By Kait Libbey, Carleton College
“A él que tiene ojos, no le advisa.”
This was the phrase that was tumbling around in my head during the four days I spent staying at the Hernandez ranch. The saying translates to, “one who has eyes doesn’t need advice”. Janet, the woman who was hosting me, said this as we hauled logs into piles on our second day. Some of the logs were for firewood, but most were just being stacked to make room for the grass to grow.
Without warning, a branch zoomed by my head on its way to the log pile. Seeing me raise my hands to protect my head, Janet chimed in with her “old Patagonian saying”— “A él que tiene ojos, no le advisa.” We all laughed. About fifteen minutes later, my mind had wandered off and I was wrapped up in my own world, seeing only the grass beneath my feet and the branch in my arms. In that moment, a rouge branch from a log that Janet had shoved down the hillside broke off and was catapulted right into my face. “A él que tiene ojos, no le advisa,” I thought to myself angrily, inspecting my face and finding blood. I was sure to never let my eyes wander from the scene in front of me for the rest of the afternoon.
Throughout my time at Janet’s house this phrase kept coming back to me. It seemed to encapsulate the mindset of self-sufficiency that seeped into every aspect of their life. Everyday, they rely on what they can see and sense in the world around them, in tune with the changes in the land. At the same time, I found that with issues such as conservation, this deep trust for what they themselves can see lead to distinctly different viewpoints from my own.
Logs piled by Caroline, Zeke, and me on our second day.
On our first day, I arrived at the Maiten river with homestay-mates Caroline (Bowdoin college) and Zeke (Hampshire college). Janet and her son Nano pick us up in their pickup truck, which Nano drove right across the river. Janet had prepared a delicious soup for us to eat for lunch, and she fussed over us, reprimanding us for trying to help. “Today you are guests, tomorrow, you will work hard” she told us in Spanish.
The Hernandez campo is home to 600 sheep, 100 cows, 30 goats, 30 horses, 10 chickens, 5 dogs, and a few turkeys. Janet lives with her husband (also named Nano) and her son. The Maiten River separates them from the long road back to Cochrane. Their house is surrounded by green hills, dotted with Nirre, Lenga, and Calafate. Their source of livelihood, purpose, and food are the animals that roam their expansive campo, and those animals depend on the grass. It all came back to the grass, and thus the land. We spent our days moving logs into piles to increase area for grass to grow, to increase the amount of pasture, to support more animals.
The Hernandez’s house on their campo in the Maiten area.
After we set up our tents on the first day, we met Nano and walked out to a ravine filled with fallen trees. We spent the afternoon following Nano around as he used his chain saw to cut the fallen trees into smaller pieces, which we would haul into piles, stacking them as tall as possible. Cows roamed in the hillsides above us and Chilean Swallows and Flickers called from the canopy of the Lenga. Every 30 minutes or so, Nano would take a break to smoke a cigarette, and call out to us, “Niños! Relax!” We would sit with him and relish in the peace, chatting about our homes and comparing Chilean and American Slang.
Caroline and I hard at work… or actually taking a break to pose for a photo.
In the morning of our second day we sat around their stove drinking mate and idly chatting. The morning light flooded into Janet’s kitchen and warmed our backs as we cozied up against the stove. Coming out of a week with snow everyday in Chacabuco Valley (see Emma Houston’s video blog), we felt warmed to our cores.
For the rest of the morning, we hauled logs. Our days at the campo were much more relaxed than I had anticipated, but at the same time, the work was much more difficult that I had expected. Fatigue was escorted away by a morning of chatting and sipping mate. The mid-day siesta broke up the monotony of log hauling. Tortas by the stove remedied the soreness in my limbs after a long day. In my own life, I spend very little time on tasks of self-sufficiency, and any time that I do, it is a production heavily assisted by industrialized food chains and appliances. At the campo, Janet has spent the morning preparing their food and the meat has been raised on their own farm. The water that they use to cook and clean with, they carry in and heat themselves. The stove that they heat it with, they fuel with the logs they cut. In my life, I live in nearly complete ignorance of the processes and impacts of the food I eat and the materials I consume. Here, the chain of production is short. They are aware of the processes involve because they can see them plainly. “A él que tiene ojos, no le advisa.”
Janet teaching Caroline how to make tortas.
The next day we spent the morning in the house with Janet learning how to cook tortas. In the northern part of the country they are called Sopapillas, but here they refer to them as tortas. This fried bread is the staple of the Patagonian diet and Janet makes them every morning. They are the epitome of crispy, chewy gluttony. To make them, we created a dough with flour, salt, sugar, and yeast and rolled them into little diamond shapes, which were tossed into a vat of hot oil. Janet also taught us how to make a sweeter, citrus version called calzones rotos. Janet says the name translates to “broken underwear.” They also can be referred to as roscos. They were absolutely delicious, and Caroline, Zeke and I ate quite a few. If you are interested in trying them, which I highly recommend, Janet has kindly allowed me to post her recipes here, which are included below.
On our third full day, we finished our log piling. Nano Jr. had to leave for a job in Cochrane, so we spent the afternoon just with Janet. It felt like we were playing hookie. This afternoon was my favorite part of our whole stay. After helping Janet cut firewood, we went back into the house and baked an apple cake. We sipped mate as we worked. The Patrick Swayzee movie Ghost came on the TV, and Janet explained the parts that didn’t make sense. For dinner we ate tortas, rhubarb jam, apple cake, and chocolate milo. It was the most luxurious moment I have had in Chile. I felt like I was truly at home.
On our final morning with Janet and Nano, we ended up talking about Parque Patagonia for about an hour. Parque Patagonia is the private park purchased by American ecophilanthropists Doug and Kris Tompkins in 2004 by their organization, Conservación Patagónica. Janet described to me that the pumas in the park don’t just stay in the park, and that protecting them means that they come onto her land and eat her sheep. She began to also talk about how there was a loss of culture when the Tompkins bought the land—“La cultura esta perdido.” “This is the only life we know,” she explained, and by taking away the region’s pastorial epicenter, I believe she perceives the Patagonia Park project is a threat to her way of life.
Janet’s opposition to the park seemed to stem from the same tenant of self-sufficiency as her saying did, “A él que tiene ojos, no le advisa.” She hated that an outsider was able to change the way the land had been used. My conversation with her made me think that this opposition to the park stems from a fear of changing times. Seeing a valley like the Chacabuco, which to her was once incredibly productive, be turned into a park by an outsider must go against everything Janet senses and perceives. When I think about the puma, I see the ways that a predator can regulate the ecosystem, all the way to the bottom. When she thinks about a puma, she sees a threat to her animals and thus her way of life.
Janet is a kind-hearted, strong, and intelligent woman, with whom I was able to both discuss sexism within politics and giggle about my mispronunciation of Spanish words. I felt comfortable with her. I felt heard. We disagreed about the park, but it didn’t matter.
We hiked out our last day and collected mushrooms. When it was time to get into the van, we said goodbye. I thanked her for her kindness and patience, and told her how much she inspired me. Tears welled in her eyes and she chastised me for making her cry. A few tears welled in my eyes, too. Despite the changes that the residents of the campo are facing, I am hopeful for the future of the Patagón culture, primarily because if a woman like Janet, who works in a world where she has to be twice as smart, twice as responsible than any man, loves this culture and wants to preserve it, I doubt anyone will stand in her way.
Tortas
Tortas frying on Janet’s stove.
1 kilo or 3-4 cups of flour
1 cup of luke warm water
1 spoonful of salt
1 tbs of yeast
4 tbs of vegetable oil
Add the yeast to the warm water, let it sit until the yeast starts to bubble.
Add flour to a big bowl and mix in the salt and sugar. Create a well in this and add the yeast and water to it. Start to incorporate the mixture with the flour and add warm water is small amounts until the flour is totally incorporated and the dough has a shaggy consistency. Form the dough into a ball and place on a floured surface. Kneed the dough for about 5 minutes—until the dough is evenly wet/dry and elastic. Let it sit, covered, in a warm place for 20 minutes.
Janet showed Caroline how to knead the dough in order to add the most air possible. This involved raking the dough out to the point where it tears and then pulling it back together.
Once the dough has risen, knead it another 5-6 times and roll it out on a floured surface until it is about 1 cm thick. Cut this into strips and then cut those strips into diamonds or squares. With your finger and thumb, create a small hole in the center of each.
The rolled, cut and pierced dough, which is ready to be fried.
Add the oil to the pot until it reaches three inches. When it seems hot, roll up a small piece of the dough and add it to the pot. If the ball rises up and floats immediately, then the oil is hot enough. Add six tortas to the pot when the oil is ready. When the tortas are lightly brown, flip them. Once both sides are golden, take them out of the oil with a spoon with holes and let the oil drain slightly. Enjoy!
Calzones Rotos
Calzones rotos, frying in the pan and the finished product.
3 cups of flour
1 cup of sugar
4 tbs of yeast
1 cup of warm milk
1 lemon’s worth of zest
2 eggs
4 tbs oil
Powdered sugar
Add the yeast to the warm milk and let sit for a minute.
Like with the tortas, mix the flour, sugar, and salt in a big bowl. Make a well in the center and add the yeast/milk mixture, the eggs, oil, and lemon zest. Mix starting in the center and incorporate the flour on the edges, working your way out. Add warm water until the dough is shaggy and fully incorporated. Let this sit for 30 minutes, covered and in a warm place.
When the dough has risen, knead 5-6 times and roll out to ¾ of a cm thick. Cut this into strips and then diamonds. Make a small, 2 cm long cut in the center of each. Pull the top corner through this hole, like shown in the image below. When the oil is hot (see above for a test for hot oil) add 6 or 7 to the pot. Flip when golden brown on one side, drain and remove from the pot when both sides are golden brown. Sprinkle powdered sugar overall of them after you finish cooking them.
The desired shape of calzones rotos.
Caroline enjoying one, fresh out of the pot!