII movies. We arrived in Baeza and hopped on a camioneta for El Chaco. 30 minutes later we were in El Chaco and met up with Sadie, Andrew, and Jeff. We grabbed a jaba (12 pack) of beer and headed to Jeff’s place to start making our feast.

The previous day, Jeff was in Quito and somehow managed to find a Turkey. This 11kg monster bird was carried 5 hours in a back pack from Quito to El Chaco - where it was handed off to a woman in El Chaco who had agreed to cook the bird for Jeff. This woman had an outdoor bread oven and she used to cook the bird - a process that started the night before as she marinated the bird. She cooked the turkey all day in the oven and when we went to pick it up at 6:00pm the bird looked and smelled great. It was so kind of her to do this for us gratis - free. I’ll talk more about the bird in a little bit.

When we first got to Jeff’s, the five of us started drinking red wine and eating peanuts. Yeah, it seems like a weird combo to me as well. Sadie peeled some yucca that she brought and then boiled it to make garlic mashed yucca. This would serve as our version of mashed potatoes. Said had also made a broccoli casserole and had the fixings for an avocado and tomato salad.

After the peanuts, we brought out the cheese. Sue and I have a local source for real gouda cheese and this was a huge hit. We all savored the gouda and washed it down with more red wine. At about 5:30, Jeff, Andrew, and I headed into town to pick up the bird. Dona Lucy had just finished cooking it and a chicken for her family. The cooked chicken paled in comparison to our bird. We thanked her for her cooking and then called a cab (it’s a 25 minute walk to Jeff’s). As we waited, she wanted to feed us some of her food - quite generous of her, but we had already had our fill of cheese and peanuts and wanted to save whatever remaining space we had for our Thanksgiving dinner.

On our way back to Jeff’s, we stopped by Maggie and Greg’s (a married PC couple in the omnibus after us). They had some chairs and a table, as well as, a zucchini casserole and no-bake cookies. We also ran into Dan (a former PCV who was in El Chaco before Jeff) - he was invited to dinner and joined in on the feast.

After Sadie carved up a huge plate of Turkey, we realized that a 24lb turkey was a monstrosity and that the 8 of us couldn’t possibly even put a dent into this bird. This was enough food for 30 people. No matter - there would be plenty of leftovers for Jeff to take around to his neighbors - a little cultural exchange - to go with our Thanksgiving. We all feasted, the bird was fantastic - which is saying a lot coming from me since I rarely eat poultry (I have a mild allergy to it). Whatever Dona Lucy used to season the bird was perfect - it was moist, tender, and had a hint of spice to it. All the other food was incredible as well. We all did the traditional Thanksgiving routine of commenting on how good the food is, that we couldn’t possibly eat another bite because our stomachs are full, then getting up and filling up another plate with food. At about the time that we were full - we brought out the desserts and proceeded to gorge ourselves on sweets.

The only thing lacking today was watching football. I can deal with that though - spending the day with good friends and good food is really what this is all about anyhow. I particularly liked this idea of cooking the bird in an outdoor wood fired oven. My parent neighbor, Mark, just built an outdoor pizza/bread oven. I think I’ll have to tell him to cook his bird in it next year.

The unfortunate thing about Thanksgiving in El Chaco was that I couldn’t stay another day. I got up early Friday morning to catch a bus back towards Puyo. I had a work related project that I needed to be back for. I could have skipped it, but it is my water quality monitoring project with a group of high school students. We only do it once a month and I felt obligated to be there - though they certainly have the ability to do it without my presence.

Jeff has now sworn to me twice that there is a bus that goes right by his house headed to Tena at 5:30 and another one at 6:30. Neither came, just like neither came the last time I was in El Chaco for the rafting competition. So, I walked into town and then grabbed a camioneta to Baeza. In Baeza, I was waiting with a group of people for a bus headed to Puyo. The rumor was that there was a landslide between Baeza and Quito and that the bus was running late. As I waited, I noticed that no cars or buses were coming from the other way (Tena to Baeza). I made a mental note of this and continued to wait. A few cars came by headed to Tena and offered to give rides to people waiting for the bus. I thought better of this and just decided to wait for the bus. I was on a time crunch, however, if the bus didn’t come by 9:30, I wouldn’t be able to get back to Puyo in time - in which case, I would head back to El Chaco and spend more time with Sue and my friends.

At 8:30 the bus came rolling along. It stopped in Baeza to let passengers off. I rushed over, because I wanted to get a seat. My unofficial count of passengers getting off the bus was 32 - this was good news, there would be seats for all 15 of us waiting in line to get on. I was the 5th one on the bus and got the last seat. This was crazy, it meant that 27 people had been standing on this bus - that is downright crazy for a 3 hour bus ride. Anyhow, I counted myself fortunate for getting a seat and also told myself that if an elderly person or woman with a kid was standing that I would offer them my seat.

We headed down the road from Baeza to El Chaco. I’ve stated before that this road is crazy at times because it winds through the cloud forest and mountains and is known for its many landslides. About 45 minutes into the trip we came to a landslide that had wiped out the road. There were a few tire tracks leading across it, so the bus driver assumed that it must have been safe to cross. He started across - the people on the bus started to scream - the bus was literally inches from the edge of a 100 meter cliff. I tend to be calm and collected in situations like this, but as we drove across and the bus started to lean downslope (this is one time I wish I didn’t have the window seat), I could feel my heart start to race and my anxiety level increase. I was scared and wondered why the driver didn’t have us all disembark prior to this apparent act of lunacy. After inching his way across the landslide, the driver finally managed to reach secure ground on the other side so we continued down the road. Again, I noticed that there we no cars headed towards us and again, I made a mental note of it. We did pass one parked semi truck - the driver shook his hand as we passed. When you rotate your hand - palm up to palm down - in Ecuador it means that you don’t have something. In this particular case the driver was signaling that there wasn’t passage on the road ahead. He was correct - the bus stopped 5 minutes later behind a long row of cars, trucks, and other buses. I noticed the 3-4 cars that had picked people up in Baeza and realized that I would have gained a net zero minutes had I gone with one of them.

There were two American couples on my bus - both young - both studying in Ecuador for 6 weeks. They were confused as to what to do. The road was blocked by a landslide that deposited boulders and mud 15 feet high and probably 50 feet wide. There was a front end loader working on it, however, the best estimate for opening the road was 4:00pm that afternoon. Usually in these cases, buses on one side of the landslide will exchange passengers with those on the other side. Unfortunately, there were not any buses from our bus company on the other side. I explained this to the American couples and said that if they wanted to get to Tena that needed to get off our bus, walk across the landslide and either wait for a bus or find someone willing to take them. I personally didn’t have time to wait around. I was already flirting with my time crunch. So, I got part of my bus fare back from the driver and walked across the landslide. On the other side, I saw a lone taxi with a few Ecuadorians getting in it. They were headed to Tena. I jumped in the back of the pick-up and yelled at the other Americans to follow suit. They did, as well as about 10 other Ecuadorians. We had 13 people in the back of a Chevy s-10 and other 5 in the cab. The trip from here to Tena was a little over an hour.

It was an uncomfortable ride, sitting on the edge of a pick-up truck bed, gripping on to the sides for dear life, all while traveling 40 miles an hour on a bumpy gravel road. We were fortunate enough to not have any rain - which is rare in these parts. In fact it was sunny - which lead to all of us getting sun burned on our faces and arms. I did have a nice chat with my new American friends. One of them was from Waynesburg, PA which is relatively close to my family’s cabin. We exchanged stories about the area around SW Pennsylvania.

We reached Tena and I immediately got on a bus to Puyo. As it looked, I would arrive right on time. I was hoping to be early, so that I could go home, put on my creek shoes and a pair of shorts. However, my travel karma, was not on today (or maybe it was since I didn’t fall to my death at the first landslide - all perspective I guess). I got to Puyo at 3:15pm - 15 minutes late. No worries though, because the other people helping out with this project were 35 minutes late - so, in essence, I was early.

Andrea, had already taken care of most of my responsibilities - she picked up the sandwiches and drinks, she printed out the attendance sheet, she brought my camera, and she had the money for the transportation all ready to go. It was at about this time that I realized I really didn’t need to be there - life does go on without Jeremy there - people are capable to doing things without me. It did make me smile though - my first sustainable project.

So we started our water monitoring and I went to take some photos of the kids in action. The batteries were dead - so in reality - I had nothing to do but sit and watch the kids do their thing. Oh well, at least I was back in Puyo and that night I could relax and go to bed early. Susan was headed to Sadie’s community to spend some time with her. They left 5 hours after me and got stuck at the same landslide.

On Saturday, I did a few things around the apartment - one of which being to permanently hang a couple posters. Because it is so humid here, posters do not stay on walls very long. We have battled this for months. I finally decided to buy a little wood and I make wood frames for the posters and then screw them to the concrete walls. Problem solved!!!

Susan returned to Puyo in the late afternoon and then we headed to Andrea’s for a cookout. We had a great time hanging out with the people from my office. They are a great group and we are all about the same age. We grilled chicken and pork. Watching Pablo grill the chicken was interesting. He cooked up the entire bird - nothing was wasted. Even the feet were on the grill. This got me thinking - where have all the chicken feet gone? Seriously, in the states when we process chickens to sell in the store, what happens to the feet and necks? Here, people eat them regularly, claiming that they are the best parts. Now I realize that in the country, or where people raise and butcher their own chickens, they probably eat everything. However, the large majority of us do not eat those parts - so who has them? I really don’t want an answer, because I most likely already know the answer and I don’t like it. Ho wever, there are billions of chicken feet somewhere - stay on the lookout.

Next time you eat chicken - ask yourself what happened to the feet.

Peace,
Jeremy

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