Why Yes, I Did Just Get Catcalled by the Police.

And instead of a “ayyyy nena” or a honk, they just gave me a little “whaaaoooop” of the sirens.

Weekday Update

This is the warmup to my field notes. It is 640 pm on Friday and I just rolled around in the yard with the dogs for a while. There really is no better way to feel loved while getting covered in spit. Besides, like, making out or something. It's been really awesome here! Actually I've been pretty lonely and eating a lot, but the activities themselves have been awesome!

Recap

Saturday, July 2

Had a lot of fun with Hannah in Quito, going shopping at the fruit market, chilling with her family, having the most awkward cake-making experience ever, making fun of Hannah because she forgot the end of the 50 states song, etc. It's so awesome having another gringa here, especially one as great as Hanner. She's doing an awesome internship with a micro-finance organization and her and her host mom have all these brilliant conversations about anti-machismo action. It's very inspirational. Also, she does things like feed me twizzlers and endlessly quote 30 rock, so its a pretty wonderful relationship.

Sunday I went to Quito and saw Jimmy and Abuelita and Abuelo. Jimmy and I watched family guy and A&A were old and talked about that. Abuelo is so old he is just a husk, full of complaints and gas and chocolate cravings. I talked to abuela a lot about how it means to keep loving someone even after they can't love you back.

I went back to Cumbaya on the bus. I love knowing the bus system. I kinda organized my life and wrote a lot, went running, cleaned my room, talked to my lovely mom.

Monday...I went to work, then came home and did some field notes and slept

Tuesday, I went to work as well! At 6 or so I met my friend Carlos in Cumbaya and we had dinner and an awesome conversation. Carlos is one of those people that is so excited about the tremendous possiblities of the internet, really love it, feels himself in code, but is ok with the fact that he's also terrified of Steve Jobs dying and the next generation what are thier inner lives like!??! We have really similar opinons, are both really good with words, but approach things in completely different ways. It's so interesting to get that perspective. He's such a focused conversation-partner. I could talk about how great these three hours of talking were for quite some time.

Wendesday, I went to work as well. Then, after work, I went to Quito again to see Pilar. I took my old buses, my old route through the neighborhood. That place will always stick with me. I bought popcorn and ice cream, then went into the hosue to find no one there and no food. So i turned back around and went to the store to make pasta. While examining the tomato paste, Charito my arch nemisis ran into me. She was up to her ususal tricks: "oh your famous noodle dishes" she crows "They disgust me. Everyone else seems to like pasta, but to me it is disgusting. It looks like worms." "I will wait for you, its not like I have anyhting to do besides watch tv alone. We need to talk to gether. This neighborhood is so dangerous, you're likely to get stabbed walking up the stairs" (that simply isn't true. not awesome, sure, but no one dies).

climbing the stairs to the house. "is Pilar home?"

"no, not yet"

"let me use your phone then, mine got cut off. Just a few calls"

"its not my house, I can't do that"

"ok I guess you are right."

We part ways and I listen to socialist fight songs on the radio for three minutes unitl she knocks on the door:

"I was thinking about it and I know how pilar gets girls to pay to live in her house and i want to do that too"

"ok, I'll tell Kalamazoo about you"

"no, because pilar only gets girls because she is friends with the teachers becasuse its such a bad neighborhood. no one would live with me because its a bad neighborhood. So we could do it under the table, I would only ask for 300 and pilar asks for 350. Tell all the girls to come to my house."

"Ok, i will, but kalamazoo won't just let people come to your house for free. Besides only ten students are coming this year, so you won't get one"

"Alright, but when your girl firends come to quito, they stay with me"

"ok charito, they stay with you."

Telling pilar, she responds, "I don't think I would want anyone to stay with Charito."

Amen.

We watch Death At A Funeral, the recent one with the rich black family, a movie that didn't irritate me about portrayals of race for once. We start "Friends With Benefits" which is horrible and we talk about our lives instead. I go to sleep at 11 and wake up at 530 and ride three long buses to get to work.

Thursday and Friday, you'll have to wait for. Make your audience drool for more, as the Writing Handbook for Vampires says.

Saturday Night Thoughts

I. I sit out here and I watch it get dark. I can see the mountains in front of me and my warm, light room behind. It's pretty quiet so you can here birds squeak and the spur of thier wings. There's music beyond that, music made by happy people for other happy people who are ready for it to be dark, looking for the company of others, to move easily, to know thier place and not have to worry.

The musicians, too, don't worry- thier fingers know and they aren't embarassed to whoop or shout. They are proud of the music, its patterns and shiny, spinning heaights. There's no need to end songs quickly like the scared white boys in front of guitars do so fast. People are enjoying it, it some thing to adore, so why end?

It's very different here than in Quito. I see only one layer of houses and roofs, trees, no cars or trolleys and no people. Is there daily life here? Is everyone struggling to keep floating and breathing and wear clean underwear? Yes, of course they are, you can tell from the smoke of cooking fire barbecues, from the yelps of musicians, the lights of cars on the highway below. Just as we learned that everybody's pretty much working for the same stuff when we took the bus or on our class fieldtrip to the history museum or on that golden ticket of study abroad, I know it too in Cumbayá. We're close to Quito, but with a mountain and a rainstorm in between.

II. It's not at its most obvious but the earth is most subtle and vunerable at dusk, and humans are at thier brighest on a Saturday night. At 6:35 pm July 2nd on the Equator, you can see the mountains sigh and the people squirm. At this moment, the ground is tired and loosing its sun heat. The plants are squinting critically at their stores of sugar-from-sun, stream keep going but wish they were dry. Light blints but it knows it doesnt have much left before the slide from wave to particle. Hills slope. The earth looks backwards to rest.

But the people- everyone's on the bus, putting on thier best pants, making eye contact, biting their lip dreaming of hamburgers and solace and sex. Everybody's wondering what's coming next on a Saturday night.

That future, that past, that spilling cool darkness.

I Must Get This Candy Out of My Room

I brought 6 lbs of fun-sized candy to Ecuador in my hiking backpack. This stuff makes great gifts, as Reeses, Snickers, Kit Kat and the like are very hard to find and expensive at that. I have it all planned out in my mind who I’m going to give the candy to and how much (150 pieces divided by 5 or 6, depending on how much I want to spread the love). Unfortunately, I don’t have any gift bags and Ecuadorians are pretty big on ceremony for gifts. Actually, I think anyone would be kind of weirded out if you just dumped a plastic bag full of partially melted candies on their kitchen counter. I’m working to find gift bags, but my rout to work and home is much more erudite than it was last time around. There are no cabinas for calling people, no internet cafes, no “bazar-peluqueria-deli-tiendita-minimercado-tienda-de-fiestas-infantiles” that occupied the ground floor of my old rooms.

Besides the awkwardness of giving people gifts after you’ve been hanging out with them for two weeks, the other problem is that I want to eat the candy. I’m still at that point with my hosts of not feeling comfortable walking around the house barefoot and I am constantly apologizing to the maid. I walked into the kitchen and saw she was there with a mop. She and the mop were on opposite sides of the room, but I remembered my mother’s sternness to never spoil a clean floor. I immedietley start apologzing. She’s like “whaaaaa” and keeps washing dishes. I wanted to make myself some kind of non candy snack. I need vegetables, they are usually just as garnish, thin pink slices of tomato and canoes of avocado.

Yesterday, at the subcentro, I had the most disgusting lunch. When I first looked at it, I thought it was some kind of cebiche thing. I’ve eaten raw fish before, and while its not my favorite, it’s paltable. I tasted the sauce, thick and wood colored, little half-potatoes all around. Peanuts. Raw fish and peanut? No, not fish, no blessing of muscle, just the soft give of subcutaneous fat. Oh yuck. Oh god, I’m eating skin. It’s cut into neat squares and there is plenty of sauce and potatoes and rice (yes please, I’ll have some bread with my bread) so I make do, slapping a square between a half-moon of potatoe and a pile of rice. I don’t even bother with the avocado until I’m ten squares in, there is no reason to ruin beauty with this monster of a dish.

I’ve been picking out only the cleanest, whitest squares, not even thinking about thier origin, just looking to get them into and out of my mouth as quickly as possible. As the other doctors enter, including 1 super gringa and 1 medium gringa medical students, I am only mocked for my consumption of, what I now find out, is pork skin. PORK! the dirtiest of animals! The cloven footed sin! The carried of tricknonois and Tay Sachs and botched circumcisions, killer of my people! So recently covered in bristles and rolling in mud. Un cooked, sliced and drenched in peanut butter and mayonnaise. As we are discussing this, I get down to the nastier chunks. Reddish or brownish, they cling together with bits of the skin, or the little tubes and levers that keep us in one piece. I am not eating this. Its time for rice and avocado.

Of course, my suffering is not over. We have to listen to the two gringas complain and be grossed out, discussing the minutea of the texture as I feel it swim in my stomach. I ate in silence, they push food around their plates with complaints and I want to bolt out of there and throw up in the corn plot behind the house. The dentist (who I think is kind of an alcoholic) and the Doña’s husband (the Don) are drinking beer and they offer me some. There’s the perfect 3 once juice glass filled with amber Pilsener, bubbles rising. As I accept the doctor and nurse launch into long rants about how it is deeply irresponsible to drink on the job. My glass sits in front of me untouched, my sociology textbook humming in my ears about gatekeepers and cultural customs, the pigs are flying in my stomach.

Tina's First Day of School

I am glad that it is societally acceptable to be scared of bugs, because I am scared of bugs. There are bugs in my bathroom. I don't even want to describe them. I guess 400 meteres down really does make a difference.

However, today was, if not fun, at least extremely productive, which is odd for first days and definitely for Ecuador.

I met my dueña, Tamara in the parking lot by the supermarket by school. She took me to the house which is like 2 k up a mountain from the highway. This will be my form of exercise, I will call it "adventures in urban hiking." The house is really excellent, except for these bugs. It has lots of exposed roof beams, little alcoves (hiding bugs, I bet), uniquely bending staircase, a balcony by my room, and an avacado tree. This is all I could ask for. Additionally, I am in love with someone in the family but I don;t know who. My room has some stuff in it from the rest of the family, including a cabinet filled with at least 300 cds, all of which I already love or want to listen to or have never heard of or forgot I was obsessed with. And these are not burned disks on a spool, no, they are in thier cases with booklets and coverart. There are boxsets of Wilco, Dylan, Bowie, Green Day. This is audiotory heaven. And the bookshelf! My current forrunners are "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" but Murakami, "Please Kill Me: An Oral History of Hardcore Punk," and a Patti Smith book, all in spanish. Now that's what I'm talkin about. There are also biographies and coffee table books of Lou Reed, The Clash, and Mafalda. Someone had ganas and disposable income. And behind me are at least 40 dvds: Bottle Rocket, seasons of the simpsons, T Rex, Pavement, and Sigur Ros concerts. You know. Just bragging. So I will not even complain a lick about those bugs in my bathroom.

So after seeing the wonderful house, I went to school and did some computer stuff. Then I went to Puembo and surprised everybody. Spent a lot of time with Doña M and her kids who both love me and I like them. They are very down to earth and happy. I am impressed. They have puppies and a new room. The doc still thinks I am weird, I think. There are two medical students that are also assisting/watching, one from Venezuela and one who actually goes to George Washington U and UMD for undergrad. Small world.

Anyway, we all ate lunch, but me and the kids second b/c there wasn't enough space. After lunch, I went back to La Primavera, where I live. Tried to find a telephone cabina, but there were none. Pilar had told me she would be at the hospital with Santi (the sick guy) at 3 and it was like 330 so I decided to walk to the clinic. It was my first adventure in urban hiking! I walked uphill for 45 minutes, stopping twice to ask directions and once to cry. I got to the clinic and Santi was sleeping and his mom was there and she called Pilar who told me to come to the consultorio. SOOOOOO I rode the bus for another hour then go to Abuela's house (where the consultorio is). Sat around for 2 hours, chatting with: Abuela, Diego, Monika, Paulina, Carlos, the Cuban physical therapist, someone with a baby. Gaby came, went to the hospital. I didn't need to wait there for so long because pilar had given me the keys, but I really didn't wnat to get a taxi from the house for myself, I was worried it would cost like 30 dollars or at least 13. So after a long time (including a really weird session with abuelo, I'll go off about him later), Piliar, Ilidan and I left the house and ran into Miguel, the taxi driver friend. He took us to Pilar's house, Jimmy helped me carry my stuff down, and the Miguel and I chatted all the way to Cumbayá and I didn't have to worry about getting murdered. It all only cost $10.

Around 8 Tamara and Alberto came home, and we ate locro, choclo, chicken, and salad. Note to self do not eat empanadas and bread at abuelas house, you will be well fed at home. I like my new dueños, they are friendly and are giving me a ride down the hill at 645 tomorrow. Maybe only one session of urban hiking a day.

24 hours in Ecuador and I've already:

-Taken 2 taxis, 3 car rides, and 8 car rides

-eaten chicken organs, pork cutlets, empanadas, white rolls, sugar-not-corn-syrup-cola, big-kernal corn (choclo), and mayonnaisse-based cream sauce, national foods of Ecuador

-been whistled at three times

-made a goofy error ("They laid down" instead of "they were assaulted")

-forgotten everyone's name

-gotten sunburned.

-checked my pocked for my money 456,878,874 times.

-rode a llama (jk lolz)

Made it to Quito!

I thank the blessed entropy (not my phrase, her's) that got me here, and the wing-flaps extending that got me to stop. Flying over the valley, I thought of Saskia's feeling that Kenya was part of the earth as a woman's body. If I were to force that metaphor, I think Quito would be the thumbprint. Jagged, green and smoothed but harsh faults and mesas from a chemical erupbtions under the skin. Flying over, circling the city, I felt the thrum of joy as I reconized the Rio Chicha, the Parque Metropolitano, and the curves and nadirs that make up the outskirt suburbs. We swooped so low that I could see the cars of Avenia Naciones Unidas, see a bullfighter practicing with his red cloth in the taurion stadium (I am not making this up), Jamie and Scott's apartment building, the Unicorn statue I'd shoot past in pre-dawn taxi rides. Everything I see remindes me of some silly K joke. Those really funny videos of pratfalls and pranks we watched on the way to the galapagos? They are called Just for Laughs, they are produced in Montreal, and they are available on the back-of-the-seat LAN tvs. The shuttle we sat on for like 45 minutes that one time? Tourists are still trapped there. That rediculous hamburger stand? Still hilarious. I'll have to get his under control.

I am here, I am safe. I can still speak Spanish and people understand me and do not laugh at me. This feels so good. I got to get a taxi, remember street names. I got to greet my grandmother. They asked how my family was doing, asked by name. Asked if "my mother was still a psychologist" which isn't really a transient state but is still really nice. Illidan, who was like a 4 month old baby when I first met him, is a year old and in that stage where he just wants to walk around holding other peoples hands and throwing balls under the table.

I called Pilar at the airport, million pounds of baggage on my back. The phone call cost 30 cents. Took a taxi to abuelas house- 6 dollars. Ecuadooooor, and the financial situation is easy. Abuela gave me cafecito and stale bread and delicious butter. I was offered ancient, sweating cheese handmade by an aquaintance. The best way to avoid this is to pretend you don't see the cheese and that the person offeirng it to you is just talking about cheese in the abstract. We got a ride through gridlock traffic from Aunt Monica. Luckily, we made ourselves a third lane (baby Ili on a lap in the front seat) and made it home fast.

The baby is staying with Pilar while Santi is in the hospital, sometimes Benja, the 8 year old, does too. He's scared without his mom who has super attachment parenting parented him. He misses "la teta" and thinks the bottle is a poor substitute. But he liked being naked without his diaper, and liked playing with his little penis and laughing at his own body. We updated each other on gossip. i gave her the thrift store shirts (this is more awesome than it sounds) and I think she liked them. Ecuadorian gift giving is something I'm really bad at. I just didn't want to give her them in front of people. Oh SNAP I forgot a hostess gift for my dueños. But! I have been assured that the dueños are awesome, non creepy people. It's a mom and a dad and I'm meeting her in the Supermaxi parking lot of Cumbaya tomorrow at 9. Hallelulaja! Everything worked out just as well as it could have. And I think I'll be asleep by 8:30.

It is such a cool feeling to return to a place. It's very strange to have the memories still be fresh but stored in long term memory. I walk into the kitchen and feel that it's morning, I need to make breakfast but at the same time awash with how things have changes slightly. But the conditioning is still there. the house has a water filter with two switches you turn to get the clean water. It's run by electricty and the circuit was making it electrocute you when you switched it on for like two months. I've still got my Pavlovian fear of the switches.

Here I am. I can't believe I'm here. I can't believe I'm writing so much. I can't believe it. I never thought I;d really come back. I never thought my spanish would stay, that people would recognize me, that I'd rememmber words and pictures. But I did! It was worth it, i think, just to be able to listen to someone listen to the radio. I'm not writing very coherently, this won't go n the blog. i am so happy to be back in this big bed. It's very odd, because what was familiar about the bed was it's not-my-bedness and now this same unfamiliar bed is what I feel a connection to. Has the subject become the object? Have the colonized become the emperors? Has my graphomania continued unabated? Is it getting hot in here or do I just have a QUITO FEVER!!!

Miami Fieldnotes- PART TWO (family worries)

Things have gotten a little more itchy since my battery hit 8% and I stopped writing. It was 10 then, and I hustled over the the LAN counter because that is when they were opening check in for the Quito flight. LAN was its typical 45 minutes late which I didn't mind. I'm reading Gary Schyngart's Super Sad True Love Story which I really like so I was just sitting on the ground chillin. Of course, I also took an hour nap between 430 and 530 on the floor of gate C8 in BWI, so its not like I'm one for ceremony. I have this little beanbag pillow but its in a normal sized pillow case, so I can sleep on that and wrap the excess fabric around my eyes. I clutch my backpack and put my passport inside the front of my pants. Hobo 4 lyfe.

Anyway, I checked in and all. People (namely, the LAN clerk, the Dunkin Donut's clerk, and this silly Argentinian family who almost forgot thier passports in security, have been speaking to me in Spanish and nodding and giving me coffee with milk when I ask for coffee with milk and generally not laughing at me or slapping at me for cultural apropriation or anything. It's very satisfying to feel like I retained some semblance of fluency. Of course, I don't think I could say "It's very satisfying to feel like I retained some semblance of fluency" in Spanish, but we'll get there. I can ask for coffee with milk and that's a lot more useful.

One thing that is not useful at all is the pay phones in the Miami airport. I need to call two people:

1. my grandparents. I really need to do this, and I am feeling guilty and stressed that I am not. I know I could send them an email or call them tomorrow, but I feel like they are really depending on this for thier happiness or something. This might be one thing I need to let good

2. My mom to see if Pilar wrote on my wall saying she was coming to the airport or not. So, if there was a damn intternet cafe in this place, I could do that myself, but that is apparently too passe in this world of iphones and äppärät (thats a Schyngart reference for you).

I have tried to use numerous payphones. Twice, they have eaten my dollar that it now takes to make a long distance call. Twice for my Grandparents and twice for my mom I've gotten the busy signal which seems oddly coincidental unless they are talking to each other. I'm so hesitant to try again because its very hard to get change and I don't have my many dollars in quarters on me. I keep going into these recursive magazine and candy stores and asking for change from these grouchy cuban ladies and of course they say no. Of course, I don't want to buy chips or magazines, I've got too much already, calories and stuff to carry. I bought some chapstick with a 20 and that got me like 17.50 in change, but it's down to a five and a ten now, and I'm back where I started. I'm so hesitant to use those phones. Did you know the little coin return cover has a lip that catches quarters? That is a manufacturing feature that is just evil. Why would they design something that is supposed to return your money to catch your money? Its impossible to get out if you have fingers of normal lenght, too. Believe me, the passengers on the 12:40 to Ottawa as my wittness, even if you jab your middle finger in there (the longest and most brash finger), you can't get those quarters out, even if you squat and mutter to yourself. Not even that helps.

Well, I've got two and a half hours before my flight leaves and an hour till I board. The next conundrum: buy a 7$ fancy ass sandwhich that will probably be bad or a 2$ McDonald's sandwhich which will also probably be bad. I do not even know in this situation.

I'll try calling each family member once more and then give up. Ma and grandma and grandpa, if I do not make contact with you, I sincerely apologize. I am safe in the Miami airport, keep on keeping on.