Vida

8:52 am and I estimate that it is about 95º outside... Luckily there is a light breeze that picks up every now and then which helps to dry a bit of the sweat off your brow.

-But because it has been so dry in these past few months, the streets are covered in a fine dust. I don't mean fine like, "damn, you fine," but rather a dust as light as sifted flour which when disturbed by the slightest gust of wind, whirls up and covers all surrounding surfaces.
A sweaty face is the perfect place for this dust to settle and many of us walk around the Aldea sporting a grey sweatstache (dusty mustache). The dust settles on houses, chuchos, cars, and dishes sitting in the pila. If left untouched for long enough, the dust could resemble a light, early winter snowfall...

Life is going well and the days are passing quickly. Work has been slow-going but I am feeling optimistic about the months ahead. The women's group has been going especially well and this week the woman have offered to teach me one of their most traditional recipes, Pulike. This dish is a delicious orange soup made with chicken and cilantro and served with tamalitos. This afternoon I will learn every step in the preparation of Pulike, including the killing of a chicken.
yikes.
I think it is only fair that I learn to kill at least one chicken here in Guatemala. Since here, I have been eating chicken and it seems only right to fully understand where that drumstick comes from. In the US we never think about our meat as an actual living animal, and once packaged and put on supermarket shelves consumers see only a steak, a roast, a pork chop, or a chicken breast. I think it is good to take responsibility for ourselves and the food we choose to eat and that is why I have agreed to kill a chicken.

Perhaps after this experience, I will no longer want to eat chickens but I doubt it. I don't mind eating chickens here in the campo as much as I do when I am at home. Factory farms leave a bad taste in my mouth and I don't like to be so disconnected and uncertain about what I am eating.

Here the chickens are running around everywhere. When they first hatch they are so cute... Little bundles of feathers running around, clearly confused by their new world. Then they grow up and they are ugly with a capital U. Their feathers grow in all patchy and weird with speckles and bald spots galore. They get into everything... wander into my room and crap on the floor. -And don't even get me started on the roosters... It is a myth that they only crow at the crack of dawn. They crow at the crack of everything. For the most part, I have learned to tune them out, but sometimes they seem to join together in such a loud chorus that I wish to turn them all into chicken McNuggets.
-I dislike chickens, but this is not why I eat them here in Guatemala.

I will be sure to post the vivid details of the chicken sacrifice of this afternoon.