When I returned to Mocachi after a month away, the neighbor children came running over to greet me. After I unpacked my stuff, we visited in bubbles of excitement sitting in the earth-walled kitchen at the kerosene lamp lit table.<\/p>\n
They recounted the distribution of sheep and llamas and cows from the re-structuring of the local government farming cooperative.<\/p>\n
“We got eight merinos (sheep),<\/em>” Mario boasted. “So we’re going to butcher our chuskas (mongrels) and then we’ll have all merinos! We got eight cows, too,<\/em>” he bragged.<\/p>\n “No you didn’t<\/em>!”<\/p>\n “Yes, we did!<\/em>” And so rolled on traditional “my father is bigger than your father<\/em>” competition of children.<\/p>\n According to Domitilla, her family already butchered one of the alpacas. But her sister Agripina said that was a lie! “Are you going to be home at noon?<\/em>” she asked. “Well, I’ll bring over all you need for a nice barley soup and you can cook it up together for yourself and Marlene.<\/em>”<\/p>\n “Oh, Julia, you’re a sweet heart!<\/em>”<\/p>\n It was delicious!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I returned to Mocachi after a month away, the neighbor children came running over to greet me. After I unpacked my stuff, we visited in bubbles of excitement sitting in the earth-walled kitchen at the kerosene lamp lit table. They recounted the distribution of sheep and llamas and cows from the re-structuring of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124,"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.iwitnessings.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe kitchen warmed with childhood storytelling and fantasies.
\nEarly the next morning, Julia, one of the children’s grandmothers, came into my enclosure with a bowl of quinoa dough drops and fried bread dough. She thought I’d need some breakfast since I had just gotten back last night.<\/p>\n