A Tour of Pijal and the Festival of the Sun

We spent the day with our host families in Pijal today, and as usual things got off to a slow start. Things usually start on “Ecuador” time, translation: maybe about half an hour to an hour behind schedule. This ended up being especially fine due to the fact we helped Lucia feed the pigs. By help I mean, we carried some pretty light food filled buckets up the hill in our back yard. Meanwhile, Lucia carried a multiple gallon jug, on her back wrapped in a scarf, up the hill. She is unbelievably strong and it's so interesting to watch what her daily routine is like.. This was after we had also seen her carry a huge bag of multiple loads of laundry up to the roof. We were supposed to hold a walking tour of Pijal, but due to the late start and the fact it started raining, it was cut short. We did end up getting to another natural spring which was considered a holy and spiritual place for the community. It was for many, a place of healing. Again, it was beautiful, and again, that’s unsurprising given how beautiful Pijal is as a whole. There was supposed to be a traditional medicine demonstration, but it got postponed for a day there was no rain.

The 20 or so guinea pigs my host mom has ready for the feast when Cyntia graduates!

 

                In the end this was great because it meant we got to spend more time with our host families! We interviewed Lucia after she was done washing clothes about her time in Pijal and some of her favorite things. I wish we had been able to count yesterday’s conversation because it was so much more real than us sitting down and asking her questions. We had learned that she had lost a son to cancer six years before and that she worked on a flower plantation nearby. Esteban and Cyntia also participated a bit. It was a phenomenal opportunity to get to know our families better, but felt more processed then the conversations we had before.

                Later in the evening was the Inty Rymi celebration, or celebration of the sun. It typically takes place in the summer, but they put on a “mock” celebration for us to experience one of their most symbolic celebrations. It involved dressing up in traditional clothing, tea and dancing. It was a lot of fun and a good way to spend the evening in the community. I think everyone really enjoyed it! It is a special and wonderful opportunity for people our age to be able to participate in a traditional ceremony like that. These are the experiences that create a cultural exchange, particularly given how obvious it was that the families in Pijal were excited to share this with us. This sort of enthusiasm and learning is what makes me love traveling so much. It’s one thing to read about these things in a travel magazine, and a completely different thing to experience it firsthand. It’s these first hand cultural experiences that make traveling worth it.