Otavalo
I wander into the breadshop every morning on my walk to school, lured by the smell of fresh baked breads. I ask for whatever just came out of the oven. Today, it had sugar sprinkles on the outside. Deceptively sprinkled, I´d say, as the inside was filled with salty cheese. It was muy delicioso. Munching on the contrasts in my pancito on my way to spanish class in the morning, it reminded me much of this town of Otavalo, the city in which I will be living for the next five weeks: sweet, salty, full of contrasts, and not what you´d expect from the sprinkled outside.
Otavalo is tucked in a valley 35 miles north of Quito with about 25,000 inhabitants. Within half an hour of the town are 30+ indigenous villages with another 70,000 people. The town is famous for its artisan market which floods the streets surrounding Plaza de Poncho every Saturday. Having specialized in weaving since before the Incas, indigenous Otavaleños come in to sell their wears.
The contrast here comes in many forms. The daily mix of strong sun and rain, the wealth and poverty in one place, the dramatic mix of modernity and the old ways. My walk to school takes me down a ten minute stretch of the Pan American Highway. Some parts of the road are paved, others not, while some parts used to be and now are left to erode into the highway. Some people have SUVs, while others pile 20 into the back of a truck to get to their destination, a grazing cow and an internet cafe on the same block. The indigenous girl in full traditional dress stops to answer her cell phone and check her email.
To sell their crafts, Otavaleños have adapted to a global market and now, as many as 5000 are living internationally, sending money home, while their families continue to farm the steep slopes of the surrounding countryside, raising their animals and living in many ways as they have done for centuries.
I have settled in with my mestizo host family, Julio and Acacia, their two sons, and Acacia´s parents, and I have started school. As a class of 12, we spend the mornings in spanish classes and the afternoons with a medical anthropology focus, in discussion or visiting local communities. Looking at healthcare in Otavalo and the surrounding villages, we examine the integration of indigenous culture with the modern world. What are their traditions and beliefs? How do they view health? What is the current access to western or traditional healthcare? What types of nutritional deficits are there that lead to my being one of the tallest people around?
Like my pancito, this first bite is not what I expected. The picturesque indigenous world had a much richer, savory inside than the suger sprinkles would suggest. And as usual, my investigations are leading to more questions. Come back again to find out more about the diagnositic process used by traditional healers via guinny pig.
And take a look at my other pictures: http://flickr.com/photos/alexandras/
Otavalo is tucked in a valley 35 miles north of Quito with about 25,000 inhabitants. Within half an hour of the town are 30+ indigenous villages with another 70,000 people. The town is famous for its artisan market which floods the streets surrounding Plaza de Poncho every Saturday. Having specialized in weaving since before the Incas, indigenous Otavaleños come in to sell their wears.
The contrast here comes in many forms. The daily mix of strong sun and rain, the wealth and poverty in one place, the dramatic mix of modernity and the old ways. My walk to school takes me down a ten minute stretch of the Pan American Highway. Some parts of the road are paved, others not, while some parts used to be and now are left to erode into the highway. Some people have SUVs, while others pile 20 into the back of a truck to get to their destination, a grazing cow and an internet cafe on the same block. The indigenous girl in full traditional dress stops to answer her cell phone and check her email.
To sell their crafts, Otavaleños have adapted to a global market and now, as many as 5000 are living internationally, sending money home, while their families continue to farm the steep slopes of the surrounding countryside, raising their animals and living in many ways as they have done for centuries.
I have settled in with my mestizo host family, Julio and Acacia, their two sons, and Acacia´s parents, and I have started school. As a class of 12, we spend the mornings in spanish classes and the afternoons with a medical anthropology focus, in discussion or visiting local communities. Looking at healthcare in Otavalo and the surrounding villages, we examine the integration of indigenous culture with the modern world. What are their traditions and beliefs? How do they view health? What is the current access to western or traditional healthcare? What types of nutritional deficits are there that lead to my being one of the tallest people around?
Like my pancito, this first bite is not what I expected. The picturesque indigenous world had a much richer, savory inside than the suger sprinkles would suggest. And as usual, my investigations are leading to more questions. Come back again to find out more about the diagnositic process used by traditional healers via guinny pig.
And take a look at my other pictures: http://flickr.com/photos/alexandras/
posted by Alexandra @ 3:20 PM
1 Comments:
At 3:47 PM,
Ziggy said…
Your first paragraph absolutely captivated my taste buds. I could just smell the fresh baked bread and taste the sweet and salty flavors in my mind. It reminded me of a time in Oslo, Norway. My friend and I, we were 12, would walk into a bakery to purchase hot loaves of Rye Bread (no seeds). We would cut them in half - half for her, half for me. Then we would smell the warm yeast and rye, eat the soft warm inside first, saving the outer crispy crust for last. We would just walk down the street eating a half a loaf of bread! Oh, to have bread like that again!
Great Post!
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