Yimi is my birthday buddy here in Huanuco. He turned 25 on December 3rd (and I will on the 12th).
The tradition here seems to be to have ponche for breakfast. The birthday person gets to select the food of the day, and then Carolina cooks what she is motivated to cook. The birthday person invites people over to eat said food in the afternoon, around 2 or 3pm. Then, we take a break from eating to nap and hang out. Finally, before dinner, we eat the cake.
I tried ponche on Carolina's birthday, but we were not told in advance that you need to be up at 6am to enjoy it. This time, we got to really experience it. The ponche part is rice in this egg, sugar, and water mixture. There is a top icing-esque part that is bomb - so delicious. You just dip bread into the egg and sugar mixture. Mmmmm.
For his birthday, Yimi wanted lokro (sp?). We ate escabeche. Escabeche is an delicious, spicy onion dish that is served with meat and rice. That morning, abuela brought over some chickens from her group for lunch. Well, when I found out that Carolina would be killing said chickens, I had to watch and see how it was done. Orlando told her I wanted to help. She let me hold their feet while she sawed at their knecks.
As a side note: I don't think Carolina trusts us to do anything. She doesn't let us wash our own clothes, so we have to do it when she isn't home or she just takes over. She doesn't let us help her cook or clean anything. There are a few exceptions. For example, we helped her peel some potatoes once, but then she finished them. Also, I started peeling some oranges in the morning to make orange juice, and she came over and finished peeling those. And basically anything we try to help her with, she ends up doing it herself. Oh well, we try.
After she sawed at their knecks with her not so sharp knife, she dipped them in a pot of boiled water and went to town ripping out their feathers (another thing she wouldn't let me help me with). It looked impressively simple, though quite hot, as the feathers came out in bulk.
Finally, she set to cutting them up. We fed the nasty bits to the anxiously awaiting dogs. I think she threw them the intestines and each dog took a turn carrying it around in their mouth trying to break it apart to eat. It was gross to watch. Apparently, the fat is good for your knees or something, so she saved that part separately. One of the chickens had a egg in it that it hadn't laid, so it was kind of cool to see that in it's sack with the placenta and everything, but we ended up letting Carolina eat that business. Ick.
We opted to watch a movie instead of awkwardly hanging out the kitchen to see if Carolina could use our help while she ran around at 1000mph. The movie, called "Warm Bodies" or "Mi Novio es un Zombie," was pretty funny.
Then, we went back to the kitchen to eat lunch. Yimi and his friends ate in the living room. Apparently, we were not cool enough to eat with them. The good part was that Yunina, Tono's gf, brought cold soda, so we got first dibs. By the way, cold soda is quite a novelty here as everyone seems to prefer everything at room temperature or hot. I like my beverages cold, for the most part, so it was extra pleasant.
After another respite and lots of rain, we ate the cake. Orlando picked a flan and jello cake for Jimmy. It was actually pretty good, I was surprised. I have seen them around, but they don't look like a very good combination. The tradition at this part is to sing Happy Birthday in English, then in Spanish (castellano). After the birthday person blows out the candle, then take a bit out of the side of the cake and people try to push their head into the cake (the only time that was successful since we have been here, the cake ended up on the floor).
After cake, we ate dinner and everything went back to normal. End birthday.
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