"Anything for the princess!"

Last weekend I got to do something that I've been wanting to do since arriving in Ecuador in January (side note: Can we believe that I've been here for almost 15 weeks?! NO!) - see cows! What a wonderful experience. Both educational and humbling at the same time. I went with Diego, his wife Maria Inez (Marinez for short), and their good friend Carmen who owns the hacienda that we stayed at. Haciendas are farms here, and they consist of acres and acres of pasture land where the cows graze all day long. The haciendas used to be a lot bigger than they are now, owned by one person. As time went on, the property got divided up, so it is the same area, but many different owners.

On Saturday morning, Diego and Marinez picked me up, and we were on our way. The hacienda was about a 2 hour car ride away, near a town called Latacunga. As we drove further from the city, the land got greener and greener, and there were cows everywhere. When I say everywhere, I mean on the side of the HIGHWAY. It still baffles me how there are not tons of dead cows on the side of the road. We stopped at a cafe called "Cafe de la vaca" - Cow Cafe! It used to be an old barn, and the owners changed it into a restaurant that is apparently very successful. So successful that there was a 45 minute wait for breakfast, so we just kept driving after Diego took pictures of me next to the signs and cow paintings :) I'll get those up as soon as I get them from Diego! Diego and his wife, by the way, told me that while I'm in Ecuador they are going to adopt me so that I can see more of the country :)

When we got to the hacienda, Carmen was already there, and I was ready to take a tour! The day was chilly - sweatshirt and fleece - but still enjoyable. The haciendas here are very similar to the haciendas that I saw in Mexico in the summer of 2008 (shout-out to Jess, Trav, and all members of the Gold Van!). This specific hacienda milks about 60 cows. They have 3 milking machines, and it takes them about 2 hours to milk all of the cows. The cows are fed corn while they are milked, and then grazed all day. And they are often fed... BROCCOLI! I couldn't believe it! The hacienda is right near a broccoli plant, so there is a surplus of broccoli in the area. How odd!

As we were walking through the pasture, I noticed a heifer (she looked about the size of a winter calf, for those of you that can relate) that had a stump of wood hanging from it's neck. The stump was large enough that I could see that the heifer would not be able to lift her head all the way up if she wanted to. Upon asking why this poor heifer had a block of wood hanging around her neck, I learned that this is how they wean their heifers. Since all ages of animals are grazed together, it's hard to wean the calves, so they tie this block of wood around their necks so that the calves can't reach up to the cows' udders and are forced to eat the grass. Seems a bit cruel, but it works. In all honesty, I was thinking about what PETA would have to say about that...

Another thing that I noticed was that wherever there is grass, there are cows - the side of the highway, a spot between two houses, in TOWN, seriously, EVERYWHERE. The cows have a rope around their neck, some slack (probably about a 9 foot radius), and the other end of the rope is nailed into the ground. When the cows eat their way around their circle, they are moved. When they are moved, they are herded along the roads in groups as small as 1 cow to a group as large as 10. So interesting how everything is operated down here.

I say that my hacienda experience was humbling, because you never seem to realize what you have until you see what others have. In the United States, the farms that are so typical here don't exist. They are the farms of our grandfathers, really. I noticed that the cows here are so THIN, and in the US, they would be considered malnourished, as well as the calves. If an average American cow stood next to the same age average Ecuadorian cow, there would be such a vast difference between the two. I have no doubt that many people would have been seriously concerned about the nourishment of the cattle here, but it works for them.

The Ecuadorians take such pride in what they have, that you can't help but appreciate it too. Things are so simple - instead of the super-sanitary milking-prep that we have (wipe, dip, wait 45 seconds, strip, re-wipe, hang the unit), they wipe the dirt of the cows udders, and just milk them. The workers have an intimate relationship with each animal, because they are constantly working with them - herding them, milking them, feeding them - unlike the impersonal relationship that is found more and more in the US (Shout out to the people that have small farms - I love you all). All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and I'm excited to be able to go and spend another weekend in the country.

In other news, when I came back from Easter vacation, I started tutoring at an institute called EIL (where I took my TESOL course). I tutor a 9 year old boy named Edison. I take the teacher bus to the last stop, hop on a city bus (one time, I fell OFF the bus when I had to JUMP off while it was MOVING and limped away with a hole in my pants and a bloody knee and palm... THAT was embarrassing), and get off a couple blocks away from EIL. On my way, I'm STARVING, so I stop at this little place and get an empanada. I LOVE the empanadas here! Anyways, so the man that owns the place is always there, and whenever I ask him for my empanada, he says "Anything for the princess!" with a huge smile on his face, like there is nothing in the world that makes him happier than giving me my empanada. Now THAT is customer service. And for 90 cents? Oh MAN. Totally worth it.

Now Edison is a chubby little guy, who just makes me laugh and laugh. His English is better than that of some of my thirteen year olds. But the thing that kills me the most is that instead of saying "fun" he always says "funny". I've noticed that a lot of ESL Ecuadorians do this, but Edison is the best. "Sara, my friend, paintball is so fuuuuuuuuuuunny." Paintball, is actually not funny. Neither is the Tower of Terror in Disney World. But to him, oh yes, these things are funny :) And when he doesn't like what I tell him to do (giving him a 6 letter word in hangman for example), he says "Sara, my friend, you are baaaaaaaaaaaad." And THAT is FUNNY. Whenever he says my name, he adds "my friend" after it, and it just makes me want to hug him. What a kid. And what a NAME.

Until next time,
Sara the princess