Old Favorites

I've been editing the first 300 Days recently and thought I'd post a couple of my favorites, Day 105 from Nov 2008 and Day 206 from Mar 2009. We have 30 days left in Piura; we bought overnight bus tickets to Lima the 28th of July.

Day 206 Cash Crop
Monday 2 Mar 2009

Teri and I take a walk (three parks tour) for exercise and shopping at 6:00. When we get to the large park we see a bunch of adults and kids gathering the algarroba pods that are lying all over the grass, sidewalk, and street. They have large plastic bags about three feet long and 18-inches in diameter and they are spread throughout the park. We have previously seen a few kids and adults gathering handfuls of the pods, but this seems to be a full-scale harvest. The pods are about the length of green beans, four-eight inches, but a bit larger in diameter, and are yellowish-white in color; the algarroba beans are oval and each one is double the length of an average green bean. The pods are used as feed for domestic animals from pigs to horses—it seems the pods are a cash crop—one of the kids says he gets 13 soles for each full bag.

We walk around the park two and a half times for exercise and by the time we head for the next park on our walk the grass in this park looks like it has been raked—there’s nary a pod in sight. We buy napkins, toothpaste, a six-pack of Cusqueña at Cossto, and then we walk up the block to the small bodega that happens to sell the inexpensive, but tasty, Argentinean red wine.

We go by the third park and then straight down Los Geranios for home. When we get to the corner of Los Geranios and Los Fresnos we espy Sra Estella raking up her algarroba pods. I would have just waved at her but Teri hones in on her—maybe it’s because I’m the one humping the bag of beer and wine? We both kiss her cheeks but I almost screw up the custom by kissing Teri’s cheek too—once I start kissing I don’t want to stop.

Sra Estella tells us that the beans are eaten by humans also, but they have to be cooked for hours and turned into mush; the animals eat them just as they are. Teri picks one up, peels the pod back, smells the bean, and passes it to me—it is moist, sweet, and chocolaty and reminds me of carob. Wow does it smell good, but I know from earlier research that these trees are related to mesquite and not carob. Teri looks up at the three huge trees we’re standing under and says how wonderful they must be for shade, but Sra Estella says they are also annoying because small animals eat them, poop seeds everywhere, and she has to pull up little algarrobo trees every Spring—one person’s annoyance is another’s cash crop.