Coup!

When I woke up this morning, it didnt seem like a politically tumultuous day. It is, however.

This is a good CNN article explaining what´s going on as of now. The police and the military are striking for some sort of benifits and pension. They took possesiion of the president Correa around 10 this morning andthen they tear gassed him. He´s already in not such good health because of some recent knee surgery, so that´s worrysome, as it the pictures of him in a gas mask. He´s currently circulingthe city by helicopter, unable to land. Scary stuff.

On the homefront, things are fine. I didn´t have class until 1, so I was just hanging out in the house, when my madre called me and told me not to go to school or out, and to go buy rice. I didn´t understand what was going on. She came home a while later, and then some of her friends who i absolutely love, and we all ate mexican food and watched Ïnto the Wild¨I went to the farmacy to buy my malaria pills, and it was 70 cents for14 pills. What?

People are rallying in support of the president in the big plaza by my house, but its sort of dangerous, and also, if I were to get caught, I would end up getting deported or in Ecuadorian prison, neither of which is desirable.

Food we bought at the store to prepare for an emergency:
-Five pounds of rice
-instant noodles
-a bag of eggs. eggs are sold in bags?
-a half gallon of peach yoghurt
-band aids
-12 chicken wings.

Ready for anything!

We´ve just been watching TV and laying around all day. We went to the store down the street, and identified three groups of thieves on the way. Its going to be a long night, and there is smoke in the distance, but right now we are doign ok. So that´s the news from Quito, now I´m off to play rummy and drink yoghurt.

Coup!

Civil Society

Written Friday Afternoon

Today has been an awesome social-science sort of day. And its not even 4 pm. I was just out in the world, looking at people, thinking about stuff, being part of civilization.

I had to wake up early, and I’d stayed out late the night before, so it wasn’t the best early morning. My madre has a friend from Guyaquil staying for a few days, and she insisted on turning on the TV to some sort of tele-bendiction, that had a lot of loud singing and yelling and an unmoving image of Jesus “hanging out” HAHAHA sorry to be sacreligious. I think it was from clip art or something. Sorry clip art is sacrilegious. We drank this insanely acrid juice that I accidentally described as bitter, but at least that got me out of drinking most of it. We also had yoghurt, and a long discussion about how there is a lot of sugar in yoghurt, and how splenda isn’t actually good for you. Look! Nutricion! Also, to stop my vamanos! Diarreah! I’ve been taking this stuff called intero-germina, which looks like those eye-drop capsules grandpa uses, and tastes like old water. It has like 3 billion bacteria in it. Also, the word for billion in Spanish is mil milliones. A thousand millions. Look! Linguistics!

Took the bus to school, as usual. Have I described the bus to you? Its not so complicated. I walk four blocks north to “la funeraria.” Most of the buildings are funerary plazas, creamatoriums, insurance offices, and flower shops. There is also a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a porno theater. I get on “La Latina” bus, which is usually croweded and then gets less crowded as we pass the Park Elijido, a whole bunch of high schools, and the general hospital. Eventually, we near my stop near the sports complex, and everyone starts yelling “gracias!!!” which means “I want to get off the bus.” I hop off with everyone else and we go wait in line for the next bus. The second bus is called “TransFloresta” and it is a tiny small, green bus. It has to be so small because it takes these twisty, winding roads up and down the mouantin. They are all cobblestone. But, because its so small, there is huge rush to get in, and ends up really crowded. Its very orderly getting on, though. We all line up by this one tree on the sidewalk and wait for the next bus. If you want a seat, you have to wait your turn, but after the seats are filled, people who are running late rush out of line to stand in the aisle. Look! Group Dynamics! I always wait for a seat, its my morning luxury, and contemplate buying an empenada.

Get on bus. Tiny seat. Always window, always left side, always as close to the front as possible. These buses have no shocks, so the back row is a trip to the chiropractor. Ride bus. Get to school. I only have one class on Fridays, and its Rural Socialogy from 8-9. Not really worth the trip to school, but its how it is. We’ve got a lecture about migration and how it effects the rural sector. Main point- remittances are way important. Other point- Europe sucks for not letting Africans immigrate after they totally colonized the continent. This is demonstrated in an emotional and badly put together slide show featuring paintings from the Harlem Rennaissance (?????).

I’ve got about an hour to kill, so I sit with Hailey and we look at our facebooks. Jon Posner talks to me about body modification. Look! Sub cultures! Hailey carefully words a wall comment. We drool over vegan French toast recipies. Look! More nutrition! We go downstairs to get coffee, which for some reason I get for free. I was like “I am going to pay now” and the lady was just like, “no, don’t worry, go sit down.” Ok, cool. Chat with my gringos about last night. Look! Youth behavior! Storytelling patterns!

I’ve got an appointment with my sociology teacher to discuss a volunteering project for January. Its actually an amazingly useful meeting. We are going to get me set up working with older adults who have diabetes in the area of Yaruqui. This is so cool! Not totally sure what I’m doing yet, but I’ll keep you updated. Slash just put my project proposal up here as a blog entry. It was great to really be thinking about social research skills, and to have Prof. Waters mention “when you do your own Fullbright.” Yeah, sure, lets do this.

Bus ride back home. On the way home, the bus is awalys full and I stand. The first bus that comes by, I usually try to open the doors and end up crushing some old lady, the bus is so full. Eventually, the third one I get on, wedge my self in the isle, put on the talking heads, and hold on. Its not a fun ride, curvy and uphill the whole way, making way too much physical contact with your neighbors, getting angry looks from those with seats, although they were in your position this morning. Latina again, a perfect running entrance and seat-grabbing.

I get off the Latina a little early. I want to have lunch near my neighborhood instead of the pricey places in Cumbayá. The mariscal is where all the bars and clubs are, and in the evening its lit up and smokey and loud, but in the afternoon its just a run down neighborhood with more places closed than open. It nice to be there in daylight, to have Spanish instead of drunken Midwestern be the primary language, to just have one reggaeton song blasting per block, to be able to read signs properly. Its somehow more threatening now. Maybe that’s the Zhumir talking.

I found an English bookstore and spent half an hour there, looking at all the romance novels. I found a bunch of books, including Briget Jones’ Diary and Midnight’s Children, but decided on one of those comic book textbooks for introducing linguistics. Look! Linguistics! It was good to speak English.

I found this restaurant called Uncle Ho’s or Tio Ho’s, Ho’s something, “Fresh Asian Food” and now I’m going to tell you about my delicious lunch. It was so good! I ordered the executive lunch, which is like the special that almost every restaurant has. It has soup, juice, main plate, and sometimes dessert.

The soup was really Ecuadorian, which I was trying to get away from, but really good. Little noodles, dark beef broth, pieces of onion, little pieces of chewy beef that tasted so good to this protein-deprived lady. It also had that awesome quality soup sometimes has when you can tell that there is fat in it, it really fills you up and warms you.

Next came the main dish! I ordered vegetables and tofu with noodles. It was sort of odd. The vegetables were semi-raw zucchini/squash on a skewer. It tasted pretty bad. The tofu was also on a skewer but was awesome. It was crispy and sweet on the outside, and then soft and plain in the middle. There was a lot too. The noodles were like vermicelli noodles that were in this thick sauce that might have been marinade. There were also raw cucumbers and whole peanuts. It was good but super strange. There was also pineapple juice, without the three inches of bitter foam that usually come when you make pineapple juice. Then there was deseart, which was a half of a banana deep fried. I wasn’t expecting that, but it wasn't like I was complaining. All for five dollars. I was the only person in the restaurant, so I left a 50 cent tip. Its way nice and totally unexpected to tip in Quito, so I feel good Samaritan.

I walked home a different way, feeling full and happy. Its so cool to be in another country, to hear Spanish and understand it, to learn new things. But really, what's most amazing is just seeing people. Watching men argue, an old couple cross the street, children pay attention, pickpockets plot. People try so hard to sell things, to keep themselves healthy, to meet the expectations of others. And you can see all that stuff everyday on the street, in a lobby, anywhere.

Gotta give my madre the computer and go make spaghetti. So glad to have a world and eyes to see it with.

Guaguas

This is mostly for Britta and Tina, but this blog entry is going to be all about babies. I´ve learned alot about how Ecuadorians deal with babies, and there are several in my life. I´m going to tell you about them.

1. Babies are called ¨Guaguas,¨ which is the Quechua word for babies. ¨Bebe,¨the actual word, is only used in hitting on other people. ¨Guaguito¨is also appropriate. You can call people guagua if they are acting immature, or if they are only 19 and you are a mature 20. or if they are virgins. Or don´t have a driver´s license. Which my host mother doesn´t have.....but I digress.

2. The Evil Eye (Mal de Ojo) is big here. Mal de Ojo is when you hurt a baby and make it cranky and sick to its stomach by casting a spell on them with your eyes. Witches can do this on purpose, and normal people can do it by accident. Gringos do it alot, so you have to be careful. There are several things you can do to avoid cursing a baby.
a. Do not look at the baby
b. if you want to look at the baby, you have to touch the baby and then make reassuring eye contact with the madre that you are not cursing the baby
c. the baby is probably going to have a little red string bracelet around one wrist. This is to protect it from evil glances from idiots like you. DO NOT TOUCH THIS BRACELET. the mom will slap you.
d. do not take flash photographs of the baby.


Now that you know how to avoid hurting infants with your eyes, its time to learn how to bring your baby in public.

Its perfectly ok to nurse your baby in public. While I am all La Leche League and everything, it can get sort of awkward, because these women with huge nipples are like leaning on the sidewalk and on the bus. At one point, my backpack had a collision with a breast, but not the woman or the baby. It was that big. Sorry if this is TMI, and I´m glad they are breastfeeding, but I just don´t know how to deal with it sometimes.

Despite the presence of engorged areolas, there are a zillion creepy ads for infant formula and child milk-like drinks on TV, none of which I can find, despite 8 minutes of youtube searching. you know the ones, with the happy, white family doing jumping jacks, and then the mom intently watching her three year old sipping white syrup through a curly straw. There´s even one where they make a graph of brain development, but the only measure of growth they show is a picture of a brain between two axes. Science! I looked for that picture, but I couldn´t find it either, so here is a picture of a cute rat.

There are tons of ways you can carry your baby in Ecuador. One way is draped across your lap, with its feet in the isle, blocking the way of people who want to enter. Another way is tied on your back with a scarf. You can also haul produce this way. Other way is in a cardboard box. This is not a joke. There were two toddlers sitting in a box with their mom on a bus. You can also modify the scarf thing the way my host sister did with her baby, and make this sort of overalls contraption.

Speaking of my host sister, who rules, btw, the craziest baby fact as of yet. She and her husband named their son Ilidan. Aww what a cute name EXCEPT it is the name of the bad guy in World of Warcraft, the best way to get out of the house and make friends. This five month baby, no teeth, double chin, is named after this guy .

Ok, I´m going to go drink some coffee and watch the trailer for Babies, the movie, over and over again, while on silent.

Love you all, happy weekend!

Alive

Nothing blew away, but my madre has one my shirts and I don't know how to ask her for it back.

Going to the clinic to get some malaria medicine I was apparently supposed to have. Nice one, health center.

No malaria, but mosquito bites looking increasingly nasty.

Too much time on facebook.

English is failing, i keep forgetting to say the "th" sound, but spanish has been really good.

Got an A on a paper! that one that i though would be bad!

So sleepy all the time.

I still need to write about my last two weekends. Blog fail.

Making friends, making plans, making dinner.

Getting amazing at riding buses, including the elusive mount/dismount while moving.

Even thought my host mom is kind of crazy, we do awesome things, like, this evening, we are having a friend over, eating cookies, and watching the full moon. How cool is that!

Also, she, my bro, and i fell asleep for two hours last night watching America's Next Top Model.

Love,
Miercoles

Socks and school

Hey faithful blog readers,
Sorry I have been a little shoddy about updating this baby. I also haven't showered for like three days, and I keep wearing the same socks. But I'n not smelly or anything. Just conserving. Oh shoot, the reason I keep wearing the socks is that I don't have any clean clothes, and the reason I don't have any clean clothes is because I hung them up to dry on FRIDAY MORNING and it has rained twice since then and been really windy. My clothes may all have blown away.

Despite being possibly damned to one pair of socks for the rest of the trip, i have to say that I'm doing well. Acutally, I was talking with my ma and sister and skype quit on us, so that;s sort of a bummer, but doing well over all.

Making friends at USFQ, all of whom seem to have somewhat messy ponytails, ladies and pimps alike. and someone who knows gus voorhies. One way I'm spending time with friends is in the computer labs, gringos cluster between classes, furiously checking facebook and sending emails all seemingly titled "Life from one degree south." I know this because the computers have huge screens and everyone can see what you are typing. I have seen three breakup emails so far.

Another thing that's been happening is improving my vocabulary. For my spanish class, we spend an hour each class talking about verbs and how they are complicated.
EXAMPLE:

Acabar- to end
Acabar de- to have just done
Acabarse- to run out
Acabar con- to be done with
Acabar en- to end up.

Also you have to conjugate acabar and thats a struggle in itself.
Other verbs I use a lot, without really understanding their full context.

Gastar- I think this means to waste, but I use it whenever I talk about money
Ganar- this means to earn, but you can also throw it infront of any other verb and make it like "I was wanting to," or "I had motivation to." Not so sure
Hacerse- this is like, I want to turn myself into something. Like a job. Or a life of delinquency. Its got to be something that requires work and time, not just suddenly. If you become emotional, its ponerse, if you become ˆsuddenlyˆ emotional its volverse, if you like transform into a lamp, its convertirse. Are you there, God? Its me, Margaret? When will I convertirme into a woman? Also, Spanish is not into commas, especially Oxford commas. This is a shame, as I almost always refrain from self-injury during paper writing because of the existence of commas. Another thing that is really frustrating is that alot of the computers at school have weird punctuation arrangements of their keyboard. for example, I wrote an about seven pages using umlats instead of quotation marks. And there was no "Find and Replace" to be found.

We, the gringos of the computer lab, find it totally acceptable to yell you "hey, how do you make the 'at' symbol?" or "where is the damn exclamation point?" at any point, and the Ecuadorians, who all seem to be using ms. Paint to design menus for Italiam restaurants glare at us. Various gringos offer various key combinations, and usually the concerned party ends up copying-and-pasting from a website. Also, the internet goes out for like 7 minutes ever hour, at which point, the entire room sighs quietly and ejects their flash drives.

I'm going to go wash my hair really intensely and nap and eat some pasta. Pretty normal sunday stuff.

¡Vamanos, Diarreah!

It has arrived. The waiting is over. Good thing I don't have much going on this weekend, just seeing some birds on the verge of extinction and my bro's metal concert.

Let's hope it all comes out all right.

What is this Day?

Written last night.



What is this day? What is going on? How did I get here?

Let the days flow by, let the water hold me down. Talking Heads. Breathe.

Woke up at 6, showered, felt depressed about my hair. Madre didn’t want to wake up quite yet, so I started making the juice. I put in some defrosted melon, some pineapple chunks (oh no, this means fermented pineapple-rind juice in a couple days), and some very squishy fruit from the coast called arasai. Which had worms in it, a little meal worm that I felt on my hand, so I had to throw the arasai away and we just had very watery juice.

Going to school, I encountered a boy in my improv class. He read the bible, I slept. Sociology, we had a substitute who asked us why we are taking this class. Why do I take any class? Why do I study sociology? Why am I in Ecuador? Why am I awake right now?

Drank coffee with the ladies. It was pouring rain and I couldn’t get alert, no matter how much we rehashed our gossip. Went to a computer lab, worked semi-diligently on my sociology paper. However, it still has big sentances in English like “en comparision de los dependistas, los que siguen la teoria de sistemas mundiales THINK THAT COUNTRIES SHOULDN’T INTEGRATE MULTILATERAL SYSTEMS INTO THEIR SOCIAL PROGRAMS.” Stuff like that. Real smooth right now. I also talked to Terry and Jon and Max, and that was nice.

Tried to get lunch with Mike and Jamie, but we were all weird about where to go. I realized if I want to have coffee and ride the bus and eat lunch, I can spent $3 on lunch. Whoops. So its basically Chinese vegetarian restaurant or snacks. I was all enthusiastic about my new life eating only from the Chinese vegetarian restaurant that I ordered a new dish, Tallerin Tai Pen. It was salty, soupy, lacking in vegatables, and gave me horrible gas. Well, not particularly worse that “the fartiest day in history” (see Otavalo entry), but still pretty bad.

Best part of the day. Maybe. I went to the library and found “The World According to Garp,” my second favorite book, in English and Spanish. I checked them both out. I have read it in English so many times I can read it in Spanish easily. I’m on page 30! Went to Spanish class, which produced some real gems of sentances, like “she abused our friendship when she stole my money,” and “the storage closet took advantage of World War II.” We also discussed the topic “Is religion good?”

Next up came Flora and Fauna of Ecuador. Woooo boy that class is dull. Its just powerpoints that are like “this is the cloud forest. Here are some pictures. Here are some plants that live in the cloud forest. Here are their pictures. Here are some animals that live in the cloud forest. Here are some pictures. This is the swamp......etc” for an hour and a half. I did a lot of the Garp reading during this time.

Afterwards, I hung out with Aracely and we decided to talk only in Spanish. She was knee deep in explaining her feelings towards a specific person, very personal feelings I may add, when we realized the patio we were sitting on had gone completely silent. Sometimes, when you concentrate on remembering words and conjugating, volume control sort of goes out the window. At least she can project well.

I rode the bus home and made a friend. We just started talking on the bus, his name is Javier and he studies architecture. He seems semi boring but possibly interesting. I’ll take all the friends I can get. He doesn't constantly correct my grammer or actively hit on me, meeting my two requirements. He may, however, play the pan flute, which is sort of iffy.

Got home, feeling brave and happy about making a new friend, and I was very happy to talk to an old one. Not old in age, like we have been friends for so long. You may know him as Eustice. Great to talk to him, to really be honest, to talk to someone who knows me outside of this crazy month in the sounhtern hemisphere. And it has been a month, one month yesterday. Five to go!

There’s a free jazz festival each night this week in the plaza of the teatro sucre, so we went, my madre, mi, our neighbor Dani (girl) and Jimmy. It was really cool, about 400 people in a plaza rockin out to semi-good smooth jazz. J immedielty got lost in the crowd, so we watched some people do some very sexual acrobatics. There was a big line infront of the teatro, and all of a suddent it began to move, so we joined it and went in the teatro. It was a very grand style of theater, like the Kennedy center or something, but not very large, maybe 350 capacity. Sat around for a while, speculated about what we might have signed on to see. It turned out to be part of an experimental theater festival. Chevre! We couldn’t figure out the name of the play, but it consisted of a woman, wearing a slip, smoking and drinking and rolling around in a chair while orchestrial music, gypsy ballads, and Edit Piaf songs played dramatically. A giant wedding dress was in the corner. There was also a table that rolled around.

The play was very good, well blocked, lit, costumed, etc but I was just too tired. I have big days and I’m not sleeping so well (all the farting?). Also, she never talked, so the music just put me to sleep. When I woke up, she was in a clown suit with blood all over her legs and these fake breast things by her face….we left.

Rode the trole home, Jimmy gave me one of his earphones so we could rock out to metal, that was nice. He went to get his gf from the train station, and then my madre just let it out. She was like “did you get the message of the play?”

“no, well not really, I was asleep.”

“I was like that. Smoking and drinking and waving my arms to get the pain outside. It was horrible. It was the worst time of my life.”


wooo boy sometimes you just can´t deal with things. That was one of those times. I went to bed.

All These Things That I Have Done

-Went rock climbing in the country, a town called Conocoto. It was very beautiful and I took a lot of pictures and re discovered my love of rock climbing/ physical challenge / heights/ nature

-avoided eating cuy. But its just a matter of time.

-lost my cell phone. Whoops. Jimmy just got me a new one. Thanks!

-Got kicked out of my Translation Spanish class. Via note at the end of a homework. Classay.

-Found a new Spanish class that’s actually way better.

-Found a new bus route to school that's much faster but more crowdede

- Kept flossing

-Went to a state-run facility for young people with disabilities. It was very amazing. Most of these people were abandonded by ther parents or just found in the street. They were between like 10 and 25. Many had cerebal pasly, mental retardation, Downs syndrome, or had been in traffic accidents. They were very heavily medicated, but still quite independent and functioning, despite really big disabilites. We played witht them and sang. I helped one boy in a wheel chair get out, and carried him around to slides and swings. I sat with one woman while she washed dishes. She told me about how her left side didn’t work very well but she worked hard. I found out later that she had been raped several times and had two children. Woah. I think I might be an occupational therapist. I just want to help people be able to move the way they want

-still have a zillion infected mosquito bites.

-saw John Dugas! And his cool wife! Yeah! I hung out with his wife, Larissa, at that ceremony thing before I got drunk at school. Yeah!

-Learned that “you speak such good Spanish” is most often a pick up line.

-Other pick up lines attempted “Let’s have relations!” “you should move here. You could get married,” and my favorite, just a grunt.

-Went to the old historic center at night, listened to live music, drank canelazo, ate empenadas.

-watched a lot of Ecuadorian Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? where you only win 50,000. And the questions are real stumpers like ¨Green consists of what two colors?¨

I'll Have the Usual

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It was a normal sort of afternoon, as common as they get during the Kalamazoo Study Abroad Experience.

I got to school around 11, said hi to about a third of the people I know at the school (25), and went to Casa Tomate, my nth home. Casa Tomate is salmon colored, hard to get to, and is home to the international programs. I know at least three people who have cried there already. Tania is there, and she is the boss. She is German-Ecuadorian, about 6 feet tall, and pregnant. We do what she says.

She took me to the registration office to get my class situation sorted out, and that almost lead to me being the fourth person to cry; there was just too much going on in that office: Pop music, Spanish chatting, three phone calls, and two computers shared between two people, and me being asked to recite numbers in Spanish.

Finished that up, took some deep breaths, and went to have lunch at the Vegetarian Place. You go in, order “el menu” and for $2.80, you get soup, juice, and a plate full of macrobiotic vegetables and brown rice. There’s always some fake meat with peppers, something raw, and something like potatoes in a gelatinous sauce. The juice and soup are usually the best parts.

At one, I had class, improvisation class, which is really awesome, and a great opportunity. Shoutout to my Monkapult foos. We started playing games with words, though, and that was hard. Two kids got up in front of the class and just started talking about nothing. There is no way I can do that! My conversations have clear subjects, questions to answer, vocabulary words to use. They can be about the time of an appointment or weather Amedenijhad has a mental illness, but I need to focus my mind on what I’m going to say at least 25 seconds before I say it. Whoops, this could make spontenaity a little difficult. But its still an awesome class, and the kids in it are funny and nice. One of the other norteamericanos is actually from Chantilly, so we talked about that, and how he was a truck driver for the Girl Scouts (??)

By 2:30 I was sitting on the front steps of the school with my gringos, talking about how much we hate USFQ. Well, not all of it. We just feel like we’re in 9th grade, and feel the glances down rhinoplastied noses. Its made me even more determined not to shave my legs, but even more embarrassed to show it. Most of my friends went home, so I went to the library to do my Drawing homework: drawing lines. Horizontal and vertical lines with a variety of pencils. Did that for an hour and a half. Re-discovered my love of The Squirell Nut Zippers. The Ipod is a pretty important part of my life right now.

I had drawing class at 4. The class is 10 well adjusted, goofy, talented freshmen, and me, who doesn’t know any words for art supplies, and doesn’t have any of them, anyway. Because I didn't have “tinta china” (is that a racially-charged word for “black ink” or what?), he felt the need to draw me a map of the town of Cumbaya, highlighting the way to the art store. Ver Humiliating. The project for the day was cool though, using the ink and brushes or pens (didn’t have those either) to make pointillism drawings with varities of textures of ink. Here’s my drawing, not done at all.




And here’s one of just me, in case you missed that sultry smile. Sunburned? But of course.

Art class done, I took one, two, three buses to the Consultorio, where I met up with madre et al. Its so odd to kiss my uncle hello as he wears a surgical mask and someone’s mouth is open two feet away. Sanitation is not a worry. Kiss my madre’s patient hello, random man hello, etc. Go say hi to Jimmy, who is giving a massage to an anonomous shirtless skinny person. Go say hi to Malcolm, abuela, and Diego, who are eating geletin and watching Hercules dubbed into Spanish. Guess who is also playing online chess? The person who is always playing online chess, Diego! There are also personal ads scrolling across the bottom of the TV screen, which is weird.

My madre has called a taxi driven by her friend Miguelito. We drive across the city to visit her daughter, Gavi. We are bringing her things. We drive forty minutes. We arrive at the house. Items brought: diapers, toothpaste, some tomatoes, and fish food. Are those things not available in the West part of Quito? Maybe there is an embargo. Gavi rules, though, and so do her husband and kids.

We drive back, disussing the best way to make sangria. The car is divided on weather soda is a good addition.

Back at the house, Madre and I stare depressed at the refrigeratior while the cat humps our legs. We decide to make a “tallerin” which means any sort of noodles and a salad. It actually turns out awesome, she cooks all these wilted vegetables in seseme oil and we put these noodles on it….I stick to plain wilted lettuce/squishy tomato salad. Its also pretty good. Madre offers me a drink she calls “geletina tibia” (lukewarm geletin.) I keep the vomit down and politely decline. She shows up at the table with a beer stein filled with acid-green liquid that she is now calling “Jello On the Rocks.”

Hole away in my room, shutting the door from the evil cat. Jimmy and his gf just got home. I’ll probably watch some TV, and then pack for our trip to Otavalo. All the K kids are going one hour north to this market town for the weekend. I’m looking forward to buying woolen goods from industrious indigenous people, taking a really good shower, and not feeling guilty about speaking English.

Shiva, Goddess of Distruction

Shiva is the worst cat ever. I now fully support the “Spay and Neuter” campain now that I have seen this evil creature in heat. All she does is rub her perverted bottocks all over everything, meowing loudly, nuzzling, and desiriring penetration. She claws at my door for hours, then licks my face and tries to hump my books and hand. Right now, she is rubbing her nose on my elbow and thrusting backwards at the table. I sort of feel bad for her, but sort of feel like giving her what she’s looking for in the form of a very sharp pencil.

Normally, Shiva is a normal sort of cat, biting the hands of children, peeing in corners, hiding in the shower, scratching randomly.

Saturday Updates

Hi Guys, I wrote this stuff last Saturday, early evening, and then later in the evening.


Its awesome to have such a friendly mom, but sometimes it gets sort of old when all these people without social skills show up in your dining room with pans of pallela and slide projectors.

Its been an overall good Saturday, very relaxed and slow moving. Managed to sleep until 8, the latest of any day so far, and then had breakfast. Madre’s awesome friend Lilly and her friend came over. They are like 35 and super active and energetic. They just got back from Peru, and were getting the mountain bike they had stored behind the washing machine. They invited me to do active stuff with them, so I am going rock climbing with them at 8 tomorrow morning. So excited! They are so cool and friendly and smily. Also, I made a joke and everyone laughed and said I was funny! I was so proud!

Oh, speaking of my Spanish skills, I dreampt in Spanish last night. However, its not what you think. In the dream, I was in an elevator, trapped, and I was like, “well shit, I guess I’ve got to speak Spanish now.” Someone asked me what my favorite fruits were. I said, “I like apples, but only good apples. I like bananas, but not brown bananas. I don’t like pears. I like watermelon, but not the seeds.” Man, even when unconscious I am brilliant.

Madre had work, so I went with her to the consultorio, and watched half of Pulp Fiction in English with French subtitles. Diego was out back, trying to start the car, and the spark is busted, so he asked us to put our hands on the car and send energy to the engine. Diego and his energy. Eventually the car started! Energy rules!

Went home, napped hardxcore. I can just fall asleep in these weird positions with the sun in my eyes, I don’t even need to listen to Wilco anymore. Woke up as like 8 people came to the house, Madre’s sister, her husband and two daughers, Diego, Abuela and maybe one other person??? We ate: home made Minestronie soap, rice, veggie stir fry, two types of bought Chinese food and these bizarre things from the Chinese restaurant (they call them “Chifa”) that was like a giant won-ton friend cracker. You put sweet-and-sour sauce (corn syrup) on it, and eat it dry. NAST!

It was also insanely awkward because these two ladies were at the hosue to clean it before the party, and we were all skirting around them and ignoring them and they ate the same food, but in the kitchen. Round bouts the end of the meal, Malcolm and Nick showed up, and there wasn;t enough food. After we ate, we sat around the table and chatted. Eventually, N, M and I were excused to watch MTV while the rest of the family continued chatting. There’s only so much not having anything to say one can take. We watched MTV. True Life: I go to fat camp and True Life: I have an eating disorder. Nice juxtaposition, MTV. After that, we lay around in my mother’s bed and gossiped. I really like Nick and Malcolm. Ecuabuddies.

They left. These random people came over, bringing a huge pan of pallela and this movie projector. There is also a lady with a sick kid here. Why?!?!?! Ecuadorians are good at kissing hello, but bad at introductions of names or stating relationships or stating why people are in your house.

Well, Bolo is going to come get me soon with “algunos amigos” and we are going downtown to meet up with Jimmy and maybe some K kids who are apparently knee deep in a beer pong torunement with some people either from Germany or Tennessee. I might read some of Walden Two. Its pouring rain, not sure if I have it in me to get out there. But at least I’m experiencing culture! Aside from all the MTV.

Later, 1230.

Currently, there are about fifteen middle aged people singing folk songs in my living room, eating popcorn, and drinking scotch. I feel lame by comparison. But at the same time, I’m a little indignant. Why should I be out in a crowded street, wasting my money on cheap alcohol when there are people miserable and crying and alone places? If the going out isn’t making me feel particularly more connected, then why not help others while I’m at it? Social things like a club are supposed to be fun, but they just take it out of me, so I feel like I shouldn’t try to go to them to relax.

Mosquitos Suck

Haha, do you like my pun? It is successful, because I am fluent in English! In Spanish, mosquitos do not "eat" or "bite," these words refer to oral sex, I think. I'm not sure what mosquitos do, but I do know I look like a junkie with bad aim, because my wrists are covered in blood blisters and scabs. I think I'm going to start taking the mysterious "Complejo B." Its a very high dose of several B vitamins. Benefits: Makes you smell bad to mosquitos, makes your fingernails really strong, gives you crazy lucid dreams. Downsides: sometimes makes your pee smell weird, semi-expensive. I think this is worth it.

A pun I did understand this weekend: the name Delores D. Cabeza. HAHAHAHA!

School Dayze

Weird day at school today. I went at 10, when I didn't even have classes, to check out some classes I could take to fill my hole of a schedule. When I arrived at the weaving class I wanted to talk, the teacher told me that there were ten people who also wanted my spot and that it was the school's birthday and I needed to go to the auditorium. OK.

Auditorium: All the professors in thier PhD/ Harry Potter suits, tons of kids sitting around. Speeches. Fourty five minute speech about the topic of a prizewinning book a professor wrote: the economic situation of Peru and Chile as a result of the Cold War. Chatted with Larissa Dugas, wife of my prof Dugas who's on sabbatical in Quito. Awkward and pleasant. Everyone files out of auditorium in a totally non-fire-safe way. In the courtyard, a rock band is playing "Superstition" and there is cake and champagne. (????) Many balloons are released. People get drunk. It is 11 in the morning. Classes are cancelled?

Lil' tipsy, I walk to the chinese food restaurant on campus. In line, I make friends with a freshman named Louisa who is wearing only a zip-up hoodie and a flower-printed bra. I can tell that's it, because I can see.

Food takes a long time. Have only 12 minutes to eat before class. It tastes excellent, and they even gave me gluten instead of meat, but I eat damn fast. Get to class. Feel insanely sick. Leave class, run to the closest bathroom in the architechure building. Tell the girls doing thier hair in the bathroom about what;s going to happen. Second puke in Ecuador! FTW!

Back to class. It rules. Contribute to discussion, conjugate correctly.

The rest of the day went whatever, I found a class (Drawing for Communication. I have no idea what it is, but it's my class.) I rode the bus to the clinic, chilled out with Jimmy and Kiki, was completly unable to follow the conversation. Chatted with Malcolm, claro que si. Bus ride home with madre. Now she's making a herbal tonic/bath thing so as to spiritually cleanse ourselves because its the beginning of the month. I don't quite have the heart to tell her that it's the second.

Also, I'm talking to Emily Hanneman right now, so that's sweet. A shout out to all my LAC friends, past and future.

Aight, I'm bout to watch Two and A Half Men, the most-loved show of Ecuador. Smell yous guys later.

Dana and Pili´s Excellente Adventure PART 1

This weekend, I went to the country with my mom.

We didn’t leave until Saturday morning, so Friday night I did the usual going to a clube and watching an unmentioned-for-the-sake-of-anonymity friend order “el queso mas barrato” from a bakery and some “birthday soup.”

Anyway, so we got up early Saturday morning, Ecuamadre and I, and ate some ancient cake and coffee for breakfast, then walked to the bus that took us to a another bus stop. Quito, especially in the mornings and evenings, is really beautiful. Its between the two spines of the Andes, so when the sun is going up or down, its hitting either mountain chain. Also, because its in a valley, all the pollution just sort of floats around, leading to athma and spectacular sunsets.

We got to the second bus stop by 8am, when I told my madre I had to go to the bathroom. As we were walking to find one, the bus we needed to take came and left. This would lead to an embarrassingly accurate description of the weekend: Dana makes us miss buses because she has to go to the bathroom. Read on to see the full extent of my akwardness!

We waited at the bus stop for a long time, and the only buses were going to “El Mitdad del Mundo,” the part just outside of town where the equator is. Yeah you know, just livin in the southern hemisphere. There were maybe 12 Midad del Mundo buses in a row, which is a little excessive for early on a Saturday morning. We got so angry, I took a picture of the Midad del Mundo bus. I’ll but it up when I can buy a camera cord.

The bus finally came, and we were very aggressive and third-world acting to get on, pushing, grabbing the bus while it was still moving, etc. My mom congradulated me for acting like an Ecuadorian when we finally got seated. The bus trip was about 2 or three hours long, downhill the whole way. At first it was this arid deseart sort of place, with the awkward Ecuator monument sticking up, and small houses that made cinder blockes. Next, we were hair-pin turning around the mountains, landslide out one window, cliff out the other. Luckily, we could watch Hercules, playing on the bus’ tv. After about an hour of that, we were much lower in altutude, my ears popping, and there jungley plants and air, with little rolling hills covered in mossy grass.

Our second destination was San Pedro Vicente Manldonado (“Pedrito”). It was a little town with one big street and three traffic lights and a lot of people trying to change buses. We found ours quickly, and rode another half an hour to the final destination, El Cisne. El Cisne is a really small town, one wide dirt road and a lot of tiny dirt roads. A lot of people have stores on the bottom floors of their houses, but its not what you’d call a commercial center.

There were two houses we were staying at: Laura’s and The Old People’s. Laura’s was first. It was a modern house, with tile floors, big windows, a sofa, etc. It was also exceedingly clean. We would find out why later. The Old People’s house was up the hill and past this park made entirely of cement. It was also made entirely of cement, with wood accents. Very old school, dirt floors, only wooden furniture, bare walls. Look at my El Salvador pictures for further reference. Also, there are pictures coming.

After looking at the two houses, Pilar took me down to the river. The river was like a normal river that you have to climb down a cliff to get to. There were some kids playing in the river and some grownups sitting on the banks. I was trying to prove myself to the kids because no one knew me, but P was saying all these embarrassing things like “Dita take off your shirt! You don’t want to get it wet!” (all the kids were swimming in their clothes, so I was going to keep my shirt on over my bathing suit), and “Help her in! she’s never gotten into a river with mud and rocks on the bottom before!” (where do I come from, the Sterilized Universe with no muddy rivers?)

Playing in the river got to be fun, after everyone realized I spoke Spanish like a baby, was mostly going to answer questions by repeating key words, but could still understand when they talked about me. We threw a soccer ball around and talked about how cold it was. The moms started yelling at us about how we had to go to mass, so we went home. The were all staying at the old house, so I tried to go to Laura’s house, where my clothes were, but it was locked and empty. So I had to walk through town in my bathing suit and soaking wet Barry Bonds t-shirt and gringo sandles. Woah buddy, really blending in with the culture. After I got to the old house, Juan Carlos, who was surly and about seventeen, was sent to unlock the house for me. He was not into this, and refused to talk to me. Scene two: Late teen with comb and toothbrush in hand, wearing soccer jersey and dress pants walking three meters in front of twenty year old in bare legs and freezing shirt. Cue leering men, judging townsfolk, and curious children.

Once we got back to Laura’s house, it was unlocked and there were a ton of people there. Juan Carlos just turned his trasero around to go do his hair.

The mass began at three. About fifty relatives and friends gathered on tables under some tents in the front yard, drinking beer slowly, and watching the ceremony. I have tons of pictures of this, so I’ll save that for later.

Afterwards, we sat around for a while, chatting and drinking beer. During this interlude, I met my four friends for the evening.

Friend one: Joel, age three. Very excited to play, bit me really really hard on the hand.

Friend two: Isiah, age six. Really into the sparkly streamers that decorated the room, and interpretive dancing with them.

Friend three: twenty-seven year old Spanish firefighter named Bolo. When I asked “Like the tie?” He responded “Yup, cowboys wear me around their necks.”

Friend four: Twenty-four year old Spanish meathead named….Stalin. When I asked “Are you a cruel dictator? Do you kill Jews?” He responded “No, I am not as mean as him. I won’t send you to Siberia.”

Snappy comebacks for stupid names.

Friend 5: Fran? Unsure of name. Brazil transplant to England, on vacation with his Ecuadorian wife. Horrible Spanish. We were talking in our poor Spanish, and I let something English slip, like “ok” or “umm,” and he exclaimed “You speak English! I miss speaking English! I haven’t spoken it in a week!”

Anyway, Stalin and Bolo had taken in among themselves to keep the party supplied with drinks. In Ecuador, this means walking around with a liter of beer and a jelly jar, offering people shots of Pilsner. So you end up drinking a fair amount of beer, but very slowly and unsanitarily. Also, when Bolo and Stalin are the only people in the party that will talk to you as you sit on a couch with your hoard of elementary-school boys, you end up either drinking lots of tiny cups of beer, which I consider poor form in front of children, or Bolo and Stalin either drink a lot of the tiny cups of beer. Either way, I was happy when it was time for dinner.

I wanted to sit with my mom for dinner, but she was helping with the food, so I ended up at a table with strangers. VERY BAD CHOICE. Time for some dialogue.

Scene One

Man at Table 1: How old are you?

Dita: Twenty.

Man at Table 2: Oh man, only twenty!

D: yes

MT1: oh wow. Oh wow, only twenty.

MT2. Oh wow. Oh man. I wish I was still twenty

D: ha ha.

Women at table: eyes of jealousy and hatred.

Scene Two

MT 1: So have you had Euadorian food?

D: yeah sure, I like it

MT 1: but have you had REAL ECUADORIAN FOOD?!?!?!

D: I think so….

MT 2: Have you had yucca?

D: yeah, I love yucca!

MT 2: Have you had verdes? (those are plantains)

D: yeah, I’ve had verdes

MT 2: Have you had pollo seco (that's basically chicken and rice)

D: Yeah, that’s good, I like caldos too.

MT 1: Then I bet you will love this food tonight

D: Yeah, I hope so, I’m really hungry

MT 2: You should eat it all, its going to be really good.

Enter: Plates of Food.

Contents of Plate:

-Entire fried plantain

-two fist-sized pieces of deep fried yucca.

-some raw onions

-two cups of rice

-an entire steak

-Two large strips of some sort of breaded meat. These sort of look like enlarged gyro meat that you would find in a school cafeteria.

These look the least appetizing, so I start there. I stab the strip with my fork, and try to take a bite, but it won’t go. The meat is so tough that all I get is some breading I scraped off with my front teeth. The people around me are grasping and wripping with their hands, so I do that too, peeling off a long strip. The meat is purple-grey and almost tasteless. Immedietley, there are shards stuck between every tooth in my mouth. “So, what kind of meat is this?” I ask. “Chiva!” responds Man at Table 2, with rice in his moustache.

In Quito, a chiva is an open-air bus you rent for a party. You drive around playing music and making the people on the sidewalk jealous of the alcohol included in the price. But a chiva is something else. I picture the “Farm Animal” page in my visual dictionary. It's a goat. An old moutain goat. There is still a strip and a half left on my plate.

I eat silently and slowly for fourty-five minutes. The steak is good, admittedly. The rice is good. The yucca is hard in the middle, and the chiva never seems to get any smaller. At an unspecified time, I jump up from the table and skedaddle over the side yard to go vomit behind a bush. Unfortunately, Juan Carlos is there, looking surly at another cousin, so that won't work. I grab a trash bag and go up into the bathroom. Oh yeah, this hosue has no running water right now. Sometimes it does, it has a sink and a shower and all, but right now, no. so the toilet is just filled with like fifteen people’s pee, and no one is washing their hands. I crouch in the dry shower and vom into the garbage bag. The chiva looks remarkabley different coming up. Maybe that was the raw onions. I carry the bag of my own excretions down stairs, where I find approx imately 75000 women preparing yogurt. I throw my sack in a oil drum behind the house filled with other refuse, and go back to my table, grinning with scraps of meet still stuck between my teeth.

After this, things get hazy. I slept for about two hours, lying on a bed upstairs with my shoes still on. When I woke up, most of the guests had left, but the crew that was left was still partying hard. Bolo and Stalin continued their rounds, only this time with whiskey, still in a juice glass. I stuck with some soupy purple yogurt, served out of an enormous punch bowl. Around ten thirty, a DJ showed up with an enormous sound system and began playing fifties hits, Lady Gaga and Bolero music. Lots of dancing. People started changing into different clothing so as to permit more dancing. The popular style for men was to have shirts unbuttoned to the waist. The most uttered phrase was “We’re going to party until x in the morning!” (19).

I made it to 11:30, then sacked out on the bed again.

There was no rest for the wicked on Sunday morning. Laura got us up at 7:30 to clean. This woman is a cleaning fenatic. To fully scour everything, she removed all the furnature from her living room and was on her knees scrubbing when Madre and I crawled down stairs. She made three consecutive people sweep the porch, then did it again her self. She washed the windows. There was still no water, so she made the other guests bring up trash cans of water, most of which she boiled to wash with.

The upside of not having water was I got to go to a pila. Here, they call them lavanderias, but its always going to be a pila to me, for my El Salvador memories. Its really not a good day for me unless it starts with pouring cold rainwater over on my head from a bucked I filled my self with several semi-strangers just a cement wall away. That’s what really makes me feel alive. I think this makes it hard for me to make friends.

All fresh and clean, we walked to the old house, where everyone was sitting around, drinking coffee and eating stale bread with pinapple-stuff in the middle. Oh yeah, then there was Elsa. Elsa was about 65, and there was something wrong with her. She was one of those people that sits in the corner in a nightgown all day with no teeth and only smiles like a child or cries. So everyone was crowing about Elsa making the coffee, and this coffee was lava-hot and thick with sugar. Elsa was reading a picture book, either about the Bible or jokes, and drinking Coke.

Madre and I decided to take a walk. We started walking through the town (pictures to come!) and found ourselves on a side road. We were just strolling, haha nothing bad can happen to us, and then all of a sudden we were sliding down mud into a jungle. Whoops. I tried very hard not to hyperventilate/ die.

We walked back, chilled out in the house.

Walked to river! Pictures!

Then, Pilar was like “OMG its two pm wtf we have to go.” The family served us lunch: Rice, giant hunk of yucca, giant hunk of meat.

I was like, “There is no way I can eat all this. I have enough protein and carbohydrates to reconstitute all of Burma.”

“What can’t you eat?” asked madre, Elsa supervising from behind her picture book.

“Well, the yucca first of all…and the…”

“Elsa, eat the yucca”

At least she was obedient, aside from all the crying.
And so that was how I came to eat what I later found out was pork for the first time in 7 or so years. It tasted like greasy shoes.

That´s all we have time for now, folks! The rest of our journey and the pictures will be forthcoming!