Qalapoycha

The title of this blog is the word that has been around the office for about 2 months.  When my local co-workers learned that my son had learned to walk, they immediately clapped their hands and started saying this word.  Then they politely explained that in this culture, a historic tradition is that when a baby first learns to walk that the family celebrates by having a meal called qalapoycha, which literally means: sheep’s head and feet.

Sheep’s head and feet did not sound like a great meal to me, but I liked the idea of hosting a celebration that would really please my co-workers, so we put the plan in motion.  First there was a debate about how many sheep’s heads and feet would be needed to feed our group.  Then we had to guess how many hours it would take to strip the wool and wash the hooves and the whole head up.  Three women committed to take a whole day and evening to do all this preparation, and spend the following morning cooking all the bits.  It was beginning to feel like the buildup before Thanksgiving meal.

Finally the day arrived, and everyone in the office was clearly thrilled that I had followed through and prepared and paid for this meal.  Right before lunchtime most of the staff were either in the kitchen or giving advice from right outside the door.  Feet were being sorted into bowls, along with a barley soup, and heads were arranged on platters.  Finally everything was hauled into the women’s and men’s separate rooms for eating, and everyone grabbed a cushion and scooted up to the table cloth, ready to dig in.

As nice as I am making this sound, I will admit, this meal tasted terrible.  There was nothing on the feet that I would describe as meat, rather it was all skin, tendons, jelly-like stuff, and the actual hooves.  The heads had a wider variety, as they divided up the jelly-like cheeks and lips, the tongue, and the eyeballs.  The barley soup was almost worst than anything, because it tasted not at all like barley soup should.  To be honest the headbits were tolerable, but the soup tasted like death.  I hadn’t eaten much, and the guys were harassing me about this, but they told me not to worry, the brains were yet to come.  The cook then brought a rock into the room, and they turned the heads upside down, raised them above their heads, and then crashed the sheep skulls down upon the rock to break the skulls so they could access the brains.  They then spooned the brains out, mushed them up on a plate and passed them around.  I hope it doesn’t put you over the edge to hear that the brain was actually my favorite part of the meal, because spread on bread, it was quite similar to a tuna salad sandwich. 

What else did this special celebration entail?  Not much really.  After the meal I brought my son over to have tea with the men and he wooed them like usual.  His mother was happy to get rid of him, he has become a bit of a terror eating with the women. 

So what do you think of qalapoycha?  I think I could go the rest of my life without eating it again, and be just fine.  But I don’t regret doing it once.  I don’t say this because I’m an adventurous guy and like to add freakish meals to my list of crazy accomplishments.  I don’t regret it because it meant a lot to my co-workers that I bought and ate this meal with them.  By participating with them in things that are uniquely “their culture”, I show them that I respect and care about them, and that I have not come to push my agenda for change on every aspect of their culture.  You see, when you come to another culture with a hope to facilitate or inspire change, you have to set priorities for the issues you want to work on, choose your battles carefully, and give some ground on other issues so that you don’t lose the respect of the communities you’re trying to help.  So, in that light, bring on the qalapoycha, I have more important things than traditional meals to work on changing!