Glimpse - Your Stories from Abroad

The Catholic mission was a concrete aberration in the unending green jungle. I had come there via a long and bumpy ride on a local bus to drop off a friend who would be teaching and living there. The stern, business-like Madre Superior directed us to our room, where the bunk beds had already been draped in mosquito nets. As she left, she mentioned that tonight happened to be the mission’s anniversary celebration. She cracked a prim smile for the first time since we’d met, promising us that we’d have a good time.

During the anniversary celebration that night, everyone in the community circled around a central pavilion. A catwalk had been erected so the local girls could parade their homemade fashions, while an announcer narrated their arrivals over a loud speaker. Watching the crowd as well as the show, I noticed that three hunched old women, each walking alone, were working their way around the perimeter of the pavilion. Each one had an old chipped mug, a ladle, and a jug with a mysterious milky concoction inside.

I watched with growing apprehension as they approached us, and I could see more and more clearly the little bits of something floating in the jug. I found myself wishing I’d eaten the meat that came with my lunch and gotten food poisoning like Maria Teresa, our program director, so I could have spent the night in hiding in my room.
 
Before I knew it, one of the old women was upon me. She held a full mug up to me expressionlessly. I looked down at her grey head and then at the liquid, which was alternately milky and clearish, but always with those mysterious somethings floating inside. I pretended to take a sip, swallowed exaggeratedly, smiled, and thanked her, trying to hand the mug back. But the old woman wasn’t fooled, and shook her head impatiently. “Todo,” she said. All of it. I raised the mug to my lips again and gulped back the liquid in two huge swallows. It tasted as murky as it looked, and there was some lingering aftertaste that left me scrubbing my tongue when I thought no one was looking.

After the old woman had plodded her way through the crowd, I turned to my friend, Maria Luisa, and whispered, “I hope that wasn’t what I think it was.” But, of course, it was.

It was chicha, or sugarcane liquor. This classic Ecuadorian drink (which can also be made with corn or maize) is traditionally brewed by a group of Quichuan women, who chew up sugarcane stalks and spit the juices out into a communal pot. The sugar-saliva concoction is left to ferment for a couple of weeks, and voila, chicha.

Before long, the old woman was back for round two. When she got to me and held up the brimming cup, I tried to graciously decline.

“Ya la tengo,” I said.

If you know Spanish, you’ll notice that I had forgotten to use the past tense. So instead of saying, “I already had it,” I’d said, “I already have it.” This was manifestly untrue. The old woman shook her head at me and hoisted the cup once again. One of the volunteers hit me on the arm as I forced the second cup down, reminding me to not make a face. Never one to quietly eat broccoli at the dinner table, I don’t think I succeeded. It was enough of an effort to keep myself from gagging.

The third time around, I could barely tear my eyes away from the approaching old woman to watch the fashion show. “I can’t do this again,” I whispered to Maria Luisa. “Please, please, let’s run away…” So we did.

Although I had spent much of the night spitting in the grass, I felt privileged to have had the chance to drink something so authentically different from what I was used to. Just as long as I don’t have to do it again.