when the sky cries

It rains here a lot.  Practically every afternoon, actually.

Sometimes it rains so hard that the kids at the daycare cry for their mommies and the roof leaks, making little lakes on the cement floor.

Sometimes it just mists, and it seems like the clouds have descended to cover us like a cold and wet blanket.

But to be honest, I love the rain…even when I am with my two host sisters at the Alejandro Sanz concert and our shoes are so soaked that they drip water and we have to buy plastic sheets from the vendors to keep ourselves semi-dry.

In Spanish, the word for rain is llover and the word for cry is llorar…and I have a bad habit of saying that it is crying rather than raining…but hopefully people just think I’m being poetic.   Hopefully.

¡uno, dos, tres, cuatro!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I teach English at a nearby high school called El Buen Pastor, which means The Good Shepard.  It’s an extraordinarily laid back Catholic school…por ejemplo: the teacher always shows up about ten minutes late and he decided to just give everyone 100% on the last exam…not exactly sure why.  Especially since things like ¨I like to bread juice¨ and ¨skut¨ showed up as answers.  (Side note: our theme was food.  Personally, I’ve never tried skut.  I wonder if it’s any good…)  The girls will be happy, though…A’s for everyone!

Anyway, the other volunteers and I are determined to actually teach interesting lessons…things that perhaps will just maybe stick in their heads.  So for one class, we are teaching the song ¨Stand by me.¨

Only today I forgot to bring the CD.  So I had to sing it.  Alone.  A Capella.   At the top of my lungs.

I especially enjoyed belting out ¨Darling, darling, STAND BY ME!¨ while putting on my best begging-while-singing face and almost getting down on one knee.  The girls laughed, and all was well in the world.

Oh, Ecuador, the adventures you hold.

el día de los difuntos

November 2 is the Day of the Dead, which is celebrated throughout Latin America. Each country has its own traditions, and Ecuador is no exception. Here in Quito, we celebrate by going to the cemetary to visit loved ones, drinking lots of colada morada, and eating guaguas de pan. Colada morada is basically a warm, sugary, red drink with chunks of fruit in it. ¨Guagua¨ means baby in Quichua, and a ¨guagua de pan¨ is bread in the shape of a baby. I’m not exactly sure why they eat bread shaped like babies, but it goes back to an indigenous tradition.
It was very neat to be part of this celebration, since we don’t really celebrate it in the US. I do have to say, though, I drank more colada morada than I want to admit…it’s probably a good thing they only do this once a year…

and the wheels on the bus go round and round…

So I was on the bus yesterday, coming back from class.  I grabbed an open seat and happened to be sitting next to a guy with a cowboy shirt and a wide-brimmed hat.  He started talking to me, and we had a lovely conversation about how he always wanted to be a singer but his parents always told him he couldn’t do it.  I said, ¨¡Sí se puede!¨  Anyway, when we were getting off the bus, he asked me for my phone number and was rather insistent about it.  Did I mention that he was almost 40 years old?  Awkward?

I told him that we should leave it in God’s hands…if we see each other again, lovely…if not, oh well.  I don’t think he liked that answer too much…

And then I scampered away.

Oh, how I love awkward Ecuadorian men bus experiences.

while sitting

I sit near the lion statues at the entrance of this high-class, expensive Ecuadorian university, situated between beautiful mountains that shout the glory of God.  I watch a young woman methodically move concrete blocks, part of a construction crew that is repairing the parking lot…a parking lot filled with expensive cars.  I am surrounded by students in high heels and carefully ripped jeans, sending text messages as their cigarettes burn.

And I think about how ridiculous that this world can be.  I think about what true beauty is.  I think about how we turn our eyes from the disparity even while it stares us in the face.  How ironic that we sit in the classroom day after day, learning and discussing and tearing apart the fabric of the world.  We learn a muted version of life, a safe version, a scrubbed-clean, child-proof version.

Whereas that beautiful woman worker has learned life raw, without someone to clean it up for her.  She has known manual labor, the struggle to put food on the table, the fear of losing someone to forces beyond her control.

And I see that as I sit here, writing these words and feeling so much shame for all that I take for granted every single day…as I sit here writing this, I am on the protected side, the safe side, the rich side…the lions’ side.

I am part of the problem.

seasons

Quito has been called “la ciudad de la primavera eterna,” also known as the “city of the eternal spring.”  Basically, the weather doesn’t change much here…it is always about 70 degrees and lovely.  The only change occurs when the rainy season hits (now), where it rains every afternoon, sometimes with great force.

This perpetual spring has made me think a lot about what I am missing right now back in the States…the striking colors of the trees, playing in piles of crunchy leaves, Thanksgiving, sweaters and jeans, and the rush of the first snowfall.  It has never snowed in Quito as far as I know…we are on the equator, after all, even though we are in the mountains.  The closed thing to a good Chicago winter lies at the top of Cotopaxi, the volcano covered in snow which I can see when it is not too cloudy.

Ecuador is beautiful, don’t get me wrong.  But right now I long for being 5 years old in a snowsuit, building igloos and snowmen…or raking all of the leaves just to jump in them and strew them about the yard…and then coming inside for some hot chocolate with marshmallows.  (Speaking of hot chocolate, here they drink hot chocolate with cheese in it…a quotation: “Chocolate sin queso es como amor sin besos”, or “Hot chocolate without cheese is like love without kisses.”  I’ve actually tried this concoction and it is better than it sounds, I promise!)

I always say that I could see myself living outside the US, and I still can…but there are definitely some things I would miss.  Just think about last winter and our magical two snow days at U of I…sledding on cafeteria trays and getting frostbite because none of us had snowpants or boots, just jeans and sneakers.

And you have to admit that there is something so enchantingly beautiful about a fresh snowfall, unmarred and brand-new, the source of inspiration for so many daydreamers and poets.

I even miss the wind of Chicago.

It’s strange how no matter where you are, there is somewhere else to be missed, somewhere else that brings up the feeling of home.  I know that when I leave here there are many things I will miss…the music on the buses, the unceasing rice, the mountains (oh, the mountains…), the songs at church, the cheek-kisses when you meet someone for the first time, the rosaries in Spanish with the family here, the kids…

The world is beautiful everywhere you go, no?  Such is the mystery and joy of life.

the quichua worldview

In my Quichua class, we heard a talk about the way that the Quichuas see space and time.

From the “Western” viewpoint, we see the past as behind us and the future in front of us, and we are marching headstrong into the future.  We focus a lot on what is to come and how we can improve our lives so the future is a better place than the past or the present.

From the Quichua point of view, however, the past is in front of us and the future is behind us, and we are marching backwards into the future.  We are able to see all that has happened to us but we cannot see the future as we walk into it.  Basically, we have no idea what will happen and do not really have control over it.

As a result of this worldview, Quichuas tend to focus more on what has happened and base their lives on that, dwelling more on past events.  It is very difficult for them to forgive–in fact, the speaker said that he never forgives–because the past is what they see so clearly.  Another interesting aspect of this worldview is that they do not think much of future projects.  If a politician starts speaking about a timeframe of more than a few months or a year, the Quichuas will not pay attention to it because, after all, we cannot see the future.  Who even knows if we will be here in a few months or a year?

Some interesting space-time vocabulary:

Pacha: time, space

Sirina: future, to be lacking in time

Ñawpa: past, ahead

some of the kids I fell in love with in Perú

They had Olympics…aren’t they adorable?  Seriously…these kids stole my heart.  They are so beautiful, brave, and strong.

singing oldies

Today in my English class (the one I am helping to teach…I am not studying English in Ecuador…) we listened to a CD that I made with a bunch of oldies.  We are all going to sing the song ¨Stand by me¨ at some kind of big party with other high schools…I think…

Either way, it was fun…I made a fool of myself by singing and dancing in front of the class, yelling out ¨Stand by me¨ and pointing to all the chicas.  They were amused…or maybe they just think I’m insane…crazy gringa…

Mutti, you would have been proud of me.  I told them all, ¨Esta canción es la canción favorita de mi mamá, entonces, tienen que aprenderla bien!¨  In English: ¨This is my mom’s favorite song, so you have to learn it well!¨  That’s my little way of sending my love from Ecuador…through the voices of thirty teenage girls as we sing ¨No I won’t be afraid not as long as you stand, stand by meeee¨ at the top of our lungs!

buses always make me think of Kris Kros

This weekend I went to Guayaquil.  I took the overnight bus that does not stop, so it is actually very safe.  It was interesting, though, because at 3 am the bus stopped and the police got on the bus.  They told everyone to get off the bus for a random check, so we all got up, sleepily grabbed our things, and got out.

I am thankful for two reasons: 1. Since I am a girl, they did not even check me.  They tend to be tougher on the men.  2.  I had my documents with me.

What happens if you don’t have your documents, you ask?  Well, it depends.  Sometimes you get thrown into jail.  I do know that there was one man on our bus who got back on the bus, grabbed all of his luggage, and then got off again.  We took off without him.  I asked the man next to me what happened, and he told me that it seemed as though the man did not have his documents.  Oops.

Once I was in Guayaquil, Megan and I went to the iguana park, and the iguanas were frolicking about like crazy because it was rather warm outside.  As Megan and I were standing under a tree, one of the iguanas decided to let loose and peed like crazy all over us…well, mainly all over Megan, pobrecita!  It was seriously like a waterfall of iguana urine.

After that we walked for a little bit to let the urine dry (gross, I know…) and then got some juice at an amazing fruit bar (the fruit/juice is one thing I am going to miss SO much about Ecuador…mmm…).  While Megan and I were sipping our juice, relaxing, a man came up to the window and shook a few handfuls of socks at us, trying to sell them to us.  As though we were going to say, “By golly, this juice just reminded me that I need some new socks!  Please, sir, over here!”

Only in Ecuador, right?