Locked up Abroad: The Census in Ecuador

This past week was Thanksgiving, but since the Pilgrims didn't come down to South America and share a meal with the indigenous people here it goes uncelebrated in Ecuador. The fact that no one in the country celebrates Thanksgiving, however, did not stop me and my friends from trying our best to stuff our faces with food, nap, and watch football like we would if we were still in the U.S. With the help of some friends (read: they did everything and I just showed up) I was actually able to celebrate T-Day three times, making this year possibly the most successful Thanksgiving of my life.


Round One

The first Thanksgiving celebration came courtesy of my friend Caitlin's English class. They had planned to have a Thanksgiving dinner in class on Thursday, and they were kind enough to bring down a plate of food for me during my class. My plate had turkey, puree potatoes (not quite mashed potatoes, but pretty close), salad, and an unidentified mayonnaise-covered side. I was so excited to be eating turkey on Thanksgiving day that I stopped class and sat down at the front of the room and ate while everyone else watched me.

Before you judge me for selfishly eating a meal in front of my class, remember: Thanksgiving's not about sharing; that's what Christmas is for.

[edit: I found out today (11/29/10) that what I was served from Caitlin's class was actually chicken, not turkey. I thought that leg was kind of small to have belonged to a turkey...]

Round Two

My second Thanksgiving meal came from my family friends in Ambato on Saturday afternoon. They lived in the U.S. for a number of years and liked the Thanksgiving tradition so much that they still celebrate it even though they live here now. I arrived at their house in the early afternoon, dominated their young son in a number of Wii games to work up an appetite, ate Thanksgiving lunch, threw a football, and watched my favorite movie while trying to fight off falling deep into a food-induced coma.

At their house they have DirecTV and get all kinds of premium American channels. I wanted to watch Notre Dame's last football game of the season, but unfortunately Notre Dame has an exclusive contract with network television in the States so I couldn't get it here. Later that night I would learn via the Internet that ND finally beat a rival that I had never seen us win against during my time in college.

And no, it wasn't Navy. I think I saw us beat them once my freshman year.

Round Three

The final round of holiday gluttony came on Saturday night when I got together with the other foreigners in Ambato and some Ecuadorian friends and had my second Thanksgiving dinner of the day (third of the week). My American friends really stepped it up and we had turkey, proper mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, apple/peach/pumpkin pies, corn, and stuffing. Funnily enough, it was our British friends who hosted the party at their house even though they had never celebrated Thanksgiving before.

Me and two buddies, Brendan and Stalyn

A funny moment came when the cranberry sauce was being taken out of the can and prepared to be placed on the table. An Ecuadorian and British friend were just mashing the cranberry sauce in a bowl trying to make the texture uniform. Me and another American saw this and threw a hissy fit about how canned cranberry sauce is supposed to be sliced, not mashed.

Cranberry sauce is one of the only foods that people will serve from a can and not be ashamed to admit it, so why bother trying to hide it by mashing it up? Plus it looks cooler and is more fun to eat when you have slices on your plate rather than a spoonful of jelly puree.

So while I didn't get to go home and be with my family this Thanksgiving, I did consume about 15,000 calories of Thanksgiving food over the course of three meals, spend time with my friends here in Ecuador, and give thanks that the Pilgrims came to America and ate corn with some Native Americans so that today we have an excuse to eat half our body weight in fixings once a year.

Census 2010

Today was the census in Ecuador. The way they are doing it this year is to prohibit everyone from leaving their houses from the hours of 7:00am to 5:00pm. Anyone caught outside during this time will be arrested. If the show "Locked up Abroad" had not scared the hell out of me about being arrested in Ecuador, I might have tried to wander around the deserted city to see what it feels like to be Will Smith from "I am Legend".

Of course, my house had to be the first one recorded in Ambato so I was woken up at 7:15 in the morning to answer "not applicable" or "other" to a bunch of questions that made me wonder why they were even counting me in the first place.

Slowly Turning Ecuadorian

I have been living here long enough that I am now assuming the mindset of a typical Ecuadorian in some matters. For instance, if you've read my post about Ecuadorians and change you know how valuable one dollar bills and fifty cent pieces can be.

The other day I went shopping for some things at the mall and strategically broke some large bills at places with lots of change like Megamaxi. When I got home I pulled the change out of my pocket and was elated to find that I had amassed $15 in one dollar and fifty cent pieces. I was so excited about the haul that I took a picture of it to show my friends later and impress them with how much currency I had in small denominations.

It was only after I took the picture that I realized that my mind has adapted to living in Ecuador to the point that having a handful of Sacagawea dollars warranted me taking a picture so that I could have evidence of it later and my friends would actually believe it was true.

Stacks

Who knows, maybe next post I'll be talking about how I just qualified for a Diner's Club card.

Teacher Talk

Classroom Confidential

This weekend I was having dinner with some other English teacher friends when I had a small revelation about what being a teacher is really like. We were talking about some of the ridiculous things that our students do and say and comparing stories.

My best came from a student who had to say a word that began with an "F" as part of a game. She looked at me and said "Fuck yous'". I was taken aback and thought I must have misheard her, so I asked her to say it again and it sounded exactly the same the second time. I imagined that she had maybe just watched "A Bronx Tale" and wanted to impress me with her knowledge of New York slang, but I asked her to write it down just to make sure I didn't have to give her a stern talking to for saying that to the teacher. Turns out she was trying to say "focus" and just doesn't know how vowels work yet.

Other notable stories included one girl whose students passively hit on her through homework assignments by writing sentences like "Teacher has nice legs", and another who caught a 40+ year old woman trying to cheat on a test by making copies of the teacher's manual.

As we were telling stories about our best and worst students and laughing about our classes, it occurred to me that all the teachers throughout my life probably did the same thing. I used to have an idea that teachers are like robots who only think about classes and grades. I thought that decisions were set in stone and my teachers were always three steps ahead.

Well it turns out that is not the case because I am finding out that, as a teacher, I am very susceptible to suggestions from my class and I sometimes need to improvise when it comes to rules and assignments. When I was a student I would always puss out of approaching the teacher after class to ask for an extension/re-test because I figured that I would be breaking some carefully planned outline, when the truth is that teachers are people who are as vulnerable to coercion as anyone else. I had not planned on giving re-tests in my classes, but when I heard the gasps of shock and disappointment from my students who looked at their failing grades I immediately began thinking of ways they could earn some of those points back.

Another thing I never really considered is how much of a positive effect it has on a teacher when the students make us laugh. The grades in my classes are all objective test scores, but if I was grading essays or giving points based on participation, I hate to say that I would definitely be more generous to the students in my class who make me laugh and keep my job interesting. I then started thinking about classes I was funny in and I definitely did better in the classes where I made the teacher laugh.

For instance, one time I accidentally walked into a one hour and fifteen minute class one hour late. Through a comically unfortunate serious of events, my alarm was set an hour late and I strolled in like I was right on time because I honestly thought I was. The teacher thought I was aware of the time and just trying to play off being an hour late for class by acting like nothing was wrong. It only took me about ten seconds to realize that everyone was staring at me incredulously. I looked down to make sure I was wearing pants (check) and then asked the person next to me why everyone was looking at me. She filled me in that I was an hour late and I received a round of applause from the prof. for my blunder.

In another class, I had to do a presentation about Evolution in pop culture. I obviously chose to present on Pokémon, and the class was rolling in laughter. The presentation wasn't supposed to be funny, but no one, including the prof., was prepared to see an adult speak that enthusiastically and knowledgeably about a children's video game from the 90's. Needless to say, I got A's in both those classes and I bet it had something to do with the fact that I was more interesting than that kid who sat in the corner with his hood on and laptop out playing Sporcle quizzes during class.

Gosh-Darnit

Part of learning a language and trying to speak like a native is picking up little words and idiomatic phrases that are not always necessary for communicating a message, but that people use all the time. For example, people in Ecuador constantly add "no más" to the end of commands. It doesn't change the meaning of the command at all, but people still always use it and I try to force myself to say it to sometimes just because I want my Spanish to fit in.

One aspect of the Spanish language that I have not been able to incorporate into regular usage, however, are bad words. I curse quite a bit in English, but I am finding that curse words in Spanish just aren't as satisfying as the words we have in English. For instance, I asked an Ecuadorian the other day what the worst word in the Spanish language is. His responses translated to "son of a bitch" and "penis-face." As funny as it is to tell someone his face looks like a penis, I can't ever see myself being in a heated argument and pulling that one out on the fly.

Perhaps even more important than the meaning of a cuss-word, however, is how the word sounds and if it is fun to say. I have yet to come across a word that is more fun to say than dropping a well timed F-bomb or an expertly delivered "God—(wait for it, wait for it)—damnit!" The only word that has come close so far is "chuta."

Chuta actually isn't really a bad word; it is a modified version of a much stronger word, similar to how people say "darnit" instead of "damnit." But like I said earlier, sometimes the way a word sounds is more important than what it means. My host dad says chuta a lot, but he always lowers his voice and stretches it out so it sounds like "chuuuuta", similar to the way some people pronounce "shit" like "sheeeeeeet." So every now and then I'll throw in an extended chuta under my breath, but otherwise it doesn't look like I'll be trading in my "a-holes" for "penis-faces" any time soon.

Magic

Daddy?

Last week my mother met Magic Johnson at some fundraiser in Harlem. I brought the picture into my class so that my students could be amazed by how big human beings in the U.S. can be. I panned my laptop around the room so everyone could get a look, and the first kid asked out loud in Spanish "Is that teacher's mother and father?"

Yes Fernando, my father is Magic Johnson and that's why I'm five-foot-nothing, not black, and I played Ultimate Frisbee in college.

Things Ecuadorians Like: Food in Bags

I'm not sure why, but Ecuadorians seem to like foods that come in bags. It could be because it is cheaper than boxing and canning food, because it keeps things fresh for longer, or because they think it makes it look like the future (which it does).

In any case, every single time I see a certain type of food in a bag for the first time it blows my mind

Some of the various bagged foods in my house.

because of the intrinsic consequences of such packaging: ketchup doesn't make that farting noise when you squeeze out the last of it, it is no longer necessary to scrape the bottom of the jelly jar and accidentally get your hands all sticky in the process, and it just feels wrong pouring milk out of a sack.

The food bagging extends into the realm of take-out food as well. I went to a nearby chicken joint the other day and ordered a combo to go. What I got were four little plastic bags: one with a piece of chicken, one with french fries, one with a serving of rice, and the last one with a soft drink. Yup, they put my soda in a bag.

I'm glad I don't have a car in Ecuador, because trying to eat this while driving home would be a disaster.

P is for Pageantry

Ambato's Independence Day

This past Friday was Ambato's independence day, so the city celebrated by canceling classes and having a parade that all the high school students marched in. A interesting custom in Ecuador is that they frequently name streets and places after important dates in the country's history. For instance, the main public park in Ambato is called "12 de Noviembre" in honor of the day Ambato gained its independence. It's actually pretty convenient because I am reminded of upcoming holidays every time I walk through the center of Ambato or Quito.

The parade started at 9:00am, but one of my friend's students suggested they head over at 7:20 to make sure they got a good spot. I ignored the suggestion to arrive early and rolled in at 9:50 to be greeted by mobs of people and packed streets. Luckily for me, at 5'9'' I estimate that I stand ~2 inches comfortably above the national average height of Ecuador, so I was able to see over the seven rows of people in front of me.

The parade was just all the different high schools in Ambato marching while playing drums and the occasional brass instrument, so it wasn't very interesting. My host father asked me afterward if I saw the fights, and he explained to me that after the parade the boys and girls from the different high schools usually fight each other in the street. I guess I missed it because I think I would have remembered high school girls pulling hair and hitting each other with glockenspiel mallets.

After all the high schools had gone, the military marched through. The odd thing about the military procession was that all the different military units were represented. It made my day to see a guy in full swamp-thing camouflage walking down the main street of Ambato in broad daylight.

I haven't seen a camouflaged officer this inappropriately deployed since that one episode of "To Catch a Predator".

Another highlight of the parade came from my friend Caitlin, who delivered this winner while talking to me after seeing soldiers carrying bayonet-equipped rifles:

- Man, it must suck being shot by a gun with a bayonet.
- Yeah I guess, but it sucks getting shot with any gun.
- I know, but it must be especially awful getting shot with that knife. Look how big they are?
- ... Caitlin, do you think guns with bayonets shoot knives at people?
- Well what are the knives for if the guns don't shoot them?

Caitlin then got a lesson on how bayonets are used for close range combat, not projectile-knife warfare.

Llapingachos

One of Ecuador's specialty dishes is potato tortillas, or llapingachos. They are potato pancakes with cheese, and they usually come with eggs and sausage. If I'm not mistaken, Ambato is known for its llapingachos, so the day of the parade I got lunch in the center to try them out since I hadn't tried them here yet. My plate of llapingachos cost $1.50, yet another reminder that if any of my family or friends want to come visit me in Ecuador the plane ticket will be the only real expense you have.

Chiva

On Saturday, I ventured out to Quito for my WorldTeach director's birthday party. The party took place on a Chiva, which is the Ecuadorian take on a party bus. People pack onto the bus (with seats removed) where music is blasted and alcohol is served, all while it cruises around the city. I won't say it is a good idea to have 45 inebriated people dancing on a bus driving around the city, but it was a ton of fun. I'm sure our bus full of gringos screaming American music confused and terrified a good number of people we passed that night.

Breaking and Entering

My host family here in Ambato has a bad habit of forgetting that I live in their house and locking me out. One time I had to call my host brother at 2am to wake him up because my family locked the front door from the inside and my key couldn't open it.

Today I came back from Quito and was relieved to see that they didn't lock the front door from the inside. I was then very irritated to find out that they had locked every single door inside the house so I had no way to get any further than the dining room. I tried using my keys to open the doors but they didn't fit, and my family had taken a trip somewhere so they were far away and wouldn't return for hours.

Then I remembered seeing people in movies open doors by swiping a credit card in between the door and the frame, so I half jokingly tried it and, to my complete surprise, it actually worked. The last time I tried to do something I saw in a movie was when I was six years old and jumped off the top of my bunk bed holding a plastic bag over my head hoping I would float down. It didn't work; I just ate it really hard.

At the time I opened the door I was relieved to be able to get to my room, but now I'm a little bit concerned that the doors in my house can be unlocked with a credit card. You would think that after the first movie that depicted someone unlocking a door with a credit card that lock makers would address the problem. I guess most people just don't try things they see in the movies as much as I do, and the world is apparently a much safer place because of it.

Halloween and Vacation in Cuenca

Halloween/Día de los Difuntos

To celebrate Halloween and the Ecuadorian Día de los Difuntos, I had a party in both of my classes last Thursday. Like Americans who wear costumes and go trick-or-treating for Halloween just because that's that people do, Ecuadorians participate in Día de los Difuntos traditions that many people don't really have explanations for anymore. There are some traditional food items like colada morada (hot fruit drink) and guagua de pan (translation: bread baby), but also some odd, non-food pageantry.

For instance, someone in my first class was voted to be "Mr. Wooden Spoon" and another "Mr. Clay". The former brought a variety of wooden spoons into class that he handed out to all of the students and the latter brought tiny clay pots in for everyone. When I asked the students what the hell was going on, I received a variety of explanations, the most plausible being that colada morada is traditionally made in clay pots and stirred with wooden spoons.

I had fun ridiculing my students about their traditions that were bizarre from a foreign perspective until they asked me why people dress up in costumes for Halloween in the United States. The best answer I could come up with was that it gives young women an excuse to dress indiscriminately, and it is so awesome that no one really asks questions about why we do it anymore.

My colada morada, guagua de pan, and various presents my class gave me.

I told my first class to wear costumes for bonus points, but sure enough I was the only schmuck who wore a costume to the party. One of my students, Christian, actually used this situation to set up a pretty solid burn on one of my other students, Lizeth.

Lizeth happened to be wearing an overall-shorts outfit that day, and at one point she and Christian were at the front of the room giving a speech or something. During the speech he addressed me and said that I need to remember to give Lizeth a bonus point. Someone in the class asked for what, and he responded "because she wore a costume today." Smoke. This particular student is constantly making jokes under his breath during class that I can never hear but that get the class rolling in laughter behind my back, so I am glad I finally got to hear one of his jokes—especially since it wasn't targeted at me.

In my second class I had a a joint party with the other English teacher at SECAP, Caitlin. My second class is older than my first, so quite a few people actually wore costumes and everyone brought a ton of food outside of the traditional Día de los Difuntos fare. Something that everyone forgot to bring, however, was music. I happened to have some songs on a flash drive, so we listened to Biggie for two tracks. I was the only one dancing, so we had to switch to a CD that one of the students had with her and we listened to three different electronica songs on repeat for the next hour and a half. I now hate those three songs.

All in all the day was filled with holiday pageantry and I am glad that I was able to share a little bit of my Halloween traditions with my class as well as experience what they like to do at this time of year.

Cuenca: An old Kichwa word meaning...

Día de los Difuntos is a national holiday here in Ecuador, so I did not have classes on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. I decided to go with some of the other WorldTeach volunteers from Ambato to the third largest city in Ecaudor, Cuenca. Cuenca is a seven hour bus ride from Ambato and they happen to celebrate their independence day during the time we had off.

Cuenca is known for its colonial architecture, and I was impressed with how good looking the city is. I don't know enough about architecture to describe its style, but there were cobblestone roads, tiled roofs, and huge churches.

Cathedral de la Inmaculada Concepción

The hostel we booked turned out to be very entertaining because of our ridiculous hostel-keeper, 17 year old Mateo. The room was fine and the location of the hostel was in walking distance from everything in the city, but Mateo is the only person who works there. He let us know the first night that since the front door is locked and only he has the key, we had to return before midnight or after two in the morning because he sleeps during those hours. It was annoying, but it sounded reasonable enough and we felt bad for him so we made it a point to follow his guidelines for returning to the hostel.

One night, however, we got a call from Mateo asking us if we could return after four in the morning because he was going out. We rushed back at around midnight because we didn't want to be out in the streets at four in the morning. What transpired when we returned to the hostel was the definition of ridiculous.

We found out Mateo was going to be out late that night because he was competing with some friends in a dance competition. The night before I had heard the Pussycat Doll's "Buttons" playing from somewhere in the hostel, but I didn't realize that it was the soundtrack for his dance routine.

When we returned to the hostel that night we were greeted by Mateo and three friends in his dance group, wearing about five articles of clothing between the four of them. One guy was dressed like Lady Gaga, another one was wearing only a few strips of strategically placed caution tape, and I'm pretty sure they were all wearing bras. It was the gayest thing I have ever witnessed, but we were all psyched the next day when we learned that Mateo's group won the contest (probably because it was the gayest thing I have ever witnessed).

View from our fabulous hostel in Cuenca

 

The festivities in Cuenca were pretty fun. Street vendors were everywhere during the day and especially at night, selling things like meat on sticks, banana chips, and candy apples. There were bands playing music in the street, and one night we stopped by a group of drummers and danced for a bit. It was in this drum circle that a friend of mine commented that one of the young Ecuadorians jumping around looked like me. I took a picture with him, so I'll let you decide if he is really my brother from an Ecua-mother.

The most impressive part of the Fiestas de Cuenca were by far the fireworks. I knew well before I came to Cuenca that Ecuadorians love fireworks. Ecuadorians will use any excuse to shoot off fireworks and they have woken me up many a non-holiday night. The firework display in the main plaza of Cuenca were set up on a tall, wooden tower. 

When I first laid eyes on the tower I was almost certain that it would not be used for the fireworks display because it was so close to the people and it looked very wobbly. Well, Ecuador didn't disappoint this time, because fireworks did shoot from the tower and it was equal parts impressive and terrifying. 

There were arms on the tower that were on hinges that spun around disconcertingly fast— powered, of course, by fireworks. Then sparks shot out from all over the place and the tower straight looked like it was about to explode. Fireworks then proceeded to actually shoot into the sky from the tower and explode like a traditional American display. 

Things got awesome when one of the regular fireworks hit a tree (we were in the middle of the city plaza, after all) and it caught on fire. The finale was a spinning crown-like firework that shot into the sky and sprayed sparks everywhere. Sparks rained on the crowd, the tower itself caught on fire, and the maintenance crew came to disassemble the deathtrap. I don't think I've ever been that close to fireworks before, so it will definitely go down as one of my most memorable fireworks experiences.

Check out this video I took of the end of the fireworks display. I can't figure out how to change the video to play vertically, so you're just going to have to tilt your head.

Back to the Grind?

Well, not really a grind since I only had one day of class this week due to the holidays, but I am back in Ambato working again. Since we only had one day this week I watched a movie with my class and had them write down words they didn't know that they heard in the movie. The words my class selected included these gems: bullshit, ass, fart, barf, whore, and skank. 

I'd also like to thank all my friends and family who read my blog. I am writing this blog for a number of reasons; I want to record my experiences so I can remember my year abroad in the future and I am hoping it will be a good way for future WorldTeach volunteers to get an idea of what the program is like before they sign up, but most of all I write it for my friends and family so they can keep up with what I am doing and hopefully be entertained in the process. I spend a lot of time writing, but I have a lot of fun doing it and I am glad that people are reading it. I have even met a few people from my blog being passed around, which is pretty cool when I think about it.

Lastly, please check out the photos page for more pictures from Ambato.