La Fiesta del Chivo

In 2000, Mario Vargas Llosa wrote a novel by the same title that narrates an account of the 1961 CIA plot to overthrow Trujillo, the dictator of the Dominican Republic from 1930-1961. I highly recommend the book as a fictional account of the US involvement in that Caribbean island. While I am not on an island and have no political intrigues or assassinations to report, I repeated that title in my thoughts several times during our celebration dinner at the community of El Planchado on Friday afternoon.

The MCC Guerrero team was invited by the community of El Planchado for lunch in celebration of the three tinacos (cisterns) that the community built with the financial and technical support of MCC. It is common at the end of a project for communities to host a dinner for the team and the participants in the project.

At 1:30 the six of us (Martin and Liz Dyrst and their two boys, Manuel Vazquez and myself) packed into the red truck and began our drive through the mountains of Guerrero. The two hour drive included beautiful vistas as we climbed the curvy roads. We passed fields of corn, sorghum and chiles. In what looked like large red flags dotting the hillsides, the harvest of chiles, set out on tarps and roofs, were drying in preparation for sale. We drove through Titicic and Tlquilcingo, the communities that I have visited, as El Planchado is one of the remotest communities where we have worked.

When I say that the drive was two hours, I mean that for the first 30 minutes we had the luxury of a paved road and for the last hour and a half we bumped along a dirt road filled with holes, rocks and periodic stick and wire fences that we had to open and close as we entered communities nestled along the mountainside. It also included being in close quarters with the Dyrst boys, who are, I think the appropriate word would be, “active.” Needless to say, after being human popcorn in the second seat of the truck cab, when we finally arrived at 3:30 I was more than ready to meet the community and to eat the food that the community had been cooking all day.

El Planchado is the end of the road. Planchado means flat, but it certainly does not describe the geography which is rocky, hilly and difficult to farm. There are three houses in the community and they are all family. The Doña, mother of the family who looks to be in her late 70s, lives with her one daughter, Carmen. Luis, another son in his 50s has a house, and the third house belongs to his son, Pepe, and three daughters, the only children in the community. I was impressed that despite the size of the community there was a small adobe one-room school and church.

As we drove up to the first house, one of the girls was arranging the table and chairs in the patio area. We talked for a ten to fifteen minutes, before we were told that the food was prepared, but we were awaiting the Cokes. From my experience in communities, sharing Coke with guests is a highly valued custom. As this was to be a special meal, the two men waited for the last moment possible to buy the Cokes, a half hour drive from the community, so that the drinks would be cold for the guests. I should mention that during the wait, Carmen invited us to her house after we finished eating so that we could eat with her as well. We joked that it was going to be a contest of who had the best meal.

Once the drinks arrived, we gathered around the table. Bundles of fresh tortillas were stacked on the table beside the bowls of salsa verde, fresh cut limes and salt. Then one by one we each had a plate of meat in front of us. As a vegetarian, I am used to having limited options, but with only one option, plate of goat marinated in chile, today I was going to be eating goat with everyone else and voicing high praise for the food.

Using the tortilla as my fork, I tore off a chunk of the stringy meat, dipped it in the salsa verde and began my meal con gusto. I really have no idea what part of the chivo I was eating; however, it was abundantly clear what part of the goat Luis was eating. The jaw line and teeth indentations were hard to disguise no matter the amount of chile marinade. Sitting beside him, I asked if there was any meat on the head. “Of course, it’s some of the best. Want to try some?” I declined the invitation feeling like I had more than I could handle on my plate. He happily added bones big and small to a pile beside his plate. With Modelo beer, plenty of salsa verde and too many tortillas for one person my size, I made a strong showing with the chivo.

I spent much of the meal concentrating on my approach and wiping my nose from the affects of the intense picante that I was consuming along with my goat. The others were better at maintaining the conversation. The young son lived in Florida for three years and enjoyed practicing some of the phrases that he had learned and was curious about how to say other phrases or words. Periodically, muffled voices would shout through the CB radio attached to the father’s belt. The Dyrst boys used the styrofoam cups to play tic-tac-toe deftly avoiding the food altogether.

Nearing 5:00 and relaxing in the sun after eating more meat than I have in the last year, Carmen reiterated her invitation to eat at her house as she also prepared a meal for us. I really did think that she was joking. In a small community where everyone is family, it seems logical that they would have coordinated plans for one meal, and the meal we just finished was certainly generous. However, I do recognize that each family dearly wanted to show their appreciation. While we were not lacking for more food, we did want to visit her house and the Doña of the community.

As we ducked into the shade of her house, I saw that the stacks of tortillas were on the table along with a bowl of salsa verde, a bowl of refried beans and a huge pitcher of fresh jamaica juice. I poured everyone a glass of juice as I was parched from all the food. As I took my first refreshing sip, she began to pass around the plates of chivo. At this point, we really did have to decline the food for obvious reasons as well as the fact that I had to be on the 8:00pm bus to Mexico City, the 8:00 bus from Olinalá, two bumpy and mountainous hours from the table where we were being served chivo – round two.

Carmen seemed so surprised that we were not going to eat that I ate a tortilla with refried beans and drank a second glass of juice to show her how much I appreciated her gesture of hospitality. She insisted that we take the food home for dinner and proceeded to find containers for the goat, beans and chiles.

At 5:30 we began to say our goodbyes. Weighed down by the meal that we ate and the bags of food we didn’t eat, we said our thanks and began our two hour return journey. The vistas were still beautiful and the road still almost impassable, but with the chivo as an extra passenger I was reminded that la fiesta del chivo is one small example of the generous and thankful spirit of the people who MCC works with in the mountains of Guerrero.