A March 1st Vignette of Andahuaylillas

 

Just before I enter the thick-painted green iron gates to Fe y Alegría (high school), I turn and notice the entrance to a football field. Wrestling with a parade of piglets are Diego, César and Darwin. 

Now, Darwin is interesting because he looks after the piglets and their one-year-old mother. The others are his amigos. He´s more or less the age of a third grader going into fourth. 

 

After a few days and a weekend had lapsed I noticed again that Darwin was on the field with his animals. I entered the field to find Darwin, his sister Shakira, and the pigs all rooting around (actually turning up roots with their snouts). 

I asked how old the puerca (sow) was: 1 year. I asked how long she´d give milk: 3 months. I asked what they´d do with these pigs after raising them: sell them at 2 years of age. The pigs are special--says Darwin--because they have little fat at all.

It was either the Friday or Saturday of the previous week when the waste management service came by our house. Albeit we were saving our biodegradable scraps for the compost project at the high school (which aids the green house project there as well), the people who look after the plants hadn´t yet started to compost. Unfortunately we had to choose between the garbage being consumed and strewn across the beautiful parrish by ferrel dogs, or, to trash it. 

 

Darwin told me what the pigs eat: todas las sobras. I knew exactly what to ask him. Can I bring by our organic waste to feed the pigs in the morning: yes, of course.

 

Needless to say, the pigs made short work of our scraps and, to thank me and my colleague Mallory, he presented us each with a cooked ear of corn from his family´s field. 

 

 I can´t wait to learn more about life here in Andahuaylillas from Darwin and Shakira, and others.