16 Days Later: Vol. 2

Getting to Machu Picchu can be as easy as catching a train from Cusco to a closer town called Aguas Calientes during the day then taking a bus up to the ruins the following morning. But for the more outdoorsy and adventurous tourists,  there are a variety of trails that lead up to Aguas Calientes that can be hiked over the course of 2-7 days, depending on the route.

The most popular is the Inca Trail because it was one of the main roads used by the Incan Empire and there are a variety of small ruins to be seen on the trail itself. This trail is the most commercial of all the trails and the amount of people that the government lets go up on any given day is tightly regulated, so trips book up months in advance. Caitlin and I decided on an alternative trail called the Salkantay that would take us up a snowy mountain before descending into a warmer sierra-jungle border climate that would eventually end up in Aguas Calientes four days later.

Salkantay Trek

When we arranged the trek on the internet back in Ambato, the company led us to believe that tennis shoes, a sweatshirt, and a "sock hat" would be enough for the weather we were going to face on the way up to Salkantay, and their recommendation to bring shorts for when it would get hot made me feel pretty comfortable with the hoodie and long-sleeve shirt I brought with me for the cold stretches. However, when we got to Cusco, it was cold enough that I was not warm wearing all of my warm clothing. We did the altitude math and pretty quickly came to the conclusion that we would all need to buy more warm clothes before hiking to Salkantay, so we hit up some of the trekking gear places and while I laughed at Asia for renting a North Face winter coat and wool socks, I stuck with a thermal shirt ("This will definitely be enough").

On our way to the starting point, we got our first look at a snow-capped mountain that I'm pretty sure was Salkantay

Our tour guide was a trilingual (English, Spanish, Quichua) Peruvian man named Jose. The tour company we were using boasted that they were under indigenous management, and Jose and the rest of the crew (chef, chef's assistant, horseman) were all from rural areas of Peru and spoke the indigenous language Quichua as their first language.

The trek was supposed to be four days of hiking around five hours a day. We drove a car up to the starting point will all of our food and gear for the hike, and within a half-hour we had our first problem. Jose approached us from the meeting he was having with the rest of the crew a small distance from us and informed us that he had some bad news. Apparently the horseman never showed up, so we wouldn't be able to hike at all the first day because we didn't have anyone to carry our gear. So the first day, instead of hiking up the trail we went to a nearby lagoon just to check it out and take some pictures.

The first picture in my outdoor winter fashions portfolio

After that short trip there was no hiking, which meant no moving, which meant no body heat from physical exertion, which meant it was freezing. We played cards in a wooden shack with no door, so we were essentially outside the whole time. When it came time for bed, I didn't think I was going to make it through the night with all my extremities intact because I couldn't feel my big toes even when I tried to rub them to keep them warm.

Luckily for me, after our second day's hike (ten hours to make up for the unproductive first day), the temperature rose dramatically and I didn't have to sleep in fear of being two little piggies down the following morning. Below are some pictures of the trek.

Me and our tour guide Jose. He's not taller than me, he was just standing on a rock in this picture.

Getting warmer as we head down from the mountain

Not our mule

Where the Salkantay merges with the Inca Trail for a small stretch (note the stairs in the background)

Machu Picchu from a distance (terraces visible in the middle of the picture if you look closely)

Tourism

On the trail up to Machu Picchu, my friends and I had a lot of time to talk with our tour guide Jose. Jose is an indigenous man from outside of Cusco who now spends some of his time in the city working full time with an indigenous owned tour company leading different trails to the ruins. I was interested to hear more about how Cusqueños feel about their city and historical sites being flooded by tourists, so we ended up discussing tourism quite a bit.

It was clear from the beginning that Jose was not happy about the treatment of indigenous Peruvians. He talked about the rural community he was from growing up before he learned English and got work in tourism, and how he makes a point of giving back to indigenous communities with the money he makes when he can. I was impressed by how Jose seemed to not want to forget his roots, but when we started talking about the rediscovery of Machu Picchu, I found his attitude towards foreigners to be bitter and misguided.

While the ruins at Machu Picchu had been observed earlier and known locally, they were only made internationally famous by an American named Hiram Bingham (hence the use of the term "rediscovery" in reference to his expedition). According to what Jose told us, when Bingham came across the ruins he wanted to excavate to see what he had stumbled upon. Not an archeologist by trade, he apparently destroyed some relics there and set fire to the ancient city to clear away all the vegetation quickly. Also, some of the items that he discovered were sent back to Yale, the university he was working with at the time.

Nowadays, the Machu Picchu operation is run by the Peruvian government. Jose told us that the government takes nearly all of the money that the ruins generate through tourism. Regardless of the fact that Peru is now benefiting from the popularization of Machu Picchu, Jose still expressed disgust for Bingham and what Jose considered his exploitation of the descendants of the ancient civilization that built the ruins.

I agree that Bingham probably should have been more careful with his excavation and perhaps should have studied his findings in Peru or returned the artifacts to Peru when his work with them was finished. However, I do not think Bingham is the real bad guy and that Peruvians should be grateful that he made Machu Picchu an international tourist destination.

First of all, Machu Picchu generates a tremendous amount of money. Far from even entering the ruins, there is an entire industry based on the hiking trails near Cusco that wouldn't have attracted anyone if the final destination weren't Machu Picchu. I am confident that the indigenous guys on our trek with us make much more doing that respectable work than they ever could in their rural communities farming or making crafts. Also, the unique location of the ruins makes them nearly impossible to reach without using buses and trains, so tourists are forced to spend money on transportation. Then there is the entrance to the site itself which also costs money that the Peruvian government collects. Nothing associated with Machu Picchu is cheap, and without it none of that money would be in Peru. If it weren't for Bingham, Machu Picchu would have remained in the shadow of obscurity as the homes of a handful of indigenous families from the area.

Now, I understand that just because there is money being spent doesn't mean that it is going to the right places, but that doesn't mean it is an American who rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911's fault. The first thing that was clear to me was that all of the people we dealt with in Cusco while trying to rent equipment and book tourist activities were Peruvians. Granted, I don't know too much about business and who ultimately runs the show at the level above storefronts, but the operations were too informal and unprofessional for me to believe that they were anything more than a group of Peruvians who got together one day and thought it would be a good idea to make some money from tourism.

The second thing is that Peruvians were employed everywhere we went. Bus drivers, waiters, store clerks, and tour guides were all Peruvian people who were employed because of the international draw of Machu Picchu. Again, I don't really know too much about how business and money work, but it seems to me that without these opportunities all of those Peruvians I saw would be either out of a job or working in a less desirable area outside of tourism like agriculture.

The last thing that really annoyed me about Jose's badmouthing of the American explorer was the fact that the Peruvian government now runs the operation and absorbs the profits. If Jose has a problem with the way the money from Machu Picchu is being spent, he should be mad at his own government, not a man who passed through 100 years ago. In my opinion, the big picture is that by putting Machu Picchu on the international stage, Bingham handed Peru an incredible money making attraction that has brought in a tremendous amount of revenue for the country. Now that America has got nothing to do with it, however, I think Peruvians upset with the fact that Machu Picchu isn't benefiting them directly should either get involved in the tourism industry or take it up with the Peruvian government, because from what I have seen, if anyone in tourism is exploiting Peruvians in 2011, it's Peruvians.

Machu Picchu

When we arrived at the ruins early in the morning, a thick fog covered most of the city and there was hardly any visibility. It actually looked really cool like that, and it reminded me of how a dramatic reenactment of Incan times would look like on some show on Discovery Channel. 

As the morning went on, the fog cleared up and we got to see the ruins more clearly. Below are some pictures of the ruins I took that day, trying my best to take shots with no tourists in them.

Incan stonework was so precise that nothing was needed to hold bricks like these together.

Terraces

In this room, sunlight comes through the windows and hits the rock in front, creating a shadow that, together with the shape of the rock, forms an Andean cross.

In the Temple of the Condor. When sacrifices were made on this stone, blood ran down the neck and "fed" the condor statue.

View from the top

The thing about going to see ancient ruins is that you need to have a good imagination to appreciate what you are looking at and the history behind the site. People who don't inevitably end up wondering why they traveled so far/paid so much to look at a pile of rocks on a plain. I'd say I fall more into the latter category. I saw a lot of ruins when I studied abroad in Mexico, and after the first couple of sites I started not really caring because it all looked the same to me.

However, regardless of whether or not someone likes history or has a good imagination, I don't believe that someone can visit Machu Picchu and not be impressed. Even if a person knows nothing about the history or what the purpose of the ruins were when they were created, the location is really what makes Machu Picchu special. The fog in the morning gives you the sense that you are so high you are in the clouds. When it clears up, the tremendous mountains all around manage to instill, even in a modern man, the sense of awe that inspired the Incans to worship mother earth as their protector. Not surprisingly, I knew Machu Picchu would be the highlight of my trip even before we continued on to see Lake Titicaca and Arequipa.

16 Days Later: Vol. 1

After my trip to Peru, things got a little hectic as I returned to Ambato and prepared to head back to the States, so this post is coming late and in pieces as I try to write down everything noteworthy I did during my 16 days on the road.


The Journey South

My trip to Peru was shared with my coworker Caitlin and our mutual WorldTeach friend, Asia, who was based in Cuenca. Although the flight from Quito to Lima only lasts about an hour and a half, the fact that it is international apparently makes it very expensive. Caitlin and I weren't down to pay $550+ for a ticket, so we instead traveled to Guayaquil and took a 27 hour bus ride to the Peruvian capital where we would meet up with Asia.

The bus company was called Cruz del Sur, and after having my host sister-in-law make some phone calls we secured our seats on what turned out to be a legitimate ride. The seats went back quite far, we had a good view from the second floor of the double decker bus, and we were seated in front of the staircase so there was no one in front of us to recline into our laps. Three on-board meals, two immigration offices, and seven horribly dubbed movies later we touched down in Lima.

Ecuadorians don't have a culture that values travel, so nearly everyone I talked to about my trip had nothing to say from personal experience. Of course, that doesn't mean that they didn't have anything to say at all. The two most common comments I got were "Peruvian people are ugly" and "Lima is dirty and dangerous."

The first comment I found confusing, because I was under the impression that Andean people share a lot of the same ancestry (Quichua/Spanish mestizos) and more or less looked the same. With the exception of the occasional Chinese immigrant or Afro-Ecuadorian, the continuum of physical appearances in Ambato is due to the ratio of indigenous to Spanish blood in the individual. People with more indigenous blood have narrower eyes, darker skin, short stature, and no body hair. Those with more Spanish blood are typically whiter, taller, and able to grow facial hair. My students all had to fill out census-like sheets to take classes at SECAP, and not a single one of them identified him/herself as purely indigenous or purely white; they all consider themselves mestizos.

What I think is the difference in the perceived attractiveness of Peruvians by Ecuadorians, then, is the ratio of indigenous to European blood (Peruvians generally look more indigenous than Ecuadorians). For whatever reason, white is considered very beautiful in Ecuador (as evidenced by all of my white girl friends being hit on and gawked at constantly) and indigenous features are less desirable.

I find this very interesting because during our orientation we received a talk from some kind of sex and relationship expert who told us that the reason why the Spanish mixed so much with the indigenous people is because Spanish men found the indigenous women to be irresistibly attractive. Another thing I read recently said that people of mixed ethnic origins are generally considered to be more attractive than either single-race parent because the mixed ethnic features demonstrate a more diverse, and therefore more resilient, genetic makeup. In either of these cases, however, white skin would be an undesirable feature. The popular conception that indigenous features aren't attractive might have to do with the fact that very indigenous people work and live in rural areas and are poor.

The other popular comment about Lima being dirty and dangerous was completely off. It may have been that we stayed in a nice neighborhood and only hit touristy sites, but Lima was better looking and more modern than any city in Ecuador I have ever been to. I also felt safe the entire time carrying around my big camera and catching cabs around town.

One of the shopping centers in Lima

We entered the catacombs underneath this church

Visiting cities has never been a particularly attractive prospect to me because unless you know someone who lives there, it's sometimes hard to do things that don't cost lots of money besides look at buildings. The one cheap item I did have on my list of things to do was to get one of Lima's signature dishes: raw fish ceviche. I don't like ceviche of any kind to be honest, but when I travel I make an effort to try the local specialties. When we went to the market I ignored the menu full of appetizing, normal food options before me and checked one off my list by ordering the dish of uncooked fish, onions, and lime juice.

The woman at the market warned me not to eat the ceviche because it would be bad for me. That was followed by my friends telling me that if the person serving you food tells you not to eat something they are about to prepare, you probably shouldn't eat it. I ate it anyway, but just as I suspected from my previous experiences with ceviche, it was gross.

While searching for more cheap sights to see, we learned that Lima has the world's largest public park with fountains in it. If I remember correctly, there were 16 fountains in total with all kinds of designs. Although we didn't stay late enough to see it, at night they also have a light show in the fountains.

Trying to get a sip of that sweet tunnel water

The only other notable thing from Lima that I saw was in the McDonald's we entered to handle Asia's Big Mac craving. The employees there were all wearing denim shirts and jeans with the golden arches sewn into the butt pockets.

"Damn girl, can I get fries with that shake? No, for real, I'd like a small fries with my McFlurry."

Cusco

Luckily for us, flights within Peru are not nearly as expensive as international flights, so we bought plane tickets to our next destination: Cusco. At airport security I checked out the box that they use to contain all the potentially dangerous objects taken from passengers and noticed some interesting items worthy of a quick snapshot.

I want to see the biceps on the guy who felt it was necessary to bring a dumbbell in his carry-on

When Caitlin and I traveled, it was never our style to plan things out before going on a trip, so it was quite the surprise when we stepped off the plane in Cusco and were immediately greeted by dancing and music celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the rediscovery of Machu Picchu. When the lady at the airport told us the significance of the date we had arrived on, we were nervous that it would mean an even more absurd tourist presence in the city, but it really didn't turn out to be anything outside of a concert in the main square.

The flag of the city of Cusco is a rainbow, and since it was a celebration of Machu Picchu they had rainbow flags posted up everywhere. It honestly reminded me of Gay Pride Week that summer I spent in San Francisco.

Main Square

Cusco is a very touristy. While the city itself is quite nice to look at, most visitors use it mainly as a launching point for their hike up one of the trails that leads to the ruins at Machu Picchu. Most businesses in the city are hiking gear rental places or tourism agencies, and nearly everyone in town tried to talk to us in English before checking to see if we spoke Spanish.

While traveling around in Ecuador, I never thought of myself as a tourist because I lived there and spoke Spanish well. Even when I was away from Ambato I still though of it as "my country", and when I spoke to people in Spanish and explained my situation, they were usually nice to me. The entire time I was in Peru I felt uncomfortably touristy and American.

"Ancient city of the Incas or not, I'm ain't going if they don't got a McDonald's!"

Whenever there are ancient places that have become tourist hot spots, there is always tension between the locals and the tourists. One of the signs I saw at an outside art show said something along the lines of, "Those who carried the rocks up to Machu Picchu now carry the backpacks of tourists." Seeing that sign made me wonder what most people in Cusco think of the tourism industry that has very visibly become the main source of income in their city. During the next part of my journey, I would discuss this topic at depth with our indigenous tour guide.

So after two short-winded days of adjusting to the altitude in Cusco, frantically getting all our bus tickets and hiking equipment sorted out, and trying (unsuccessfully) to convince Asia and Caitlin to go to the Machu Picchu Electro Party, we packed our stuff and headed out to the Salkantay trail to start our five day hike to Machu Picchu.

The Inside Scoop

 Píllaro

After having visited many different parts of Ecuador and seeing the diversity of its natural attractions, it is not surprising to me that tourism is a major Ecuadorian industry and that many students here study tourism in college. My Ecuadorian friend Lis studies tourism, and her class projects frequently take her to lesser known events/places in Ecuador to do reports and investigate how the tourism industry could be expanded to benefit the residents of relatively obscure areas.

Last weekend I went with Lis and a couple of her friends to a festival in a nearby city called Píllaro. That particular weekend was the celebration of an indigenous religious ceremony called Inti Raymi, which in the indigenous language Quichua means "Festival of the Sun." It was typical Ecuadorian celebration fare, which included a parade and music. The parade was largely unremarkable except for the children on the floats. The kids were all dressed up in suits and fancy dresses, and they were given bags of candy to throw into the crowd. The kids couldn't have been older than three years old, so it was hysterical to watch a kid try to throw a hard candy to someone screaming in the crowd, but given young children's underdeveloped throwing mechanics, only manage to spike it into the face of the nearest parade-watcher.

More interesting than the float was following Lis and her friends around the town before the parade started. They were interviewing people to find out more about the history of the celebration and how it has changed over the years. Everyone we talked to was very happy to discuss the history of their town with us, and they even served us lunch before we left.

Christina, Lis, Judi, and myself enjoying our chicken soup

During the parade, a bunch of people dress up as different characters that have to do with the tradition of the festival. One of those characters was called el mono (translation: the monkey). The first time I saw him I thought he was a child because he was so short, but it turned out to be an adult. He was wearing a white costume with a mask that only had slits for eyes and a sewed up slit where the mouth would be. It seriously looked like something from a horror movie that would give me nightmares for the next week. I think he was supposed to represent some kind of demon, so he was also speaking in a very bizarre, high-pitched voice the whole time. Attached to his waist was a rope that lead to a bottle of alcohol out of which he was pouring shots for everyone in the room.

It took so much of my courage and focus to stand next to the terrifying mono long enough to take a picture that I couldn't think of a funny pose to do with him.

We stayed in town for most of the day interviewing people and taking pictures. I think it is awesome how tourism students in Ecuador have so many opportunities to be involved in tourism at a local level and actually get real world experience in their field of study. Being a pre-med always felt superficial because we were never (in the U.S. anyway) allowed to do anything, only shadow and observe in hospitals. I obviously understand why it is like that for medicine, but studying and doing assignment must be a lot easier when you are actually involved in hands-on projects like the things tourism students organize.

Spell Check

In the United States, proper spelling is incredibly important for all kinds of writing, save for very informal correspondence between friends. I've heard people say that even one spelling mistake will get your resume thrown in the trash, and I know I'm not the only one who puts on his judge-hat when I see that someone has mixed up "there" and "their." Despite the fact that spelling in English is frequently un-phonetic and doesn't allow for consistent spelling rules, people still consider bad spelling a sign of an uneducated person.

In contrast to the United States, spelling couldn't be less important in Ecuador. People seem perfectly content to write down words as they sound, and I frequently see mistakes with letters that sound the same (s/z, ha/a, v/b) on official signs and in writing from well educated people.

One example was when an Ecuadorian friend was interviewing a guy about the traditions of Inti Raymi. He was telling her some of the Quichua names for things and she was having difficulty understanding what he was saying because the words were unfamiliar. Instead of asking him to spell it out for her, she just had him keep repeating it until she was satisfied that what he said matched up with what she had written down. In a similar situation in English, I feel like most people would just ask the other person to spell the word out.

When people don't understand what I am saying here in Ecuador, I sometimes try to spell it out. From these instances I have realized that Ecuadorians are terrible at writing down letters as they are dictated to them. Every time I buy something and they want to know my name, I say my name and they always ask for it again. When I try to spell it out letter by letter, they usually mess it up and put "c" instead of "k" or mix up some of the vowels. The other day I was spelling my name to the lady at the cash register of some store and when I got to the "i" she asked if I meant i or igriega (translation: y).

I couldn't figure out why someone would be so confused about writing down letters in her own language, but I think now that it has to do with how people understand language here. Maybe they don't read/write as much in Ecuador as we do in the U.S. and that's why they put so little emphasis on the written word, or maybe it is just a consequence of the fact that, for the most part, words in Spanish are phonetic, so even misspelled words are read correctly. In any case, I have definitely noted how much more I as an American value orthography than Ecuadorians.

Final Stretch

Where Brooklyn at?

With one week of classes remaining, I can't stop myself from thinking about going home, starting school, and getting my student on. Since my previous post about finally getting into a medical school, I have been taken off the waitlist at a couple more schools and I have decided to attend a state school in Brooklyn called Downstate. I decided to switch from the University at Buffalo for a number of reasons, the most important being closer proximity to my family and the advantages that will come from serving a population as diverse as Brooklyn's.

Surprisingly, my biggest concern with going to Buffalo wasn't the cold and snow (I lived in South Bend for four years; ice water runs through my veins), but rather the thought of not having a lot of opportunity to keep up with my Spanish and losing it after having worked so hard to learn it in the first place. There's little doubt in my mind that my Spanish will be well utilized in Brooklyn, and if med school is going to prevent me from traveling abroad in the next four years, at least I will still have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world who end up in NYC hospitals.

Times are a Changing

I have written before about how ridiculous the buses in this country can be, but I have noticed recently that things are changing. The first time I realized something was different was when I went to Tena and at one point the bus was stopped by the police. Buses usually fill up their seats at the terminal, and then when they leave, stop along the way to pick up more people to fill in the standing room until 50+ people are simultaneously getting to second base with each other in the aisle.

This apparently wasn't O.K. with the police in Tena though, because the bus driver told everyone who was standing up that they had to get off the bus in between towns. The people got really angry and demanded to know why the driver let them on if they weren't allowed to be there, and after a while of no one obeying the driver's orders, the bus just took off again, which I assume either means the driver bribed the cops or the police let him slide since it was a new rule at the time.

I saw this new regulation in action a second time on the way back from a conference in Quito. One of my friends mentioned that he saw a cop put a sticker on the bus door before it left the terminal, and that it was probably to signal to the cops at the next checkpoint whether the bus opened the door (breaking the sticker in the process) and let in more people on the streets.

I guess that was in fact the purpose of the sticker, because every time we stopped to pick people up outside of the terminal, they had to climb in through the window. It was funny to watch people climbing to reach the high windows then squirming and struggling with all their might to get up and through. Afterward, people on the street helped to toss their bags and boxes up as well. I would have taken pictures or a video, but I feared that it would upset the people working on the bus because it was evidence of them doing an illegal activity. I didn't want to be like that guy who got Michael Phelps into trouble for snapping a picture of him taking a hit from a bong, so I kept the camera in my bag and assured myself that my words would do the incident justice.

The most recent change I noticed happened at a more local level on one of the normal buses that runs only in Ambato. The guy on the bus who was collecting people's fares looked out the window before a stop and warned the bus driver to come to a complete stop because police were nearby.

I'm not sure if the government will continue to regulate public buses like this, but hopefully they do because although it will probably raise bus fares since drivers will want to compensate for the fewer number of passengers they can take, it would mean safer and more efficient traveling for Ecuadorians who will no longer have to jump on/off moving buses and endure numerous, unofficial stops along the way to pick up passengers.

Dolla Bills Ya'll

I cannot comprehend why the twenty dollar bill exists in Ecuador. Everything here is so cheap that it is almost always impossible to use a bill that big for everyday purchases, and because it is so difficult to use, people are usually very unwilling to change you and give up their precious small bills and Sacajawea dollars.

The other day I wanted to take a cab to the mall, a one dollar fare. However, all I had was a twenty. The last time I tried to get away with paying a cab with a twenty the driver flipped out, stopped at a drug store, and demanded that I buy something to get some smaller bills to pay him with.

With that experience in mind, I walked around the block asking various businesses if they could change me. I went to four different places before I found someone that even let me finish my sentence and hooked me up with some more manageable bills.

It's pretty wild to think that when I go to work at SECAP I bring $1.25 with me: twenty-five cents for the bus and a dollar in case of an emergency. When I go back to the States I won't have any problems with using twenties anymore, but I will have to get accustomed to bringing more money than a handful of change when I go out.

Peru

Although I finish work this coming Thursday, I have left myself three more weeks here to do some traveling before returning home. My partner in crime and travel, Caitlin, will be accompanying me along with another teacher friend, Asia, to gallivant around Peru. The list of destinations includes: Lima, Cusco, Machu Pichu, Lake Titicaca, and Arequipa. La Paz, the capital city of Bolivia, may or may not happen now that we have discovered the $135 visa charge for American visitors. In any case, we will be plenty busy taking buses for days at a time and doing the main event of our journey: a five-day hike up to the ruins at Machu Picchu.

Expect to see lots of photos of me alone in the ruins, gazing thoughtfully into the distance as I ponder something very profound about life and how my South American experience has changed me as a person. It'll be just like that scene from Motorcycle Diaries, although I hope my version doesn't end with me becoming a communist revolutionary.

This image will be available on t-shirts starting next week for only $19.99

Things Ecuadorians Like: Reggaeton

Check out the nightlife in Ecuador and you will quickly discover how popular Reggaeton is in this country. Reggaeton is a style of Latin urban music that plays in dance clubs, and it has grown on me tremendously since being here due to how ridiculous it is.

The first thing I love about Reggaeton is how ugly the artists are. It seems like in most genres of music, good looks are just as important as talent. I haven't met too many people who think that Shakira is a good singer, but no one talks about that when she is gyrating in a cage dressed in a skin-colored leotard (one ticket to boner-city, please).

The way that most areas of the music industry filter out talented musicians and singers just because they aren't attractive means we are not exposed to a lot of great music, but Reggaeton gives anyone a chance to make a hit regardless of their appearance. Due to this, there are a lot of average looking guys in Reggaeton who make great music and prove that unattractiveness and popularity should not be mutually exclusive.

Hey Nacho, the Black Eyed Peas called; they want their guy whose name nobody knows back

They guys from Plan B try to hide their looks by wearing sunglasses, flashy accessories, and pointing at less attractive people, but they're not fooling anyone

Another thing I love about Reggaeton are the lyrics. While all songs have a catchy beat and are great music to hear at a dance club, they also treat a wide variety of themes and topics that range from having sex, to dancing, to having sex while dancing.

The songs about sex rarely employ innuendo or subtlety, but instead go for explicit references to sexual acts. My current favorite song of this variety is called "Dándole" (translation: giving it to her). In the song, the singer inquires to some lucky woman, "Mami, who doesn't like sex/Baby, who doesn't love this" followed by the chorus "I would spend the night giving, giving it to her." Since Spanish isn't my first language I'm a little slow on the uptake, so I sang this song non-stop for weeks before someone told me what it was about.

Other songs focus on the dancing, and the singers are sometimes considerate enough to encode dance moves into the lyrics of the song so that those of us who aren't Latino know what to do when the music starts. "Danza Kuduro" has a dance with numerous steps including: waving your hand, moving just your hips, spinning around, and not getting tired now because this just started.

The final group of songs combines the two previous themes with sexually charged dance moves, like "Contra la Pared" (translation: against the wall). You better believe that when this song comes on, people find a wall and get against it. The movement that follows is what my high school literature teacher once referred to as "the simulated anal sex dance." The Wikipedia article for Reggaeton also tells me that this style of dance, which is often associated with Reggaeton music, is referred to as perreo in Spanish, a word deriving from the Spanish word for "dog" (and no doubt that animal's associated style). When all the wall space is taken up, I have seen people make alternating guy/girl chains emanating from a single person on the wall so as not to disobey Jiggy D's command.

Sometimes I have no idea what a song is about even after I look up the lyrics. But that's just fine, because Reggaeton music is supposed to get people dancing, and if it can do that then who really cares what a guachinanga is anyway.

And Then There Were Three

After having attended the final conference for my program and with only three weeks of teaching left, I am reaching the final stretch of my time in Ecuador and trying my best to appreciate what I have going for me right now.


Jedi Mind Tricks

I recently had a rough couple of weeks with my first class as they became increasingly confrontational and disrespectful. My last week of classes they were suddenly much more cooperative, and after pondering what I have been doing differently, I think I finally figured out a way to get my students on my side.

Since I made books for my class, I usually have them open up to the chapter we are going to cover so they have the charts for the grammar point we are about to learn in front of them. I have them open their books so that I don't waste time writing things on the board that they already have in their books and so there is no chance that they miscopy something and are confused by it later. Unfortunately, upon announcing that they should open their books to start a new grammar point they invariably start complaining, and within seconds the entire class is put in a sour mood and they become restless and unreceptive to what I am saying.

Two weeks ago on Thursday I had finished giving them a test and wanted to simply introduce the next topic so that the following week they would have already been exposed to it and wouldn't be so daunted by a new grammar point. I prepared some notes to write on the board to introduce the topic and wasn't planning on opening the book at all to do exercises. I was just going to review some example sentences and let them out early.

The first difference I noticed with this approach was that when I wrote notes on the board, students were quick to get into "student mode" and copy silently. This calm in the classroom was particularly striking because my class has been known to get very rowdy after the completion of a test since they realize they aren't going to have another test for at least two more weeks.

After they finished taking notes on what I had written, we reviewed some examples that I drew on the board using pictures and sentences. I was surprised at how many of my students were paying attention and actively trying to understand what I was talking about, in contrast to the usual blank stares I get until I stop speaking and they all ask the best student in their vicinity what I just said.

The most satisfying difference in attitude came just before I was about to let them go early when a handful of students who were intrigued by the examples requested more examples/practice to make sure they understood. It was at this point that I asked my students to open their books and do an exercise, and it only elicited one complaint from my most annoying student. No one joined her.

For the entire next week I employed this technique of writing things on the board to get everyone in a classroom mindset before jumping into using the textbook, and it has made my classes run much more smoothly. Additionally, I brought back giving out lollipops as prizes for winning games in class, and it still amazes me how much motivation a piece of candy can coax out of adults.

Sure it's ridiculous that it takes so much strategy to get adults to pay attention in a class that they signed up for and are paying for themselves, but when I actually do get my students to act like students, teaching isn't half bad.

Search Word Sillies

Recently, there has been an explosion of ridiculous phrases that people have entered into various search engines to end up at my blog. Blogger tracks these phrases, and I would like to share my favorites from the past few weeks and my advice in case people with similar inquiries end up at my site again.

"dentist gave me anesthetics and my nose is itchy"- Scratch it.

"best pliers to pull wisdom teeth"- Seriously, who needs a trained medical professional when you've got a bottle of moonshine, a pair of the best wisdom tooth pulling pliers available at your local Home Depot, and YouTube to replace all that fancy book learnin'?

"do Ecuadorian women like older American men"- If you're an American citizen, they like any kind of man.

Ecuador: Check

The other day the sky around the local volcano Tungurahua was uncharacteristically clear, so I took this shot from my classroom window as the sun was about to set. Volcanoes are an awesome reminder that I live in Ecuador.

End of Service

Last weekend I attended the final conference for my program, WorldTeach. I met up with the rest of the volunteers in Quito and we reflected on our time in Ecuador and caught up on what everyone is going to be doing when they get stateside. People's plans ranged from comically uncertain to fixed plans for the next several years in grad school. Quite a few people have even decided to stay in Ecuador and continue teaching because they haven't gotten enough of the Ecua-life here.

Just a few of my fellow WordTeachers at post EOS festivities.

It was great getting to know all of the other volunteers in the Ecuador program this year since I actually get along well with them, but similar to when I left Notre Dame, it is sad to think that I probably won't see most of them again, let alone hang out with them as much as I did in Ecuador. Facebook is O.K., but it is no replacement for cruising around Ambato in the back seat of someone's car or taking trips to the Orient to go jungle rafting.

Should have went with Pablo

A few days ago Caitlin brought to my attention that there is a bar with ping-pong tables near her house. We went with her host brother who recently came back to Ecuador after living in Spain for a while. His name is Gandhi. My name is Krishna. To recap, my name is Krishna and I played an Ecuadorian guy named Gandhi in ping-pong.

It was almost as weird as the time I introduced myself to some guy at an Indian wedding and he pointed to the woman next to him and said, "Really, my wife's name is Krishna too!"

Moseying Along

Get off my Phone You Jerk

Along with motivation issues, another surprising characteristic of my adult students is how immature they are. I am consistently stunned by how annoying and childish they can be, particularly the ones that are several years older than me. I imagined that a teacher with adult students would be free of disciplinary duties and would be able to focus on teaching, but I find myself having to resort to treating my students like children to get the response I want from them.

Any kind of punishment that creates more work for me is obviously out of the question, so I never even considered any kind of detention or extra assignments for students that misbehave. I remember in high school that students would get sent to the dean for class disturbances. That would result in detention, yes, but more immediately the student would be dismissed from the class and would have to make up all the work he missed. I remember how jarring it was to see someone have to leave, and I think it is a powerful threat to kick a disruptive student out of class because it is straight to the point and fits the offense perfectly.

Over the past two and a half semesters I have threatened many times to kick students out of class, mostly if they complained or were talking/texting on their phones. It has always managed to shut them up and I've never had to actually give anyone the boot... until last week.

One of my younger students was texting on his phone while he was supposed to be doing a group assignment. I normally don't care if my students don't pay attention while I am speaking or would rather text than do the practice work I assign because they are adults and if they don't want to learn they don't have to. Students should respect my authority and listen to what I say to them since they can learn a lot from me, but if they don't it doesn't really bother me too much because they are only sabotaging their own progress. However, one thing that absolutely infuriates me is when we do work that requires groups and one student doesn't participate, thereby ruining the learning experience of the other students.

I was mad that he was being disrespectful to his classmates who were trying to learn, so instead of just asking him to put his phone away like I normally would I told him to give it to me. He put his phone in his pocket and tried to reason with me, but I insisted that he give me his phone. I told him he could leave the class if he didn't want to give it to me, and it ended with me kicking him out and telling him to come back the next day.

Students' moxie continues outside of class as well, and just the other day one of my students whose husband is in my second class tried to get me to pass him to the next level even though he hasn't attended class in the last three weeks.

- Teacher, my husband can't some to classes anymore this semester because of work.
- And?
- Can you pass him anyway?
- Not if he only came to one-fifth of the classes this semester. That's absurd.
- Can't you give him a test?
- It's a conversation class. There's no way to replicate 100 classroom hours of conversation with a native speaker in one test.
- Then can you give him classes on the weekend or in the morning before our class?
- Are you seriously asking me if I can give private lessons to one student because he signed up for a class that directly conflicts with his work schedule?!
- Teacher, don't be a bad person, I know you can do it.

After that conversation I didn't know whether to laugh at the absurdity of what my student was saying or be incensed at her suggestion that I was in the wrong for not passing her husband who doesn't come to class. I don't know if my students say things like this because I am generally cool with them and listen to their suggestions for the class or if it a consequence of Ecuadorian culture. Either way, it is completely inappropriate and I will never cease to be amazed at a thirty-five year old woman who reasons like a child.


I have wondered if I will miss teaching in Ecuador when I am in medical school. After my experience with my class today I can emphatically say that I will not. The students in my first class always complain that we work too much from the book (we do like three pages a day, mind you), so I try my best to incorporate fun, non-grammar related activities into class. I thought a fun idea for today would be to write limericks. I understand that rhyming is harder in English than in Spanish, but it is only five lines and I gave them an hour to do it.


Well my class had a collective aneurysm when I explained the assignment to them, and they very disrespectfully shouted at me that it was impossible to do. Yes, a group of students with an average age of ~24 freaked out that they had only an hour to write a five line poem with a predetermined structure. It seriously took me ten minutes to calm them down and get them to actually start doing it, but more than the frustration of playing babysitter to a room of adults, it hurt my inner-writer to see people so opposed to even attempting to be creative using my language and the language that I love.


So future Krishna, if you are sick of reading textbooks and start thinking back fondly on your time as an ESL teacher in Ecuador, remember: being an English teacher was never just about teaching English.

Just Trust me on This One

An important skill for anyone learning a foreign language is to learn how to accept differences from your first language even if you don't understand it or it doesn't make sense to you. I am not particularly good at this, and I have incessantly argued things about Spanish grammar to native speaking Spanish teachers who think differently.

For instance, in Ecuador the most common way to express the passive voice is to use the third-person plural. "He was killed" would therefore read Lo mataron. I understand how this construction works for some cases, but I cannot accept this usage for instances in which the actor was one person. What I mean to say is, if it was one unknown person who killed the man, you should not be able to use a plural verb conjugation. Alas, whenever I have tried to use a different construction that makes more sense to me, every Ecuadorian in hearing range disagrees and I have slowly and begrudgingly accepted that this is how Spanish works here.

My students are also really bad at this and I frequently find myself just telling them to trust me. I thought that this semester I would speak a little more Spanish so I could give my students better explanations about the grammar topics. That turned out to be a bad move, because it has only encouraged them to try to translate directly more than ever.

When I taught the future tense this semester I explained to them that it was similar to the way that there are multiple ways to express the future in Spanish. This resulted in them trying to match up the different ways we use the future with their different ways, and they were probably more confused than if I would have just spoken in English the whole time and had them figure it out on their own. A lot of my students were trying to translate "I'm going to the mall" to Estoy yendo al mall, even though I explained to them that the present simple and progressive are used differently in the two languages.

It is not intuitive to leave behind what you know about grammar in your own language when you are trying to learn another, but bravery is rewarded and the best language students are the ones that have faith in native speakers and accept differences in grammar even though it sometimes feels uncomfortable.



Deployed

Normally when I come home at night on the weekends, all the lights in my house are off, everyone is asleep, and my family has inadvertently locked me out. This past Friday I was shocked to see that upon my arrive late at night, all the lights in the house were on and there were a ton of people walking around. I asked the housekeeper what was going on, and she informed me that my host brother José Luis, a UN Peacekeeper, was being deployed to Sudan the coming Monday.

José Luis and I at Ricky's wedding

It took me another thirty seconds of looking around the dining room to realize that everyone was hammered. It was already 2:00am and most people were either passed out or about to leave, so within the hour it was just my oldest host brother Santi, my host dad, and some relative I didn't know sitting at the table drinking sugar cane alcohol and talking about José Luis leaving for a year.

I have never had any family member in the military who left home, so it was a completely new perspective of the military for me. It was sad to hear the stories my host brother and dad told about José Luis as a kid and how they were all very worried about his safety. It was the first time that any story about war was made real to me as well, since I know José Luis, his wife, and his three kids because they visit the house pretty often.

In the next few months Santi will also be leaving Ecuador for Australia where his wife and daughter live. I felt bad for my host parents who will be away from two of their children for a long time, but my host father managed to see the value in my host brothers' departures by stressing that they need to leave to fulfill their respective duties as a soldier and father. He even had some inspirational words for me and expressed his confidence in my decision to go back to the United States to pursue medicine and become a physician.

I'm not as close with my host family as some of the other volunteers I know, so I appreciated that they opened up and shared some of their family history with me that night, even if it was really sad.

Puyo

Last Sunday I went on a trip to a nearby jungle town called Puyo. I can't say enough about how cool it is that I live in the chilly mountains, but after a two hour bus ride east I can be in the hot and humid jungle.


In Puyo we visited a monkey rescue center where visitors can walk around and interact with the rescued and rehabilitating monkeys. The guy at the entrance of the center warned us that the monkeys like to jump on people and steal things, so we were all careful to zip everything up in our bags and I took off my glasses when I went in. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the place, but there really were monkeys jumping around on us and I was scared they would steal my camera.

Don't let my smile fool you; I was straight terrified of the baby monkey on my neck

Most of the monkeys turned out to be pretty chill and they just sat on our necks and played with our hair. In addition to the monkeys there were also a bunch of other animals hanging out. At one point a river otter showed up and started playing with the monkeys. My friend Peter got a ridiculous video of a monkey and the otter fighting, and if he ever gets around to putting it on YouTube I guarantee it gets a million views.

I noticed that a monkey was cleaning one of the dog's hair, and I joking asked if the monkeys ever ride the dogs. Five seconds later this happened:

The Internet would be proud

After hanging out with the monkeys we jumped in a waterfall (no big deal) and called it a day. Nature excursions are always a welcome way to break up the monotony of the work week in Ambato, and I love how easy it is to go on a peaceful nature outing in Ecuador.

Lis, myself, Pete, and Su

Beginning of the End

This week I will be traveling to Quito to attend my program's end of service conference. After tomorrow's classes I only have four more weeks of teaching left, and with the United States of America and medical school in sight, I am starting to get anxious about going home. My plans to travel to Peru for the three weeks following the end of my job are also slowly coming together and I will hopefully be posting pictures of Machu Picchu by the end of the summer.