sábado, 17 de enero de 2009

Gangie




My grandma, wow how do I start? Gainge is an eighty-eight-year-old mother of two. She married twice. First to Pedro and his sister’s father and later to Don Crillollo. She was married to him for 42 years before he passed just a month before I arrived for site visit. For 22 years she worked in her own restaurant feeding the engineers from the German NGO that constructed the drinking and irrigation system in this part of the country. She had a fall a couple of years ago. She broke her spine in three places. After the operations she was not able to walk. She can still move but you can not really call it walking. She stands about four feet tall on a good day. She is very well versed in folkloric poems and songs. Unfortunately for me she will break into verse in mid sentence. I do not know what is going on. Is she telling me a story of her life or is she just ranting again? I smile and nod, smile and nod. The stories are always filled with slang from the 1950’s and end with, “Oh! Mateito you don’t understand.” What can I say, she gets me. Gangie slips in between dementia and sanity. For the most part she does not do damage to her self. Her health fluctuates greatly. Some days she is singing and others she can’t speak due to pain. Through it all she is still very young in spirit. She laughs every day. She is always is ready to tell people about the good old days. Gangie is from a time where things were very different here. I have to pick and chose from her tales what is real and not, but all in the same she has seen it all and then some. She says that she has a broken back a drying kidney, high blood pressure, and a menagerie of other afflictions. Due to this she ingests the most eclectic regiment of cure-alls. Now for the list of my favorites. BY no means could I remember all of them but these are the best. One time I came home from giving a gardening workshop to see two forest pigeons in a cage. I had heard that their meat was like chicken, but a little bit gamier with a smoky flavor. Needless to say I was anxious to eat some. I asked Pedro how does one cook pigeon? He told me there are a variety of ways, but these birds were not for eating. I was a little shocked I had not heard of anyone who grew pigeons. I imagined that it was kind of hard to manage a flock. He told me they were not for that either. I asked, “What are they for?” They were Gangie's joints. Her elbows had really been hurting her. What? Yes the pigeons were to be filleted and put on the joints. Remember that all of you that ache in the rainy season.
Second, for the longest time I had noticed that there was a large plastic bowl with a brick in the middle ans bread around it soaking n water. The bowl is covered with a mosquito net. After a while I had to ask. Pedro took of the cover and inside I saw that there were lots of tiny little insects that resemble beetles. He took some out and put them into a drinking glass. He put a little water in it and Gangie drank it. Live bugs and all. I guess it is for her kidnies.
Third, Gangie not only has put me under the table when we drink moonshine, but she also makes her own brand of home made wine. This she like to give to anyone that comes and visits. I have seen her get 13 year olds drunk. All for the better. When they pass out she does not know and she has some one to talk to for hours.
If you look at the second foto you can pick her out and then find her in the rest of the pics. As you can tell when I go to family gatherings I am the youngest by a good twenty years.
At this point I need to wish a very happy birthday to my beloved strongly missed real grandfather-. I miss you a lot and think about you all the time. Keep on chugging I will see you soon.

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