Monday, March 7, 2011

Day 35

A lovely breakfast: fruit and yogurt and matéA little drop of Argentine sunshine:
We collected cow poop from Marcos’ house. It was fun to walk around in the field, talking with Marisa. The bags got so heavy though, and we lugged them quite a distance! (And the poop we collected was not so dry, so it started dripping out of the weave in the polypropylene bags, which got all over everything- so gross!) Jess and I got to help Kim with lunch today, one of my favorite jobs.
After our work session this afternoon Kim, Jess, and I all did Reiki on Sasha, who is sick again. She has had recurrent throat problems since before coming here, and has been sick twice since coming. It was an awesome experience working together, and I felt so energized afterward.

This new butterfly is amazingly beautiful, and so skittish! I snuck this shot when she was eating poop from the driveway...

Things we do during siesta:
My new little fuzzhead friend:After dinner I finished carving my spoon while everyone else played Skip Bo, a card game that we have here. Marcelo told us that he spoke to a friend that said the wood we’re using to carve is toxic… so that’s good. Kim wants a second opinion. Either way, I decided I wanted to finish my spoon. So now it's ready to dry. It’s tucked into wood shavings in a bag. Once it’s dry I will sand it and oil it… and then use it to… scoop laundry detergent perhaps? Or maybe it really is rosewood and thus fine to use for food. I guess we’ll have to find out.

We have been gardening every afternoon, amending soil, planting, starting seeds, watering.There are a lot of grasshoppers around, and one of Kim and Marcelo’s methods for inviting them to leave the garden is by eating them. They go down there, and say out loud “Wow! So many grasshoppers! Thank you! You are in our garden where we grow food to eat, and you will add to the protein of our meal. We will have a delicious supper tonight with you!” Coop has been wanting to try eating insects for a while, so yesterday afternoon he caught a number of grasshoppers, and left them in a jar (with holes in the lid so they could breathe).

Kim says this is important because then they poop out everything and are clean. This afternoon before dinner he prepared them by pulling off their legs and wings, and then he and Marisa fried them in two batches: butter and garlic, and butter, cinnamon, and sugar. Woah.
Eating insects is something that I have thought about for a long time too. I am not very squeamish (as you know), but thinking about eating them is one of the things that reliably turns my stomach. I know it’s something that many cultures in the world do though, they are everywhere, a great source of protein, sustainable… it bothers me that I limit myself with my thoughts. So, I decided to try Coop’s grasshopper surprise. We pulled the heads off before eating them (it’s the eyes and the antennae that get me). I went for one of the smaller ones in garlic. And it was totally fine! It tasted like crunchy buttery garlic bits from making homefries.So, I tried a second one (because I feel like it’s important to try things twice always, to give them a fair shot). The second one was not as crunchy, and I was definitely not as fond of it.More flavor, more chew… and it got my mind spinning a bit. But I tried a third one, just for the experience… a cinnamon sugar one. (After all, isn’t everything better with sugar and butter?) It was the same as the second, and I decided that it was ok for me to be done eating them. But I’m glad I tried. Maybe again another time, once I have kicked my mental blocks down a bit farther.

1 comment:

  1. Wow! Bug-eating (other than the black flies I've inhaled while gardening) is not yet on my own list of accomplishments. Nice work!

    ReplyDelete