Down on the farm….

Another day at La Agraria… today we learned how to make homemade fertilizer aka compost. The first thing we did was chop down a bunch of plants with some shovels. Everything we chopped down we had to carry in big cotton bags over to the place we were going to start our compost. Then we had chopped it up into small pieces with our shovels and covered it with a little bit of dry “caca de vaca”. Next we covered it with straw. We repeated those steps about 3 times making a pretty big mound. In the end we covered it and put a piece of bamboo through the center to help let the combustible gases escape. Otherwise there is a risk of explosion – and that would be bad. With the help of some water in a few weeks the contents compost and we’ll have some fresh fertilizer! After class we went and ate lunch at one of the restraunts on campus. All the food they sell is home grown in their organic gardens. I had a delicious salad and veggie sandwhich….. yummm! Next we headed to the grocery store to buy some peanut butter and ingredients to make hummus. Tiffany got creamy but I went for the extra crunchy.

When we finally got back to our houses we tried to make hummus from scratch. The blender Tiffany’s family had was too weak to mix up the garbanzo beans so we had to do it by hand. It ended up being kind of chunky and really garlicy but really good. We made it to take over to another bbq at Drew’s house. When we got there we also made guacamole. Both of the guac and the hummus were huge hits – to the point where the Peruvians were liking the bowls.

Tiff and I helped the women prepare some Anticucho. I can’t believe we did it, two vegetarians stabbing cow hearts with a stick then marinating them and putting them on the grill? Gross…. but an important way to integrate with the community. Tiffany on the other hand decided to give it a try… check out the photo of her chomping down… nice work! Drew’s family is so nice, they know I don’t eat meat so they bought a bunch of fish to cook up (complete with heads and full bodies). It was a little strange to have to pick around the organs but it was much more tasty then the tuna I eat from a can every other day.

The night ended with a dance party and Jake tearing up to 80s music. Don’t ask me why but for some reason Peruvians are stuck on 80s music these days.