Llantén

Another weekend living it up in the barrio se acabó. I spent Saturday and Sunday washing clothes, sweeping my floor, making bracelets out of string with the kids, and saying “Whew, its hot.” That is just about all I did this weekend.
Friday I had an interesting adventure. The other day the guys and I went to a nearby hacienda and shoveled up the tierra in the cowpen, which as you might guess, was pure manure. Perfect abono organico. And when I say the guys and I shoveled it up, I mean I stood watch while they did the work because they weren’t going to let me shovel. So I have a huge mound of caca de vaca over at the garden and really want to get some more plants to sembrar. And what I REALLY want is some llantén, a dandelion type plant that has great medicinal value. I say this to Margarita, one of the ladies that cooks and cleans the JHC facilities.
“Vamanos!” she says.
“Donde vamos?” I venture.
“Vamos a buscar llantén! SAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUL!” She says
Saul is the resident landscaper, garden crew and sometimes he wears a shirt like Charlie Brown. Today he was weaing that shirt. Saul and Margarita talk a bit and Saul grabs his machete and I grab a box and we hit the streets.
We walk up and down the streets of Villa Soberana looking in the gardens, the curbside and the composts for llantén. Margarita goes up to a guy she knows, “Hay llantén?” No llantén here, but they do have juanislama (verbena) and albahaca (basil). Saul machetes up the verbena and machetes down some basil seeds. We add them to the box and the guy points to a house telling us they ALWAYS have llantén.
So we go walking to that house and “MIRA! ALI ALI! HAY LLANTEN!” And there was LOTS of llantén, huge patches of it. So we inquire within and the abuelita was so excited that we wanted to cut her llanten she was beaming. When we told her why we wanted the llantén she got even more excited. So Saul gets to work with the machete and giant clumps of llantén land in my box. As Margarita and I talk to the little lady Saul starts weeding the garden and the lady is very very excited about this. She was really hoping Saul could trim her rose bush, but Saul wants to use his other (sharper) machete for that job, and so he promises to return on Tuesday for that job.
So tomorrow Saul will return to trim her hedges and I am going to send over some jarabe natural for the cough she had. I would go with him, but tomorrow I have a date with Doña Goya to learn how to make jicaro wine and carao honey.