Papa Culture

(By now I hope you all know that papa means potato!)

I was invited by my host sister, Nelly, and her husband to help harvest potatoes from their chacra (small farm). How it works here in Chocta (one of the largest potato exporting towns) is everyone practically has their own papa chacras on their private plots of land. When it’s time to plant or harvest they solicit the help of friends and family. It’s a really cool concept of the community coming together to help whoever needs it. When the potatoes sell, the owner somehow keeps track of who helped for how many days and pays them accordingly. At the beginning of a harvest day, everyone walks to the chacra together, which could be close or really far. If it’s really far, the owner of the chacra will bring pots and food to make lunch for everyone. Its custom to cook chicken when planting and fish when harvesting. (don’t ask me why, I asked and they told me that’s just how it is).

So Thursday morning the whole familyCommercial- to sell to the big potato companies (depending of the class of papa, each sac sells for about 50 soles, or 16 bucks), regulation- to bring home with us and sell to people in Chocta, and chancho- the tiny ones that go to the pigs to eat. When we got to the chacra, I was ask to help Nelly start cooking lunch instead of digging up potatoes because everyone said I would hurt my nails… I got really annoyed at them for that. Sometimes I get sick of being the outsider who no one thinks can do anything. I told them about my 15 hour hike to Half Dome in Yosemite and they hardly believed me. I just have to work a little harder at earning respect because of some stereotypes some people have developed. So after lunch, which included fresh potatoes straight from the dirt, I got into line with all the people and showed them I could dig up papas as good as anyone! I have to admit that my fingernails were quite sore for a few days from dirt and potato getting wedged under them.  However, I do feel like I gained a lot of respect that day. Even from people we walked past on the way home. They saw the gringa all muddy and sweaty from a day of their everyday work and I became accepted officially into the community, officially a Choctonian!

hiked out to Nelly and Jeramias’ chacra to harvest. The way it worked was a couple strong young men (in this case my 21 year old host brother and cousin) plow up the rows of potato plants. This usually exposes some, but then a row of people line up to dig up the rest and put them into piles. Later we go back to gather those piles into big sacs. There are three categories of papa.

This was an awesome experience and a gained a lot more than sore fingers, 20 soles, and a bit of respect. I also gained perspective. The potatoes that we eat in the United States come from farms like this. The majority of this world work hard labor jobs everyday. I never really thought about that or realized how much work goes into a sac a potatoes. Who would’ve figured I’d learn so much about the potato growing culture. I can never be grateful enough for this experience to open my eyes to different cultures that I would have never even thought about. And not only do I now get to know about them, I get to live them for two years. Pretty darn cool, man.

These are the papas I got to take home after a day of work, all cleaned and laying out to dry! Aren't they pretty? delicious too!