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Today is the big day at the hacienda: My Peruvian in-laws are getting ready to slaughter a goat and a lamb. Cumbias, waltzes and boleros blast from a radio. Masses of scarlet bougainvilleas drape the patio where my husband, children and I are cooling off after flying over the Nasca Lines, the desert hieroglyphics. We sip maracuya juice, passion fruit's nectar, in the oasis of a peach orchard.
Yesterday, we drove to buy the animals from Jesus, an Indian who lives in the corridor of a waterless riverbed. The ample desert scenery, sand, wind and rocks, with no vegetation as far as the eye can reach, accompanied us all the way to the river's bank. We walked down to the pebbled bottom, where thorny bushes surround a fence and a roofless shack - dried mud and straw - rises under a gray tamarind tree. As we came close, seven or eight small children in underwear appeared in the dwelling's openings, and a dozen startled goats and sheep swept a cloud of dust as they jumped away in panic. Chickens pecked, ducks quacked and a leashed dog barked, frenzied. A concoction of animal odors filled the hot, dry air.
Jesus approached us. "Senores have a wish in mind? I'm here to serve you," he said. His bronze skin, stretched over his facial bones as tightly as cowhide on a drum, revealed a lifetime of arduous work in the cotton fields.
"Two young ones, this time," said my brother-in-law, Emilio.
"Maybe the nice Americana lady would want a pair of our children?" Jesus' pregnant woman said to me. "They can cook and clean for you for life. We have 15 to feed. Too many." She stood in the shade, carrying an alarmingly pale infant secured to her back with a colorful wrap.
"No, gracias," I said, shocked.
Emilio chose a lamb and a goat, we paid, and the men carried the animals in their arms, between endless dunes and up to the car.
Today at noon, my 7-year-old daughter, Teresita, screams, "They're going to kill them now!" Her Spanish is seasoned with a heavy American accent. She jumps and crosses her legs in desperate need of a bathroom, but afraid to miss the excitement, insists on staying next to me.
I stand under dust-covered grapevines and observe as Emilio gets ready. Two men hold each tied animal still while his expert right hand shines a blade and with swift movements slices the white throats. Four jugulars burst with blood that is channeled into metal buckets. Twenty-five pairs of human eyes pop in anticipation of a hearty dinner.
By midafternoon, the skinned and quartered animals are ready to cook.
"Mama, I won't eat them," says Teresita, hiding for a moment in the folds of my skirt. She peeks left and right and runs off into the cotton field chased by her cousins.
I rush inside the house with a note pad and a pen. In a kitchen where a pale sky is the roof, a flock of women gather around two stoves. They brown chunks of lamb in gigantic pots while sprinkling them with turmeric, salt, pepper and cumin. They chop onions and hot peppers, and crush garlic between two smooth stones. They peel a mound of potatoes for papa a la huancaina appetizer. They throw carrots, cilantro, celery and lemon grass into a blender, adding all the ingredients into the pots. Rice, the manna of the Latin American people, is cooked on a separate burner.
The goat bakes in the oven, creating aromas that burn a hole in my stomach and awaken my carnivorous primate's instinct. My sister-in-law, Lucrecia, guesses my thoughts and offers me a plate of a stringy, green vegetable that I devour with delight.
"What is it?" I ask, ready to take notes.
"Cochayuyo, or seaweed garnished and sauted with freshly clotted blood," she says. "A delicacy in coastal Peru."
It's too late to reverse my gluttonous action. Besides, one day my body and my blood - an infinitesimal link in nature's food chain - will enrich the earth's soil and complete the cycle.
It's evening and dinner is ready. We sit at a table for 30, celebrating life and death. Although tough, the goat and lamb meat taste to perfection. The men are gay and smell of pisco; they dance to the music's rhythms without leaving their chairs. Homemade mango ice cream, desert's miracle reserved only for very special occasions, completes the feast.
A bloodstained Andean sunset paints distant rocky summits with a pink hue.
- Eduvigia T. Ancaya, a dermatologist and writer, lives in Valrico.