¡Junta Grande!

On Wednesday January 14th, I, with the help of my neighbor Cornelio and my friend Charlo, organized a Junta for 30 people to haul the wood for my house from the three different locations where it was cut to the center of town, where I am building. For the Junta, I purchased 30lbs of chicken, 15lbs of sugar, 15lbs of flour, butter, pinolio (ground up processed corn for a strange drink), milk, salt, 3 dozen eggs, onions, peppers, garlic, coffee, and 30 lbs of rice. There may have been a few more items that I can’t remember. I spent about $80-$90 on food. The deal with juntas is that if I provide the food, they will work. The day of the Junta was also the same day that my boss was coming to visit and see how I was doing. Originally the Junta was going to be scheduled for the 17th, but since my boss was coming, I was able to arrange for the Junta to be the 14th instead. I told them my boss, jefe in Spanish, was coming and that he really wanted to work. Since the wood was in three different locations in my community, hauling it was a great way to show my boss, Zach, my beautiful community. The hikes ranged from 30minutes to an hour one way. One of the hikes was practically straight up hill. The longest hike was mainly flat ground. The hike was beautiful, but hauling heavy wood on your shoulder through sticky, slippery mud can be a bit tiresome.
Anyways, my boss arrived at about 6:30 in the morning in time for breakfast. I wish I had my camera with me for breakfast. We had egg sandwiches and coffee. The bread was made fresh the previous day; its actually called a Johnny Cake. It’s made with the water from coconuts as well as a little shredded coconut as well. The Johnny cake was cut in half lengthwise, a slab of butter was tossed on it followed by some eggs scrambled with peppers and onions. I think this was by far the best breakfast I’ve had since I’ve been living in Rio Oeste.

The above picture is of Johnny Cakes. This first batch was made with some funky yeast. They didn’t rise properly. They should be a little thicker.
After breakfast Zach and I were each handed a length of rope before we started the uphill hike to the first location of the wood. After arriving at the location, we tied together 3-4 10-12 foot boards and then tied our rope around one end. After everything was secured, we just started dragging the wood down the side of the hill. It almost became a race. There were about 20 of use running down the side of this hill guiding the wood between the trees and the bushes. The wood would start to gather momentum and you just prayed that it didn’t knock you off your feet or your neighbor. If you think of lumberjacks directing logs down a river, that’s what we were doing, only we were directing boards down the side of a steep, steep hill.

The guy in the middle in the gray is my boss, Zach. This is Zach and I with our leashed wood almost to the bottom of the hill.

From the bottom of the hill we tied the boards to horses to finish hauling them to my future house location.
After this first trip, we replenished our water supply and started the hour hike to the farthest wood location. It was a beautiful hike that followed the course of the river.

Loading up the horses.

We arrived at the site to help load the horses, grab a few boards, and start the hike back with the boards on our shoulders. This hike was rough because we forgot to grab our pads to cushion our shoulders for the long haul. My shoulder was bright red with the skin beginning to peel off by the time we were done. After that, we grabbed lunch and went to the third location up in the hills of my host family’s finca. This hike was short and easy, which was a nice way to finish the workday.

This is the site where I am building. I’ll provide more updates as my house comes together.


En la lucha,


K