Author’s note: This is another story from the trip Michael and I took to visit our brother Joshua who was teaching school in Bucay, Ecuador. Ben and Martha Sue and their family live just up the road from the apartment Joshua calls home.

    As the truck bounced up the road to the farm, I debated whether I should help Ben’s milk or take a nap. Climbing part of Chimborazo had been our agenda for the day so a nap sounded like a dream, but helping Ben’s milk promised adventure. In the end I chose the latter. 

   “Do you want help milking?” I asked Martha Sue after I tossed my backpack in my room and trotted up the hill.

   “I’m sure Faith would be glad for some help.”

   Wearing an old pair of white sandals I followed Faith to the barn. Our first job was scooping butter into containers, and as I listened to Ben banging and singing in the milking parlor I was afraid he’d be done milking by the time we got all the butter in the cooler.

   I wouldn’t have had to worry. 

   “Just leave the butter and come start milking now,” Ben hollered a few minutes later. Gladly I washed my hands and followed the banging, singing, and mooing coming from the milking parlor. Ben disappeared then, taking Michael with him and Faith set about showing me  how to give each cow their set amount of feed, make a hole in the center, and add a cup of molasses. Then it was time to let in the cows. Faith opened the gate and slipped fearlessly among the cows urging the right ones towards the stanchions. “Some of the cows kick,” she informed me once they were all situated. “But I’ll do the kickers.”

   “Ok great.”

   “Have you ever milked cows before?” she asked, mixing the solution to clean the udders.

   “Umm, I’ve helped milk a by hand, but I’ve never used milkers before.”

   “You’ve never used milkers!” the twins,Kevin and Kendon who were standing by the gate were astonished.

    “Nope,” I grinned.

    Faith had her hands full trying to teach this city girl how to prep cows and put the milker on. It took me a few tries but I finally managed to coordinate my moves and get suction cups attached. There were six cows in a batch but only four milkers so while the milkers pumped the children decided it was time to test my knowledge.

    Kevin waved his hand at the mountains behind him saying something about the Andes.

   “Do you know what mountain range that is?” he asked.

    “The Andes.” I replied.

    “Did you know before I told you?”

    “No.”

   He grinned, while I found a brain file to store geographical facts.

   I was told about an audio book they had listened to and asked all sorts of questions before the milkers were ready to be switched.

   “Is that a good dress?” Kendon asked while the last two cows were being milked.

   I glanced down at my green dress that already sported a few manure splatters. “Uh not really.”

   “Good, because you’ll get dirty. Are those your best sandals?”

   I looked at my white sandals. I had been planning to wear them to church on Sunday until I found a pair of flip flops at the market fit better. “No they’re not.” Faith had asked me the same questions earlier and I began wondering if I had overdressed for the barn. But who cares, I thought. The mud and manure will wash out of my dress or else I’ll have another every day dress. And these sandals pinch my feet anyway. I glanced at my wristwatch. That thing cost only ten dollars if it breaks, so. Those problems solved, I turned to help Faith dismiss the last two cows and herd in the next six. Behind us the twins and Gabriel dawdled in their task of scooping green bananas into totes.

   The second batch of cows were just nicely settled in their stanchions when a truck pulled up. “Oh, those are milk customers. I have to go. Can you manage by yourself?” Faith asked.

   “Sure,” I said and she was gone.

   The cows were munching their green bananas or feed with molasses while I slipped up behind them and cleaned their dirty udders. One cow swiped at me with her tail leaving a manure streak on my arm. The boys who were supposed to still be scooping green bananas laughed, but I just grabbed a paper towel and removed the offensive specimen. I’ll show them that I’m tough, I thought.

   And just like that another truck pulled up. “Look! They gringos,” Kendon exclaimed.

   I glimpsed a white man on the back of the truck as I wrung out my rag and reached for another udder. Aren’t we also gringos, I wondered as I scrubbed at chunks of manure.

   Getting the milkers on was a another circus. I juggled suction cups and dodged swishing tails and hoped that all the kickers were having a good day. I knew I had hoped in vain when one cow thrust her foot between my legs. Thankfully she only hit my dress, adding another smear of dirt and manure. I just gritted my teeth and attached the milker.

   After the four milkers were in use, I leaned on the gate and watched Faith help the customers. Just like that one of the gringos came up to me. “Do you speak Spanish?” he asked cautiously.

   “A little bit.”

  “Oh, so you’re not from here?”

  “No, I’m visiting.”

  “And how long are you staying?”

  “Four days. So this is my second day here.”

  “You’re only staying for 4 days! Where are you from?”

   “Michigan.”

  “Oh, me too!! What part of Michigan?”

  “I live in Millington, close to Frankenmuth.”

  “Really?! I’m from Kalamazoo. I married a girl from Ecuador, that I met in Florida.  We lived in the states for a few years then we came down to visit and I loved this country. I work remotely so we moved down here. Everything is so much cheaper down here!”  

   “Oh, I know!”

   The guy’s brother walked up then and started talking Spanish to me.

   “She knows English,” his older brother informed him. “And she’s from Michigan.”

   We exclaimed over this, and then the first guy asked, “Are you Amish?”

   I glanced back at my herd of cows just as one cow jerked her head out of the stanchion and took off, her milker flying across the floor. “I’m Mennonite!” I yelled over my shoulder and ran to head off the cow. She was going for the exit gate and I yelled for Kevin to,“COME HELP ME STOP THIS COW!!!!!!”

    Between the two of us we got the cow stopped but she refused to turn around. “Give me that machete that’s on that shelf,” Kevin pointed to the shelf beside me.

   “It’s not there.”

   “Yes, it is. It’s right here.” He ducked his head to look. “Oh, it is gone. Well, hand me the cattle shocker.”

  I had heard stories from Dad about the twins and the cattle shocker but I handed it over anyway. The cow whirled at the sight of the thing and headed for her stall. I ran after her, and my white sandals slipped in the mud and manure and I fell to one knee. The gringos were on the other side of the gate behind me, watching. I heard a gasp of exclamation, but I was too embarrassed to turn around for pity. I leaped to my feet and guided the cow into her spot. That time I made sure she was locked in securely before I attached the milker.

   Returning to the gate, I found Kendon trying to explain how he had lived in Michigan but now lived in Ecuador. I bailed him out of his dilemma and got into a discussion with the gringos about rumshpringing and how I’m something similar or Amish or Mennonite but don’t prefer a label.

   While this conversation took place, Faith was still in the milk house. I kept interrupting our conversation to run off and dismiss a cow and out the empty  milker on another one. And slowly but surely the barn emptied of cows.

   “Do you know which cows come in next?” I kept asking Kevin and Kendon.

   “No, no we have no idea,” they’d say.

   I was puzzled because Dad had told me how the twins could basically do chores by themselves. And now they kept insisting they didn’t know how.

   Occasionally, Faith would stick her head out the door and call, “Are you still doing okay, Kari?”

  “Yep!” It wasn’t really a lie because I was still doing okay. It was just that I didn’t know what to do once I was ready for the next batch of cows.

  “Hey miss,” it was the younger guy leaning over the gate. “Can I go in that pen and touch those cows?”

  “Sure.”

   “Will they kick me?”

  “They might.”

   “Have you been kicked already?”

  “Yes.”

   “You have! And it’s your first time milking cows! Well, I’m not going in there.”

   I turned the last cow loose, laughing inwardly. Those gringos had almost had a fit when I told them this was my first day milking and I was mainly on my own. Out of the corner of my eye, I was the gringo over at the cows, staying safely outside the corral, but taking pictures and touching the cows noses.

    And then the  barn was completely empty of cows and Kevin and Kendon still insisted they had no idea which cows came in next. I had slipped down to the milk house earlier to see if Faith was almost done, only to find her still busy. So I leaned on the gate, helplessly idle.

   It was then that Ben and Michael returned home and Ben was immediately engaged in conversation with the gringos.

  I was toying with idea of just opening the gate and seeing if the next cows come in alone, when Faith appeared at my elbow. We opened the gate and ushered in the next cows. But two almost dry ones avoided their stalls and ran for the exit. Faith and I chased and pushed and yelled but to no avail. “Michael, come help us!” I called at last.

    “I’m not a cattle chaser,” he replied, viewing our situation.

   Sigh.

   Faith finally got Ben’s attention and he told us to just let the cows go. “They’re almost dry anyway.”

   The last batch of cows went faster with Ben there to help with the worse kicker. While Faith finished the other cows, I slipped over to Michael to see what our plans for supper were. We had been planning to go out to eat but I had been hearing rumors about eating with Ben’s. “Yup, we’re eating with Ben’s,” Michael said. I cheered.

    After helping Kendon get the calves into their pen, and finding their milk bucket, and being informed how calves may not suck each other “it’s illegal!”, I began thinking of slipping away for a shower.

   “Hey Kari, do you want to wash down the alley?” It was Faith.

   “Sure.” I took the hose, deciding I might as well get hands on experience with every step of milking a cow. I sprayed down the alley while Kevin and Kendon hovered around and we discussed at length about whether I was left handed or right handed because I help my left thumb over the hose to make a sprayer.

  “I’ll do the parlor,” Faith offered, but by the time I finished the alley she had been called away to help with supper. 

  So I proceeded to wash down the parlor myself. I kicked off my white, I mean muddy  sandals and tackled the job.

  “Kari! Why are you barefoot?!” Kevin yelled over the noise of splashing water.

  “Cause.” I didn’t feel like explaining that I was afraid I’d slip in the slimy barn, so I left it at that, thinking I was the smart one. (Later I was informed by an adult that I could get sick from being barefoot in manure. Oops!)

   When I was about half finished, Faith brought me a bottle of iced coffee, “for you and your brothers,” she said. I took a quick swallow and threw the bottle to Joshua. And the next time I saw it Joshua was offering me the last few inches. “Just drink it,” I yelled, knowing that juggling a hose and bottle wouldn’t go well.  

   It was pitch dark when I washed the last green banana out of trough. The drain had an issue of plugging but with Kevin’s help and my phone light we got it unplugged for the last time.

    In the dim light of my phone, I hurried up to the apartment for a cleaner, better scented dress before supper. 

   “You know what,” Michael remarked a few weeks later, “Kari hasn’t begged for a cow recently.”

  I squirmed. “Well you see, I wouldn’t mind going to Ecuador and helping Ben’s milk a few more times, but I’ve decided that I don’t really want a cow for myself.”

   And despite all my, ah, would you say experiences while milking cows, I’ve really been wishing I could spend another evening helping Ben’s milk.