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
23 July 2009
14 July 2009
doing a death round of hemispheric limbo with the conga ants
Well friends,
I have returned alive and in one piece (with maybe a few small chunks missing) from my WILD JUNGLE ADVENTURE! Which turned out to be one of the most relaxing adventures of my life, and full of cousins.
We picked up Matt from the airport on Friday evening and took him back to Cumbayá for a lovely family spaghetti dinner. Grampi and Helen came too, and Grampi was in a very silly mood -- he kept on making weird faces and once pretended to fall off his chair, nearly giving Lori a heart attack! We had a regular laughing yoga session though, which lasted almost until our abuelos had to go home.
On Saturday morning there were crèpes, and then at the last minute we decided to carry one of the kitties to Venecia as a gift for Myriam, so we had to take one last photo with the four cousins and the four kitties, then assemble a double-box system with plenty of padding and load him into the truck taxi with the rest of the stuff. He meowed for the first hour, but then found his way back inside the box and napped in there until we reached Tena. Matt was very concerned that he would remain nameless, but we left it to Myriam who eventually started calling him Bugsy. If it were my cat, I would have called him Pilsener after the box he rode down in. Pil for short?
The Field Station is a rockin' place. On Saturday the students were in and out, but as usual it was full of kids, a whole horde of cousins whose mothers cook and whose fathers work on building projects in the area. They are as wild as they come, but I thoroughly enjoyed having them around all weekend. They play a lot of cards, so we exchanged a few games and dealt many decks over the course of the evenings.
On Sunday morning Matt and I spurred into action a hike into the Coto Cachi reserve. Coto Cachi means "Howler Monkey Lake" in... Kichwa? I didn't catch it. In any case, we saw and touched a cacao tree, an Amazonian skunk cabbage, a red root hardwood, a rare mahogany with seed pods for planting, among others. I caught sight of a red-bellied salamander on the path, but it squirmed out of sight before I could prove it. The best part about the hike was squelching the mud underneath my boots.
In the afternoon we got a group together to go tubing down the river. Everyone was a little bit scared, of anacondas in the water and of the massive whirlpool and of the so-called "penisfish," a very painful parasite that follows a urine stream up to 20 feet, crawls into the urethra and puts out barbs, so that it must be surgically removed. As it was, the rapids were relatively tame and mostly avoidable. The accident-prone member of our group fell behind and disappeared into the whirlpool. A hush fell over the group, and we had almost floated around the corner before his head became visible again. The anaconda did not rear its head. Fortunately. We emerged in Misahualli thrilled and dripping, threw our tubes in the truck and bought ice cream sandwiches to eat while we waited. The first run took longer than we expected, though, so we ended up standing on a street corner across from the famous monkey square, in bathing suits and lifejackets, barefoot, in the rain. A nearby store started blasting reggaeton and of course we had to dance. We had an audience, and were glad when the truck showed up. We piled eighteen people into the bed of the truck on the way home, the tubers plus the Cousins who went everywhere. And a few more in the cab.
The next morning school started up for the students again. Although I, unlike most college students, do not even drink coffee during finals, I had two cups of coffee every day this weekend, just because it was so good! It did help me stay awake through the lecture on psychoactive plants and mental health that Matt and I sat in on. It was interesting, but very long. I picked up a few trains on natural treatments for diagnosed mental illnesses. We'll see if they go anywhere yet...
In the afternoon we went into Tena with Eliza, Sindy and Mela, the trio of teenaged girl-cousins. They took us to a zoo called La Isla, which is, indeed, on an island. You have to walk across the bridge to get there -- and I got the first use out of my brand-new Ecuadorian ID! A $1 discount! La Isla is probably the coolest zoo I have ever visited. It's also the most disorganized. The first thing we saw coming off the bridge was an ostrich, and Eliza told us they call her dad an ostrich because of the way he runs in soccer -- which brings a hilariously undignified view of my uncle to mind. We said hi to the toucan, with his heavily blue-rimmed eyes. I learned that "toucan" is an unfriendly name for girls that come back from the city with too much makeup. And then we saw a huge tapir, just walking around on the paths. He looked like a cross between a pig, an anteater and a hippopotamus, and was probably three or four feet high. Matt thought he was going to charge us, but he was too busy snuffling around for something to eat. On our way to the next cages we almost stepped on a monkey who had burrowed into the roots of a tree. Either he escaped, said Eliza, or he's sick. We also saw these jungle pigs that make the grossest noise I have ever heard, which sounds like a scream in the midst of retching. Mateo said it sounded like the mandrakes in the Harry Potter movie. My favorite things were the jungle cats: a jaguarundi with a long body and long tail, and an ocelot, which is probably the most beautiful animal I have ever seen. Fortunately, those ruthless predators were well-secured.
When we'd had our fill of jungle screeching and tapirs running loose, we went for pizza at a famous Tena pizzeria. It was probably some of the best pizza I've had since coming here, and I had it with tomato juice, which wasn't bad. Not as good as tomate de arbol, but fresh juice is fresh juice. Most of the time. Matt wanted to look at shoes, which was probably a mistake on his part since I can't walk into a shoe store without trying on several pairs of delicious heels. It turned into quite a girly outing, and Sindy and Mela spent a lot of it teasing Mateo about being a girl. He took it rather well, though I think we can partly attribute that to the fact that he wasn't paying much attention to any of us. He got into it when we decided to buy bracelets of a matching style, so I think we can cut him some slack.
On the way back I got to be a pro at riding in the truck bed with the girls. Eliza turned on her Walkman-phone to some heavy beats and we passed around a Red Bull while bouncing over speed bumps and staging a mini dance party in the back of the truck. I think that was my official initiation into the gang, because after that I was the fourth. We bought a ton of junk food at a community store and hung out for the rest of the night.
The evenings were always interesting. Last night we visited a shaman, who drank some iowasca (which I think is a hallucinogen) before performing a healing ritual on two members of the group, as well as a general blessing. It was interesting, but my favorite part of the night was walking back with the girls and our music, choreographing so we wouldn't be afraid of snakes along the side of the road. Back in the dining area someone was showing a Daniel Craig movie, so of course I had to stop and watch before heading off to bed.
The best night was the time we played telephone in Spanish with a bunch of the cousins, who all speak Kichwa. Needless to say it was interesting, especially with Santi's (rude) 12-year-old-boy antics (which had me giggling to death) and the little girls and a few of the students understanding hardly anything.
I left this afternoon, and would have missed the bus except that the bus itself was 15 minutes late. Fortunately...? Es que, in the morning I was waiting for my gang to show up so we could go tubing one more time, so I learned some local pottery techniques from some skilled traditional ceramic workers. As it turned out, the mothers wouldn't let their daughters tube down to Misahualli because of the rumoured anaconda, so we walked along the road up to Coto Cachi and tubed down to Eliza's house. As it turned out, this shorter course was more fun, mostly because I wasn't scared anymore, and because we held onto each other's tubes to go through bigger rapids, and actually flipped out a couple of times. Well worth it.
The bus ride was nice, and I made it back alive, with some sweet banana chips from a roadside vendor and some nice company in the form of a Quiteña woman who moved to the selva with her husband "for health reasons:" to avoid the city pollution, which is considerable. Even I am starting to feel it in my throat. Good thing I learned how to hack in India...
I apparently missed the beginning of a shift, so I'll have to make it up -- but I would not have given up the weekend for the world. I have not felt so relaxed since arriving in Quito, with nothing to do except whatever I want, and lots of kids running around doing whatever they want, laughing and enjoying life the way it is meant to be lived. I feel refreshed and ready to return to the world of expectations, unfulfillable and otherwise, office politics, class, and the world on a watch. I can do it, because That Place exists. In many places. That's just the closest. It's like a Portal into a Magical World...
Novel?
Besitos,
Clarita
I have returned alive and in one piece (with maybe a few small chunks missing) from my WILD JUNGLE ADVENTURE! Which turned out to be one of the most relaxing adventures of my life, and full of cousins.
We picked up Matt from the airport on Friday evening and took him back to Cumbayá for a lovely family spaghetti dinner. Grampi and Helen came too, and Grampi was in a very silly mood -- he kept on making weird faces and once pretended to fall off his chair, nearly giving Lori a heart attack! We had a regular laughing yoga session though, which lasted almost until our abuelos had to go home.
On Saturday morning there were crèpes, and then at the last minute we decided to carry one of the kitties to Venecia as a gift for Myriam, so we had to take one last photo with the four cousins and the four kitties, then assemble a double-box system with plenty of padding and load him into the truck taxi with the rest of the stuff. He meowed for the first hour, but then found his way back inside the box and napped in there until we reached Tena. Matt was very concerned that he would remain nameless, but we left it to Myriam who eventually started calling him Bugsy. If it were my cat, I would have called him Pilsener after the box he rode down in. Pil for short?
The Field Station is a rockin' place. On Saturday the students were in and out, but as usual it was full of kids, a whole horde of cousins whose mothers cook and whose fathers work on building projects in the area. They are as wild as they come, but I thoroughly enjoyed having them around all weekend. They play a lot of cards, so we exchanged a few games and dealt many decks over the course of the evenings.
On Sunday morning Matt and I spurred into action a hike into the Coto Cachi reserve. Coto Cachi means "Howler Monkey Lake" in... Kichwa? I didn't catch it. In any case, we saw and touched a cacao tree, an Amazonian skunk cabbage, a red root hardwood, a rare mahogany with seed pods for planting, among others. I caught sight of a red-bellied salamander on the path, but it squirmed out of sight before I could prove it. The best part about the hike was squelching the mud underneath my boots.
In the afternoon we got a group together to go tubing down the river. Everyone was a little bit scared, of anacondas in the water and of the massive whirlpool and of the so-called "penisfish," a very painful parasite that follows a urine stream up to 20 feet, crawls into the urethra and puts out barbs, so that it must be surgically removed. As it was, the rapids were relatively tame and mostly avoidable. The accident-prone member of our group fell behind and disappeared into the whirlpool. A hush fell over the group, and we had almost floated around the corner before his head became visible again. The anaconda did not rear its head. Fortunately. We emerged in Misahualli thrilled and dripping, threw our tubes in the truck and bought ice cream sandwiches to eat while we waited. The first run took longer than we expected, though, so we ended up standing on a street corner across from the famous monkey square, in bathing suits and lifejackets, barefoot, in the rain. A nearby store started blasting reggaeton and of course we had to dance. We had an audience, and were glad when the truck showed up. We piled eighteen people into the bed of the truck on the way home, the tubers plus the Cousins who went everywhere. And a few more in the cab.
The next morning school started up for the students again. Although I, unlike most college students, do not even drink coffee during finals, I had two cups of coffee every day this weekend, just because it was so good! It did help me stay awake through the lecture on psychoactive plants and mental health that Matt and I sat in on. It was interesting, but very long. I picked up a few trains on natural treatments for diagnosed mental illnesses. We'll see if they go anywhere yet...
In the afternoon we went into Tena with Eliza, Sindy and Mela, the trio of teenaged girl-cousins. They took us to a zoo called La Isla, which is, indeed, on an island. You have to walk across the bridge to get there -- and I got the first use out of my brand-new Ecuadorian ID! A $1 discount! La Isla is probably the coolest zoo I have ever visited. It's also the most disorganized. The first thing we saw coming off the bridge was an ostrich, and Eliza told us they call her dad an ostrich because of the way he runs in soccer -- which brings a hilariously undignified view of my uncle to mind. We said hi to the toucan, with his heavily blue-rimmed eyes. I learned that "toucan" is an unfriendly name for girls that come back from the city with too much makeup. And then we saw a huge tapir, just walking around on the paths. He looked like a cross between a pig, an anteater and a hippopotamus, and was probably three or four feet high. Matt thought he was going to charge us, but he was too busy snuffling around for something to eat. On our way to the next cages we almost stepped on a monkey who had burrowed into the roots of a tree. Either he escaped, said Eliza, or he's sick. We also saw these jungle pigs that make the grossest noise I have ever heard, which sounds like a scream in the midst of retching. Mateo said it sounded like the mandrakes in the Harry Potter movie. My favorite things were the jungle cats: a jaguarundi with a long body and long tail, and an ocelot, which is probably the most beautiful animal I have ever seen. Fortunately, those ruthless predators were well-secured.
When we'd had our fill of jungle screeching and tapirs running loose, we went for pizza at a famous Tena pizzeria. It was probably some of the best pizza I've had since coming here, and I had it with tomato juice, which wasn't bad. Not as good as tomate de arbol, but fresh juice is fresh juice. Most of the time. Matt wanted to look at shoes, which was probably a mistake on his part since I can't walk into a shoe store without trying on several pairs of delicious heels. It turned into quite a girly outing, and Sindy and Mela spent a lot of it teasing Mateo about being a girl. He took it rather well, though I think we can partly attribute that to the fact that he wasn't paying much attention to any of us. He got into it when we decided to buy bracelets of a matching style, so I think we can cut him some slack.
On the way back I got to be a pro at riding in the truck bed with the girls. Eliza turned on her Walkman-phone to some heavy beats and we passed around a Red Bull while bouncing over speed bumps and staging a mini dance party in the back of the truck. I think that was my official initiation into the gang, because after that I was the fourth. We bought a ton of junk food at a community store and hung out for the rest of the night.
The evenings were always interesting. Last night we visited a shaman, who drank some iowasca (which I think is a hallucinogen) before performing a healing ritual on two members of the group, as well as a general blessing. It was interesting, but my favorite part of the night was walking back with the girls and our music, choreographing so we wouldn't be afraid of snakes along the side of the road. Back in the dining area someone was showing a Daniel Craig movie, so of course I had to stop and watch before heading off to bed.
The best night was the time we played telephone in Spanish with a bunch of the cousins, who all speak Kichwa. Needless to say it was interesting, especially with Santi's (rude) 12-year-old-boy antics (which had me giggling to death) and the little girls and a few of the students understanding hardly anything.
I left this afternoon, and would have missed the bus except that the bus itself was 15 minutes late. Fortunately...? Es que, in the morning I was waiting for my gang to show up so we could go tubing one more time, so I learned some local pottery techniques from some skilled traditional ceramic workers. As it turned out, the mothers wouldn't let their daughters tube down to Misahualli because of the rumoured anaconda, so we walked along the road up to Coto Cachi and tubed down to Eliza's house. As it turned out, this shorter course was more fun, mostly because I wasn't scared anymore, and because we held onto each other's tubes to go through bigger rapids, and actually flipped out a couple of times. Well worth it.
The bus ride was nice, and I made it back alive, with some sweet banana chips from a roadside vendor and some nice company in the form of a Quiteña woman who moved to the selva with her husband "for health reasons:" to avoid the city pollution, which is considerable. Even I am starting to feel it in my throat. Good thing I learned how to hack in India...
I apparently missed the beginning of a shift, so I'll have to make it up -- but I would not have given up the weekend for the world. I have not felt so relaxed since arriving in Quito, with nothing to do except whatever I want, and lots of kids running around doing whatever they want, laughing and enjoying life the way it is meant to be lived. I feel refreshed and ready to return to the world of expectations, unfulfillable and otherwise, office politics, class, and the world on a watch. I can do it, because That Place exists. In many places. That's just the closest. It's like a Portal into a Magical World...
Novel?
Besitos,
Clarita
08 July 2009
the latest from limbo: you can find me in the club
...and in countless other places!
Mis queridos amigos,
I am learning and doing so much that I hardly have the time or focus to sit down and escribir about it! The more I do, though, the more I want to write about it, and the more opportunity I have to be reminded of all of you, things that would interest you or gross you out or make you feel something...
My story starts, as usual, on Friday. My class finished early, at 10am, and I found myself carrying a large chocolate heart-shaped cake (out of the sun!), pulling off an incredible balancing act into the backseat and across town to El Condado, the posh country club where Natalia was costar of a 12-year-old birthday party. There were probably around 30 girls and a few boys there, running back and forth from various swimming pools and water slides to the cotton candy machine and lollipop bowl. Fortunately, I get along great with 12-year-old girls, and am tall enough to be something for them to grab onto in the just-too-deep section of the pool where they set up camp.
I caught a ride back to the hotel with one of the girls and her mother, neither of whom I knew; but her husband is a sociologist and her daughter is 19 and studying in Sorbonne, so we had enough in common to basically be family. Fortunately it was a quiet Friday night, because I had to get up early to see off some of the guests on their weekend trip, and meet up with the OSU kids for our Saturday excursion to Cotopaxi, one of Ecuador's active volcanoes, the summit of which is the furthest point from the center of the Earth. The activity?
Mountain biking. Something I had never done and never thought I would ever do. At the base we stopped to gear up on alpaca winterwear, hats and gloves and sweaters, which we needed when we got to the starting point in a cloud of face-stinging sleet and bone-chilling cold. It was a 30km ride, the first 8km being nearly straight downhill over loose gravel, sleety mud and ruts like you've never seen. The challenge of the next 12km was shifting sand, and the last stretch was loose rock. We rode through all four seasons, saw wild horses, mountains, rain snow sleet clouds and beating sun; a hummingbird nest in the wheel well of a tractor; and Megan and I between us ate at least 7 baby bananas. For the next 2 days my entire body hurt, all my muscles and my joints and the rest of me covered in bruises... but it was 100% worth the pain.
When we got back to the school we heard some raucous music winding over from the Plaza, and Don Carlitos the guard told us that Ecuador was celebrating Gay Pride Weekend! Which was especially funny since I had just been reading in the Rough Guide about traveling for same-sex couples, and from what I'd read I never would have expected anyone to dare show their face at the parade, two scantily clad drag queens tossing their hair around onstage, and a whole troupe of drag queens dressed as indigenous Otavalan women! For us students, of course, it was the Fourth of July. I managed to get half the night off and met up with some friends at PapayaNet, the superhangout for hip foreigners who like the internet. And massive amounts of beer. Megan, Tyler and I got there first and decided to take advantage of the 2x1 cerveza deal of Pilsener's from the tap... Thinking we were getting single drafts, we ordered four beers for the price of two. They turned out to be pitchers. Fortunately our friends showed up and helped us finish them off... and a few more too.
For dinner that night I decided to try out the tiny new restaurant, 4 Ases, that opened kiddie corner from the hotel. It had five small tables crammed into a little space and was run by an Otavalan family, who all greeted me cordially and introduced themselves. As soon as I sat down, a whole band piled in with three guitars, three flutes, and various other everyday objects used as percussion instruments. They all greeted me too, offered me cigarettes and picante chips and caramelos, and then when the other tables filled up they started sitting down at my table. I met a girl (whose name I am now kicking myself for not remembering) who makes jewelry. She made me a green bracelet, to bring hope to my life, and a warm-colored necklace that matched my sweater, and I gave her a dollar. She chatted away while I ate my huge plate full of good solid dinner, with yucca and meat and salad and everything else I could ask for. The most well-balanced plate I've had since arriving.
By Sunday, needless to say, Taylor and I were both exhausted, and we had to get up early to serve a 30-person breakfast to the student group from ASU. Instead of sleeping all day, though, we decided to catch a cab through the empty streets to El Panecillo, a strange bump in the middle of the city on which is stationed la Virgen de Quito. As it turns out, she is actually La Mujer del Apocalipsis, from Revelation 12, a monstrosity of a woman with a crown of twelve stars, perched upon a giant globe and crushing beneath her feet a dragon. El Panecillo, Taylor tells me, is also one of the best kite-flying sites in the world -- so of course I pull out $1.50 for a cheap little cometa and we fight to keep it in the air and away from wires and other kite strings, laughing as we hide our faces from the pros with miles of high-quality thread, whose kites literally disappear into the clouds. We wonder what would happen if it crossed paths with a plane...
La Mariscal is eerily silent when we get back to the hotel, and nothing is open. Without thinking I plunge wholeheartedly into a shop that says "cebollados" on the awning, and we buy $1.75 bowls of the soup of the day. Taylor is so afraid of stomach bugs that he hardly finishes half of his bowl, but I pour several spoonfuls of salsa picante on top of mine and inhale it. I spend the rest of the afternoon (and my first busride back to Cumbaya, solo) hoping I don't get deathly ill. I don't, and I am very grateful.
On Monday after school we drive up to North Quito to visit Grampi and Helen, and Natalia and Nicolas' other grandmother, and to pick up the three kids that are sleeping at our house tonight. We don't get back until after dark, but I volunteer to put up the tents for the kids while Lori cooks and Juan Miguel builds a fire. It is total chaos, of course, but everyone is happy, and presumably not too cold, and I drift off to sleep to the lullaby of boys and girls screaming and laughing back and forth across the yard.
Tuesday after class the students and I go on an excursion to the fruit market, where we break up into teams and go on a scavenger hunt for a few different types of fruits each. I'm not quite sure how to bargain for it this time, but my food buddy Megan and I take notes. She buys a bunch of baby bananas and I buy some frozen chocolate-covered baby bananas, and we vow to return, find a nice little bakery, and thoroughly enjoy the next two months.
I have been noticing the grafitti, which smacks less of art and more of politics on the walls of this city. It seems that those wielding the spray cans are sometimes poets, often agitators, and almost always aware of their social and political context. I have noticed the pervasive public religiosity, after trying to escape from being converted by my Seventh Day Adventist coworker, the afternoon guard Javier. His passion is inspiring, until he starts trying to literally pass some of it onto me. Today on the bus on the way to the Registro Civil to get my Ecuadorian ID, two guys jump the bus with shoulder boomboxes and start rapping a prayer to God about all the things that are going on here now, and on the way back a man stands in the front of the bus and recites the Parable of the Prodigal Son in a way that made me see new parallels with Jesus' story like I never had before. After their performances they walk the aisles asking for "ayuda" -- help. More directly, money.
The business is picking up considerably, and I have just taken on some more heavy-duty marketing and research projects. At the same time, I'm starting to plan trips and pack my days full of everything and everything I could possibly want to do. A trip came up very quickly this weekend, to take a taxi down to the jungle with my cousin Matt to visit Uncle Tod and his biology field station. I am also looking forward to a week in the Galapagos, and a couple of weekends at hot springs, day trips to Otavalo and the Cloud Forests full of hummingbirds and ziplining.
I hope I have not gone on forever. I'm starting to think more about the things that are happening, and I am kind of in awe of it myself, everything I am doing and everything I could do if there were more hours in the day. As it is I have been trying to mail some postcards for at least a week, and my journal has only a few pages left in it! I have a few trips to the Mercado Artesanal on my brain, and the hotel phone waits to ring until the moment when three people are waiting to talk about different things, two more guests come back and need their keys, and I absolutely have to go to the bathroom. I am happy, though, I am finding the strength I've been missing and I am becoming more independent, while more confident to ask for help when I need it. I can't believe how much the world holds, and all it takes is the guts, or the one moment where you just close your eyes and hope, and jump, to grab onto it and ride it like the wind, or the water.
As I have said before, I love hearing back, about what is going on in other corners of the world or what is on your minds. You are in my brain at different turns and in my heart at all of them.
Abrazos,
Clarita
Mis queridos amigos,
I am learning and doing so much that I hardly have the time or focus to sit down and escribir about it! The more I do, though, the more I want to write about it, and the more opportunity I have to be reminded of all of you, things that would interest you or gross you out or make you feel something...
My story starts, as usual, on Friday. My class finished early, at 10am, and I found myself carrying a large chocolate heart-shaped cake (out of the sun!), pulling off an incredible balancing act into the backseat and across town to El Condado, the posh country club where Natalia was costar of a 12-year-old birthday party. There were probably around 30 girls and a few boys there, running back and forth from various swimming pools and water slides to the cotton candy machine and lollipop bowl. Fortunately, I get along great with 12-year-old girls, and am tall enough to be something for them to grab onto in the just-too-deep section of the pool where they set up camp.
I caught a ride back to the hotel with one of the girls and her mother, neither of whom I knew; but her husband is a sociologist and her daughter is 19 and studying in Sorbonne, so we had enough in common to basically be family. Fortunately it was a quiet Friday night, because I had to get up early to see off some of the guests on their weekend trip, and meet up with the OSU kids for our Saturday excursion to Cotopaxi, one of Ecuador's active volcanoes, the summit of which is the furthest point from the center of the Earth. The activity?
Mountain biking. Something I had never done and never thought I would ever do. At the base we stopped to gear up on alpaca winterwear, hats and gloves and sweaters, which we needed when we got to the starting point in a cloud of face-stinging sleet and bone-chilling cold. It was a 30km ride, the first 8km being nearly straight downhill over loose gravel, sleety mud and ruts like you've never seen. The challenge of the next 12km was shifting sand, and the last stretch was loose rock. We rode through all four seasons, saw wild horses, mountains, rain snow sleet clouds and beating sun; a hummingbird nest in the wheel well of a tractor; and Megan and I between us ate at least 7 baby bananas. For the next 2 days my entire body hurt, all my muscles and my joints and the rest of me covered in bruises... but it was 100% worth the pain.
When we got back to the school we heard some raucous music winding over from the Plaza, and Don Carlitos the guard told us that Ecuador was celebrating Gay Pride Weekend! Which was especially funny since I had just been reading in the Rough Guide about traveling for same-sex couples, and from what I'd read I never would have expected anyone to dare show their face at the parade, two scantily clad drag queens tossing their hair around onstage, and a whole troupe of drag queens dressed as indigenous Otavalan women! For us students, of course, it was the Fourth of July. I managed to get half the night off and met up with some friends at PapayaNet, the superhangout for hip foreigners who like the internet. And massive amounts of beer. Megan, Tyler and I got there first and decided to take advantage of the 2x1 cerveza deal of Pilsener's from the tap... Thinking we were getting single drafts, we ordered four beers for the price of two. They turned out to be pitchers. Fortunately our friends showed up and helped us finish them off... and a few more too.
For dinner that night I decided to try out the tiny new restaurant, 4 Ases, that opened kiddie corner from the hotel. It had five small tables crammed into a little space and was run by an Otavalan family, who all greeted me cordially and introduced themselves. As soon as I sat down, a whole band piled in with three guitars, three flutes, and various other everyday objects used as percussion instruments. They all greeted me too, offered me cigarettes and picante chips and caramelos, and then when the other tables filled up they started sitting down at my table. I met a girl (whose name I am now kicking myself for not remembering) who makes jewelry. She made me a green bracelet, to bring hope to my life, and a warm-colored necklace that matched my sweater, and I gave her a dollar. She chatted away while I ate my huge plate full of good solid dinner, with yucca and meat and salad and everything else I could ask for. The most well-balanced plate I've had since arriving.
By Sunday, needless to say, Taylor and I were both exhausted, and we had to get up early to serve a 30-person breakfast to the student group from ASU. Instead of sleeping all day, though, we decided to catch a cab through the empty streets to El Panecillo, a strange bump in the middle of the city on which is stationed la Virgen de Quito. As it turns out, she is actually La Mujer del Apocalipsis, from Revelation 12, a monstrosity of a woman with a crown of twelve stars, perched upon a giant globe and crushing beneath her feet a dragon. El Panecillo, Taylor tells me, is also one of the best kite-flying sites in the world -- so of course I pull out $1.50 for a cheap little cometa and we fight to keep it in the air and away from wires and other kite strings, laughing as we hide our faces from the pros with miles of high-quality thread, whose kites literally disappear into the clouds. We wonder what would happen if it crossed paths with a plane...
La Mariscal is eerily silent when we get back to the hotel, and nothing is open. Without thinking I plunge wholeheartedly into a shop that says "cebollados" on the awning, and we buy $1.75 bowls of the soup of the day. Taylor is so afraid of stomach bugs that he hardly finishes half of his bowl, but I pour several spoonfuls of salsa picante on top of mine and inhale it. I spend the rest of the afternoon (and my first busride back to Cumbaya, solo) hoping I don't get deathly ill. I don't, and I am very grateful.
On Monday after school we drive up to North Quito to visit Grampi and Helen, and Natalia and Nicolas' other grandmother, and to pick up the three kids that are sleeping at our house tonight. We don't get back until after dark, but I volunteer to put up the tents for the kids while Lori cooks and Juan Miguel builds a fire. It is total chaos, of course, but everyone is happy, and presumably not too cold, and I drift off to sleep to the lullaby of boys and girls screaming and laughing back and forth across the yard.
Tuesday after class the students and I go on an excursion to the fruit market, where we break up into teams and go on a scavenger hunt for a few different types of fruits each. I'm not quite sure how to bargain for it this time, but my food buddy Megan and I take notes. She buys a bunch of baby bananas and I buy some frozen chocolate-covered baby bananas, and we vow to return, find a nice little bakery, and thoroughly enjoy the next two months.
I have been noticing the grafitti, which smacks less of art and more of politics on the walls of this city. It seems that those wielding the spray cans are sometimes poets, often agitators, and almost always aware of their social and political context. I have noticed the pervasive public religiosity, after trying to escape from being converted by my Seventh Day Adventist coworker, the afternoon guard Javier. His passion is inspiring, until he starts trying to literally pass some of it onto me. Today on the bus on the way to the Registro Civil to get my Ecuadorian ID, two guys jump the bus with shoulder boomboxes and start rapping a prayer to God about all the things that are going on here now, and on the way back a man stands in the front of the bus and recites the Parable of the Prodigal Son in a way that made me see new parallels with Jesus' story like I never had before. After their performances they walk the aisles asking for "ayuda" -- help. More directly, money.
The business is picking up considerably, and I have just taken on some more heavy-duty marketing and research projects. At the same time, I'm starting to plan trips and pack my days full of everything and everything I could possibly want to do. A trip came up very quickly this weekend, to take a taxi down to the jungle with my cousin Matt to visit Uncle Tod and his biology field station. I am also looking forward to a week in the Galapagos, and a couple of weekends at hot springs, day trips to Otavalo and the Cloud Forests full of hummingbirds and ziplining.
I hope I have not gone on forever. I'm starting to think more about the things that are happening, and I am kind of in awe of it myself, everything I am doing and everything I could do if there were more hours in the day. As it is I have been trying to mail some postcards for at least a week, and my journal has only a few pages left in it! I have a few trips to the Mercado Artesanal on my brain, and the hotel phone waits to ring until the moment when three people are waiting to talk about different things, two more guests come back and need their keys, and I absolutely have to go to the bathroom. I am happy, though, I am finding the strength I've been missing and I am becoming more independent, while more confident to ask for help when I need it. I can't believe how much the world holds, and all it takes is the guts, or the one moment where you just close your eyes and hope, and jump, to grab onto it and ride it like the wind, or the water.
As I have said before, I love hearing back, about what is going on in other corners of the world or what is on your minds. You are in my brain at different turns and in my heart at all of them.
Abrazos,
Clarita
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