visiting the hemispheric limbo stick

Queridos,

T-minus 1 day to Galápagos takeoff! And what a week it has been in preparation for it. I sleep less and less every night and have less and less time to do the things I need to do… Es la vida. And I am young, strong and ready for anything!

The Past Week’s Itinerary

Friday: Parque La Carolina for a rousing game of futbol. Most of us had forgotten either water or sunscreen and it was a very hot day – needless to say, we turned a nice spectrum of pinks, in a matter of hours. It was hard to believe that we were playing a game of soccer at 9000 feet, beneath a huge cross, the cupped fingers of the mountain range around us, and jets casting ominous shadows over the buildings towering above us as they took off minutes away from our field.

I walked home with a few of the students and we got juice and food, and set out to find Guápulo, famous for astounding vistas and artsy houses, and a church, which we did not encounter. We climbed up into a beautiful neighbourhood of modern homes and suddenly the ground fell out below us to unfold a series of little valleys full of houses, the city spread out before us like cinnamon sugar toast.

Saturday: Mitad del Mundo con mis abuelos. Grampi picked me up around 11, after calling at least four times to say he was on his way, he accidentally went home, he was 5 minutes away, he was lost, he was outside. We did eventually make it home, had a nice lunch and then I dug up the photo albums while he took a nap and Helen tried to Skype her friend in Poland.

I love the photo albums, hidden in the little tables on either end of the couch. The first few cover the babyhoods of me and my older cousins, but the deeper I venture into the stacks of books the older they get. A good chunk of them relate my dad’s college years, when he was perpetually flushed and wore huge brown-tinted glasses and short shorts. My favourite series documents a trip to the beach that my parents took with my dad’s two sisters. They wear buckets on their heads and stage sword fights with driftwood, my mom barricaded up in a massive sand castle making home improvements while some unclear division defends her and the royal family of crabs. A few of the albums, the dustiest ones, are full of black and white photographs of the missionary years: my uncle Tod decked out in Shuar gear, spears and headdresses and weapon belts; Jeff consistently looking put together, posing suavely for every shot; Lisa the wide-eyed baby, Lori with her wide gappy 8-year-old grin, and my dad always with a pout plastered onto his face.

We eventually made it up to la Ciudad Mitad del Mundo, or the City at the Center of the Earth. The village huddles around the monument laid by the Spanish explorers to mark the position of the Equator, but as it turns out they were much farther off the mark than the Incas, whose equatorial monument is across the road a little way. A group of children in brightly coloured masks and headdresses performed a wild dance involving fighting and flirting in the central plaza, which we passed on our way to the museum of Ecuador’s tribes. Starting at the top, we wound our way down the stairs, and when we reached the jungle tribes Grampi got excited. “Wait a minute,” he said, stopping in front of the Shuar and Huaorani exhibits. “Let me just see if I know any of these people.” Sure enough, the big greyscale photograph of a Huaorani man turned out to be a good friend of his, and the old woman reclining on the wall across from him was in the original group to make contact with the missionaries, and not kill them. “I knew them!” he exclaimed, and started telling stories.

Monday: The alternative health market tour, Mercado Artesanal, and the mall with the girls. In the morning we had our first field trip, catered to our discussion theme of health and medicine. Rocío gave us a tour of the market with special focus on fruits with medicinal properties and an intensive study of the health shop ladies, whose stalls are full of plants and oils and incense. Brent, the sick one, was also the most sceptical. He wanted to go to a “real doctor.”

Megan, Katie and I spent the afternoon shopping, for gifts and clothes to wear in the Galápagos. Before we left Megan said, “I have a feeling this is going to be a hundred-dollar day.” She was right. Katie and I bought hats and dresses, for Katie’s sailor-themed week, and Megan bought art. We didn’t get home until 8:30.

Tuesday: La policía, and Natalia turned 12. Our second field trip took us to the Matriz to interview Major Marcelo Cortez about his personal and institutional views on the death penalty and policies on carrying firearms. In Ecuador both are illegal, but as it turns out most of the people I talked to were in favour of both.

In the afternoon Lori and Juan Miguel had the whole Ecuador family plus Taylor over for pizza. Juan Miguel’s sisters and mother all showed up while I was setting the table and immediately started gushing and telling me that I have the same little face as always, that I look exactly like my mom, and asking what my dad is doing now. I also met an old playmate, Rosita, a cousin of the same age as me. Apparently we used to play together when I was three, and we joined forces with the kids to make a movie about a mean-spirited millionaire whose assistant wants to make off with her dough. Rosita speaks very fast Spanish, but I understood most of what she said. She likes to read philosophy, and though she wouldn’t admit it she was definitely the directora.

Wednesday: La Chispa and los mercados populares. After class Taylor and I had lunch at a Peruvian restaurant called La Chispa, or the Spark, and took the Ecovia downtown to buy cheap Colombian shoes. Rocío had just finished telling our class how the people from the malls buy their goods from these popular markets at $3 or so a pop, and sell them for ten times the price in the fancy stores in the mall. The clothes in those shops are imported from Colombia, which means they are high quality and we got them at the people’s prices. A pair of wedge sandals for $16!

At this point we are so close to the Galápagos that it’s hard to focus on anything, hard to do anything, but this morning I have to give an oral presentation on immigration. I’m sharing the topic with the son of an Ohio lawyer, and my presentation consists of stories of people I know. We’ll see how our takes fit together. Tomorrow we all have to be at the airport at 6am, heading off for a week in a hotel 20 metres from the beach, a few yacht cruises, snorkelling near sharks, hiking up a volcano, and learning about tortoise mating patterns. I could not be more excited. And after class today, it’s all Galápagos all the time. I’m going with the girls to get our nails done, and we have decided we’re going to have a very cute week in the sun, by the clear Caribbean-blue water. It’s been too long since I’ve seen that colour.

I’ll see you on the other side.

Besitos,
Clarita