As far as I can tell everyone in Rinconada Llicuar is a cotton or rice farmer. I haven't met any family that doesn't work a field somewhere. A few heads of household are teachers, taxi drivers, and radio program announcers, but each is also a farmer. They grow a few fruits and vegetables for their own consumption, but for income they grow Pima cotton. There are rice farmers too and they have a nearby reservoir that gets water from an underground aquifer. They use that to flood some of the fields and grow rice. The fields are gorgeous, amazing- tall coconut palms swaying in the wind, green mango trees with branches bowing under the weight of the fruit and farmers riding their horse pulled carts everywhere.
Yesterday a lady invited me into her house to drink chicha. It's a fermented beverage made of corn. Think pulque if you're familiar with northern Mexico. It's made by chewing up the washed ground corn and spitting out the mixture in a pot, you add water, boil it twice and let it ferment. It's not my favorite beverage I have to admit, but it's pretty important here. The people working in the fields drink it to help make it though the day. So I'm making it though the day. I'm also trying to avoid chicha de jarra, but there's also chicha morada which is a sweet purple drink kind of like kool-aid. That's good stuff.
3 comments:
hi ella! thanks for sending your new contact info. and it's really cool to read the blog. makes me think differently about my sheets and t-shirts and all that... pima cotton. take care, rebecca
Are you seriously drinking already-been-chewed corn drink? and liking it?
Kelly
I wouldn't say that I was liking ot :) but in the name of cultural sensitivity and half of the work of a Peace Corps Volunteer being getting people to like us, I drink it.
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