Siembra de Papa y Tanta Wawa

It’s been a cultural sort of week up here.  This Sunday, we all woke up early to plant potatoes.  We shouldered our tools and sacks of seed papas and hiked up the hill to the chakra.  My mamita sorted out the good potatoes while my brothers Carlos and Eber and my host dad and I planted.  

Carlos and I were a team and we rotated between using the takia to make a hole and popping the potato in.  The soil was incredibly hard and the takia turn was grueling.  I had to kick it with all my strength to get the blade to enter the soil.  

Sometimes, I’d kick too hard and lose control, and the long handle would slip off my shoulder and whack me in the neck or head.  It's good that Elka was there for moral support.

Carlos did 2 rows with the takia for every one I did, but I was still wiped by the end.  Putting the potatoes in the hole was a way easier job, but it still required lugging a heavy bag of papas up and down the hill.  We worked from 8:30 to 2, with rain, wind, and thunder rolling in at the end.  It felt good to work outside, but I’m glad I’m not a professional papa farmer.

To regain strength, everyone in town is making tanta wawas for All Saint’s Day.  Tanta means bread in Quechua and wawa is son.  Folks make breads in shapes of people, llamas, and doves.  They’re about challa sweetness and have sprinkles on top.  My family rents a panaderia oven and makes hundreds.  I remember eating stale ones last year in December when I arrived.  For Dia de los Muertos, they make up a table with lots of the breads and other foods that ancestors enjoyed as offerings.  Ours had masamorras (jellied anything: corn, potato, you name it) and meat as well.  The offerings are left out and then eaten by the family the next day.

My folks brought their haul back from the bakery and it fills up an entire delicious-smelling room.

These are some of the wawas.

Here is David and Stefie with some pan de maiz.  It's cornbread, but not America style.

We'll be eating these for the forseeable future.  They're really good and hopefully we'll finish before they turn into rocks.