Chuño

"As you know, my brother, who is a priest, was a missionary in Bolivia for 12 years." Bishop John's eyes twinkled more brightly than the logs in his fireplace. The sisters and I were enjoying dinner with him at his home.

"He enjoyed every moment of his time with the Aymara Indians... but there was a moment when he thought he was coming back here to the States. He had spent one whole year studying Spanish and where did they send him? To Bolivia highlands, where no one spoke a shred of Spanish. After 3 weeks, he went to chapel, knelt down and prayed. You know my brother is a very direct man..."

"Dear God, what am I suppose to do? What the hell do you want me to do?
....and he heard an answer: Go learn Aymara."

Bishop John waited for our laughter to subside and continued.
"Well, he went back to the university and ended up writing a catechism for them in their language. You know, he says one of the most amazing things he saw was how the women made the potatoes that would feed them for the winter. These people were poor, very poor. You see, they planted potatoes. When winter neared, they would make chuño.

Chuño-making begins when the temperature at night falls below freezing. Potatoes are left out to freeze, then thaw when the sun rises. Barefoot Indians tread out the moisture, leave the potatoes to freeze again, tread some more. After a fortnight they have chuño—a dehydrated potato that, with luck, will last all winter. (from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875309-1,00.html#ixzz19XxQw0NZ )

And as these women would walk over the potatoes, they would talk about things, their families, their dreams, just like what we are doing now."

Perhaps we may need potatoes in the rush of our Christmas preparation.

ps. Bishop John is in his third year of retirement as Bishop of our home diocese: Springfield-Cape Girardeau.
ps2. More about chuño http://www.best-potato-recipes.com/chuno.html