Dressing the Cow

At the time I was reading All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. The classic western had me thinking about the expanse of the U.S. West: creosote, the desert, horses and cattle. I had grown up in the Southwest, where ranches cover the desert's expanse but I had passed most of my youth in the steep mountains or the city and had very little experience with cattle and horses.

I now live in what would not typically be considered cattle country, but my host family cares for a small herd of livestock. One day, as I ate my breakfast, I was summoned by my host brother to help dress a cow that had unexpectedly died in the jungle. The other men were at a community work day at the school, my host brother told me. He basically gave me no choice,  and told me that I needed to sharpen my grandfather's steel knife, put on my rubber boots, and follow him to where the cow had died, or the meat would spoil. We found the cow about 20 minutes from my house, rigamortis and cold. Earlier in the year I had watched the men hang a cow, and skin it in the early morning, but the cold and stiff cow was different. The skin was thick, and the beast was heavy and difficult to manipulate. My fourteen year old host brother led me through the process, and my host grandmother made a fire to keep the flies off the meat.  We worked until the early afternoon, removing cuts of meat until the bloated stomach and ribs remained. My clothes were covered in blood and sweat. I walked back to the house with a horse loaded with bags of meat. We made a few trips and I left my host grandma and brother to gut the cow and went home to rest. 

I showered in the creek and returned to my hammock. Then, similar to how I had been summoned in the morning, my younger host brother appeared and informed me that I was needed again. I put my boots back on and hiked down to where the cow had died. My host brother sat looking sour with my host grandma. "A bull also died," he said. I didn't believe it, but my mind began racing, thinking maybe some disease had hit the herd. He motioned to where we had skinned the cow. An undeveloped calf laid where the cow had been, the birth-sack having been cut open. My host brother said he didn't want to eat the unborn calf, my host grandmother argued the necessity of eating the meat. They seemed to have summoned me to settle the dispute. I sided with grandma, and skinned the calf, as my host brother refused to touch the baby bull. It's hard to think of an experience that would more readily inspire vegetarianism. When the work was done, I walked home, exhausted and having adopted the sour look of my host brother. 

I showered in the creek and returned to my hammock. The sun was setting now, and my mind was running with the images of the day. My host sister appears this time. She has a bowl of fresh beef and rice from the Comarca in her hand, and gives it to me. I have been in this situation before, receiving food that I am conflicted about accepting from my host sister. But this time, my hunger wins, the meat is tender and fresh and the classic western doesn't seem as far away as I open up it's pages after the sun has set. 

Rain. Water.

It was the perfect storm. The hill on the other side of the valley grew more and more opaque as the rain moved towards Pita. A cement tank I had made to store rain water sat elevated on a wooden table behind my house. A PVC gutter system would soon direct all the rainwater that fell on my zinc roof to fill its thirsty 60 gallon interior. My pants were caked in hardened cement, fingers sticky from PVC glue, my host brothers hands cracked and dry from helping me finish plastering the inside layer of cement a few days before. We sat on the porch, the thunder creating a drum roll that added to the excitement and anticipation. 

Patrick, a PCV friend had helped me create the table for the rainwater catchment system, carrying thick lumber to my house and helping me put it in the ground, and leveling the oddly shaped pieces of wood. Days later, I had carried sand and cement up to Pita on horse back with a friend from the community. On the trip, the horse had slipped on the loose mud, it's square pupils seeming to dilate in fear as I kept the rope in tension that wrapped around its muzzle, so it would not roll back down the hill. The form for the tank had been sewn by a dear grandma who lived up the hill. I had filled the cloth form with sawdust from a recently felled tree, and young men from around the community had helped me apply the ferrocement to the form. The tank had begun to take shape, and the kids would hide in its space, and butterfly's for some odd reason seemed to be attracted to its surface. With a group of four men we had moved the tank to the table, and finally on the morning of the perfect storm I had cut all the PVC, angling the cut so the rainwater would fall into the tank and not into my front yard. It had been a long morning, but the prospect of not having to carry water until the dry season kept my motivation high. 

The storm arrived, and the sound of the rain on the zinc almost drowned out the thunder. The rain fell on the corrugated roof, slid down the angled zinc to the PVC, and then proceeded to slide down the PVC... surprisingly and extremely unfortunately not into the tank but rather into my front yard. I was dumbfounded. I checked the angle of the cut on the PVC, the water should flow towards the tank, but for some odd reason was flowing up-hill and soaking my front yard instead of filling my sweet new tank.  The kids washed their hands in the stream of water that splashed on the mud. They smiled and laughed and showered in the water, and it seemed to be a brilliant success to them. The rain passed and I climbed up to the roof, placed a level on the steel, and confirmed that the roof was angled downhill, away from the tank. A level roof, predictability, and any typical assumptions simply cannot be made in the campo, yet another lesson, and a new gutter system would have to be imagined.