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.