Life at Latitude 3

When I woke up on December 6th, it felt like Christmas day. It was a day that I´d been waiting for for a VERY long time: final exam day. Dec. 7th was even better – I got to see my students one last time, but solely for social purposes. My first class took me out for breakfast (since we met at 7am), and my 2nd class gifted me with chocolates and flowers. This act especially warmed my heart, since most of these students were 13 or 14 years old. I really enjoyed teaching both of those classes, and will miss them both. I have nothing positive to say about my 3rd class, so I´ll move on.

To celebrate the end of cycle, I went to the beach with a friend. We went to Salinas, a pretty beach flanked by high-rise condos. These condos sit empty most of the year, but are the vacation homes of the richest Ecuadorians. I went at THE perfect time: the weather was pleasantly clear and sunny, but the beach was not yet teeming with the holiday crowd, and the prices hadn´t yet inflated to high season prices. Interesting thing about the beach at Salinas – no one lies on a beach blanket, unless you have a death wish, and want to fry up in 2.3 equatorial seconds flat. Everyone rents a seat under an umbrella for about a dollar a day.
On the way back from the beach, we stopped through Guayaquil to catch a major soccer game. I could not, for love or money, live in Guayaquil. As Ecuador´s largest city, Guayaquil has it´s attractive points, esp. it´s malecons (boardwalks) and a distinctive flavor all its own. Skirtlines rise scandalously high, jeans get even tighter (which barely seems conceivable) and the speaking becomes faster and without final “s”{s. “Buena Dia” instead of “Buenos Dias.” If you´re going to take the effort to come to Ecuador, Guayaquil should be on the itinerary. However, Guayaquil´s humid heat just makes me cranky as heck. The game was def. worth seeing, but the whole time I was there I suffered from being cramped with too many people in too hot of heat. I had to look at my watch to believe that I was miserable because of heat in December. When we left the game on a city bus, a bunch of drunk fans thought the bus looked like an easy target, and started throwing eggs and rocks. Thankfully no one on the bus got hurt, although they did manage to shatter one of the windows.

Once back in Cuenca, I continued to find violence. I had never experienced tear gas until I came to Ecuador. But thanks to the frequent huelgas (riots) between the university students and the police, which take place near my house, I´m all too familiar with it now. Not a fan of it.

JUGO MALO!

One day a bunch of us were going to play soccer, when some guys yelled at one of our friends and asked him if he´d like to play volleyball instead. He yelled back, “No! Jugo malo! Muy malo!” I said, umm Bruce – you just said Bad juice – very bad! You meant to say JUEGO malo! It was a very honest and even logical mistake, as the verb Jugar has an irregular conjugation. But since then, whenever someone makes a language blunder, we tease them by saying Jugo malo!!! And it happens to all of us. Like the other day, when my brain refused to recall the verb To Work (trabajar), which is one of the first verbs that spanish learners learn. Jugo malo.

I´ve said this several times, but it is so very true – teaching English to Spanish speakers has greatly improved my spanish. I NEVER speak Spanish to my students, but I learn a lot from their mistakes. Like my student who kept saying “actually” when he wanted to say “currently.” Until then, I had not realized that “actualmente” is a false cognate – a word that looks like it would translate easily from Spanish to English (or vice versa) but does not. There are, by the way, a lot of false cognates, or false friends, as they are often called.
How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?

This sounds like something one of my advanced students would ask. That´s the thing with language – it´s one thing to know a word – it´s another thing to know the contexts in which you are allowed to used the word. Like the other day when I said to a friend – I know that pieza and pedazo can both mean “piece,” but I get the impression that they aren´t always interchangeable. When do I use each word? At first he said, it depends on the context, to which I responded, I know! That´s what I need to know!

Christmas.

The night before the day before Christmas, I went to a huge outdoor concert sponsored by the city. One thing I absolutely adore about Cuenca is how accessible the arts are to everyone – I´ve seen mime shows, scores of symphony concerts, and all kinds of dance performances for free. Anyway, this concert was called Mensaje de Paz (A Message of Peace), and was performed by school children. At times the concert WAS peaceful, like when they sang Silent Night (in spanish the words translate to Night of Peace, Night of Love). At times it was charming – like when a little boy did a very brave solo of Rudolf. Then, it was, umm, interesting when they sang, in English, Queen´s We Will Rock You, and Pink Floyd{s We Don´t Need No Education. Domination, arrogance, and ignorance – yes, very peaceful concepts worth sharing.

The day before Christmas, I was anxious to see the much talked about Pase Del Niño (The Passage of the Christ Child), Cuenca{s most extravagant event. It´s one of those things that even if you don´t identify as Christian, it´s a beautiful cultural expression – children dressed in ornate dresses and costumes, riding horses loaded with all kinds of gifts (food, teddy bears, sweets, beer) for the Christ Child, and traditional folk dancers (most of which I´d seen before but still love seeing). I knew that this parade was a big deal – people come from all over Ecuador to see it – but I didn´t know that it lasted 6 hours! And 6 hours still wasn{t enough time. The next day I was walking, when I felt like I{d just run into a livestock show. I turned the corner, and the street was filled with horses and children in beautiful clothes for as far as I could see. Families spend a lot of money on the clothing and whole display of gifts, so I guess they want to get their money{s worth.

Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) is probably more important than actual Christmas Day. The important Christmas feast, or Cena, is held (more or less) at Midnight (into Christmas Day) and is a night shared with family (or in my case, with other teachers who´d stayed in town). At midnight, everyone says Feliz Navidad, and cheek kisses go around. What a warm way to welcome in the holiday.

Because everyone is up late the night before having a Cena, they sleep in late and generally just relax on Christmas Day. I went for a walk at about 11am, and was surprised at how many stores were open. Not just food stores, or pharmacies, or other necessity type stores – but stores selling clothes and home appliances! “Honey, let´s go buy a washing machine today!” Except for the fact that it was a Monday, Christmas looked like any Sunday in Cuenca: families walking around, eating ice cream, watching breakdancing in the park, whatever. It was quite comforting to see so much life on the streets. If it had been dead, as I was expecting it to be, I think I would{ve been completely depressed. But in latin america, families don´t tend to be as separated as in the states. Generally, people don´t move out of their parents´ house until they get married, even if they´re 30 or 40. And even then, they prob. just move down the street. So Christmas isn´t a “family” day in the sense that it´s one of the few times that in the year that a family gets to be together. In LatinAmerica, every day is a “family” day. That afternoon I took myself and some seco de pollo (a traditional Ecuadorian chicken dish) to the house of a couple of profs. Of course it was not the same as being w. my family, but it was a pleasant afternoon spent in the company of buena gente (good peeps).

NEW YEAR

There wasn´t much down time between Christmas and the New Year´s festivities, which are something of a mezcla between 4th of July and Halloween. The week before New Year´s, there are stands all over the city selling masks. You also see hundreds of adult-sized, children-sized, and humogous sized stuffed muñecas (dolls) for sale and in the process of being made. The adult and children-sized ones are a bit eerie bec. they are fully dressed and have a head, but no face. You supply the face w. the mask of your choice. The children sized dolls are then attached to the front of vehicles – busses, police cars, taxis, etc. Sort{ve of like cheap hood ornaments.

The adult-sized ones are bought by families and businesses and for the week before new years, sit outside of houses and store fronts. The HUGE ones generally bear faces of famous people – and gen. not so popular famous people – ie George W., Naboa (the ecuadorian pres. candidate who lost), David Beckham (since it was his goal that knocked ecuador out of the world cup), etc.

Then, come the strike of 12 which separates Año Viejo and Año Nuevo, the fires begin. Families burn their doll in their patio, burning away the badness of the old year. In the streets, all the dolls are burnt in giant bonfires. I stood at an intersection, looking up and down every street I could see, and saw fires everywhere – like lights on a runway. When the bonfires get to a more reasonable size, children and drunk people run through them. Why, I have no idea. Then I looked up in the sky and saw fireworks EVERYWHERE. Ecuadorians are pyromaniacs. Of course there is no such thing as a trained pyrotechnician, or public safety rules regarding fireworks. And it{s not just like they go off at midnight. I was still watching fireworks at 2:30 am.
I{m personally not one to do New Year{s resolutions, but I do like making goals for myself. My goal this year is to learn as much as I can about what I can do to stop Global Warming, which, since being in Ecuador (one of the most biodiverse countries in the world), I have read and heard so much about. While we all will suffer in various forms from global warming, Ecuador is already experiencing the effects much more quickly, profoundly, and obviously. People generally aren´t moved to find a solution until it directly affects them. The problem with global warming is that by the time it affects people in an adverse enough way for them to care, too much irreversible damage will have been done. And living in Ecuador, I can already see that damage being done. It seems to me that Ecuadorians are very aware of, concerned about, and talk about global warming, but little Ecuador all by itself can´t address this issue. Sometimes it really depresses me to think about this country that I love losing its precious biodiversity, it frogs and other species, and snowcapped volcanoes. GW is kind´ve like racism, or poverty – it´s a complex subject, there aren´t any easy answers, and it´s not very uplifting to think about. But if you´re reading this, please take some time to learn more about it.With that, I hope that you all enjoyed your holidays, wherever you are in the world (Russia, Japan, Great Britain, Guatamala, the US, etc). Please note that if you live in the midwest, I will be going on tour come Feb. 6th. I am so so very excited, as this is the longest I{ve ever gone w.o seeing my family and closest friends. If you don{t live in the midwest, you will have to come visit me in Ecuador! 🙂

cariño siempre

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 at 8:26 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.