Carnaval in Macas and Puyo

This year Carnaval was officially celebrated on the 11th, 12th, and 13th of February, though unofficial celebrations started on the first.  I know I posted about this in my other February post, but basically this celebration leads up to Lent, and is a time similar to what I imagine Mardi Gras looks like in New Orleans (replacing the tradition of bead giving and earning with water and flour fights, of course).  It also means vacation time from school and work.  With the exception of CEDEI School (my school) Carnaval vacations last longer than Christmas/New Year's vacations in Ecuador. Because of this, it is like the "spring break" of Ecuador and is the most popular time for travel.  My friends and I followed suit and headed to El Oriente, or the Amazon region, to celebrate. 


We spent our first night of vacation in Macas, a city in the southern region of the Amazon which is about seven hours away by bus.  I made a friend, Fernando, on the bus and over the entire seven hour trip he proceeded to tell me his life story (photos included via his Blackberry), as well as foods to try and places to visit in Ecuador. He was very friendly and thankfully I was able to understand his Spanish with little trouble.  I had heard before that many people from El Oriente speak more slowly, and I definitely found this to be true in my seven hour conversation with Fernando.  He also was very patient with my Spanish, which again, I was grateful for.

Although I enjoyed Fernando, I was not sad to part ways when we arrived. Alex, her friend Kelsey, and I easily found a hostel, freshened up a bit, and then went in search of food.  Alex, the most carnivorous of the three of us, wanted meat. We ate a fabulous carne asada with rice, menestre (beans), salad, and patacones (fried green plantains) at a place called Porcion del Torro. Then we headed out to a bar that our travel guide rated five stars for its live Andian Music.  The bar was hilarious but nothing like we expected.  A somewhat mangy-looking poodle in a sweatshirt met us at the gate and the speakers were proudly bumping the Back Street Boys.  There was no live band or anything resembling Andean music to be found, but we did jam to bad 90's pop for the next three hours.  I should also mention that the decoration of this bar was somewhat of a cross between kitschy and hipster, and between the atmosphere and the music we were thoroughly entertained.

Carnaval Parade in Puyo.

The next morning we got up early and made our way to Puyo to meet our friend Eric.  That bus ride was only about four hours, thank goodness, and we got free peach juice with our tickets. Score. Despite the fact that the Puyo is a good 12 hours from the coast, there were tons of restaurants boasting comida costena, or coastal food/sea food.  After getting ourselves settled into a hostel, we took ourselves on our own walking tour of Puyo.  The highlights of this include watching the Carnaval Parade, eating a "coastal breakfast," drinking jugo de coco (coconut juice), getting coffee, then getting a beer, and eventually getting some dinner, all the while being sprayed by foam, water, and flour.  People were not playing carnaval very aggressively at first, but on our walk back from dinner we were basically attacked with spray foam, flour or baking soda, and even dulce de guayaba, a candy that has a consistency a little bit thicker than jam. People seemed to find entertainment specifically in spraying or wiping whatever they had in our eyes, and by the time we were close to our hostel, we were both thoroughly covered in white powder, red candy, and water, and ready to stay in our hostel for the rest of the night. After showering and changing our clothes, Eric (the least "gotten" of the four of us) made a beer run and we drank and played cards within the safe confines of our hostel room.

This is actually my friend Amanda's photo, but I think it does a decent job of portraying the way Ecuadorians play Carnaval.

The next morning we made our way to La Selva.  This experience was so packed it's getting it's own blog post. Possibly two if I'm feeling long-winded.

January in Vignettes

I meant to post more often in January, but alas, I didn't.  So here's a recap:

Procesiones De Que?

There have been parades here every weekend since before I went home for Christmas.  The parades in December were a part of the celebration of Christmas, and the ones in early January commemorated the New Year and Innocents day, but no one has been able to give me a concrete explanation as to why we've had parades every single Saturday and Sunday since then. I have been told "it's just a way to celebrate the culture" and "each parade is meant to celebrate something, but they are not well publicized usually, so no one knows exactly what they celebrate."  On the bright side, this has made the streets in my neighborhood very colorful, and it has been fun to see traditional dancing and costumes etc. as I walk to the market or to a friend's house.   The following are a few pictures of various parades.  The photo I am in is from the Innocents Day Parade, which I posted about in the beginning of the month.

This photo is from the parade celebrating Dia de los Inocentes, a holiday which celebrates the innocence of children and commemorates the deaths of children who died before reaching the age of two in the past year.  It is celebrated by dressing in costumes and masks, the parade, music, and pranks.

Ya Tenemos Presidente! Tenemos Rafael!

The presidential elections were supposed to take place in January, but due to new laws the elections are now set to take place on February 17th. This change meant an extra month of campaigning, and the entire city is plastered with posters, stickers, and campaign volunteers representing candidates.  Supposedly there are eight candidates, but I have only seen campaign paraphernalia for three candidates: current president Rafael Correa, and presidential candidates Lucio Gutierrez and Alvaro Noboa.   President Correa's paraphernalia is the most popular, which boldly reads: Ya Tenemos Presidente! Tenemos Rafael! Which means: We already have a president! We have Rafael!

  I will not comment on the political climate here, because I don't really understand it and therefore don't think I can make any kind of accurate conclusions about it.  I will say though, that working at a private school at this time is very interesting. Most of my students come from affluent families, and just as in the States, often this status is accompanied by more politically conservative opinions.  My students talk a lot about how Presdient Correa is too socialist, and we need someone who's going to look out for the economic interests of the country, rather than the social interests.  In other places I have caught parts of conversations in which people criticize Correa for claiming to be socialist while not actually creating regulations that protect the people.  Although I've admitted that I don't know enough about the political climate here to have an opinion, I will say that the opinions I've heard sound surprisingly similar to opinions I've heard about the U.S. presidential elections.

One of the many signs for Presidente Correa

Feliz  Quinceanera y Despidida

Per usual, the extranjeros here always plan or find something to do on the weekends, so there is always some kind of party going on.  However, two weekends ago, my friends and I hosted a Fiesta de Quinceanera y Despedida (15th birthday and farewell party) for our dear friend Valerie, who is unfortunately leaving Ecuador and CEDEI school early for family reasons.  Though she is far from 15 years old, she has always wanted to have a Quinceanera, which for those of you that don't know, is similar to a cotillion in the Latino community. So as an early birthday present and a theme for her farewell, we had a Quinceanera.  One of the main elements of a Quinceanera is a huge ball gown, but not wanting to buy one, my friend's Cuencano boyfriend asked one of his cousins to loan us her old Quinceanera dress.  His cousins are older than him, however, and the dress he brought was from the 80's.  It did not have the Cinderella puffy skirt, plunging neckline, nor the bejeweling of the dresses of today.  Instead, it was pale pink and very conservative, with a huge bow on the butt. Valerie wore it for all of about 30 minutes, but changed before going out.  Still, it was a hilarious party.  Our friend Ellie, a very talented baker, made the Barbie cake pictured below, in honor of the type of dress we wished we could find for Val.

 

 

Carnaval

Technically, Carnaval does not take place until next weekend.  However, celebrations have already started.  One of the ways in which it is celebrated here is by spraying people with water guns,  throwing water balloons, or flour/baking powder.  My students are currently on vacation for Carnaval, but in the last 30 minutes of their last day of school before break, we had a school-wide water fight.  This was prohibited, but it happened anyway.  It was one of the highlights of my teaching career thus far. Every student and teacher left completely soaked. I personally left the school dripping wet, with flour caked in my hair.  After having Quimester exams for the two weeks prior to vacation, it was really nice to play with my students again.

Outside of school, Carnaval is still fun, but not quite as much.  As a gringa, I am a target for flying water and flour.  I am sprayed daily by passing cars or children walking on the street. Don't get me wrong, this tradition doesn't bother me per se; it is totally new, totally Ecuadorian, and pretty much hilarious.  But I had much more fun when I was able to spray people back (like at school) and when I knew who was spraying me! My friends and I will take part in the city-wide water fight this weekend, and I am looking forward to once again being able to participate more fully in this very silly tradition.

Penne Rosa

Today I gave my Quinto (4th grade) students Applebee's menus as a way to learn how to use quantifiers for count and non-count nouns (these nouns being the food).  Aka, we were learning how to use a/an, some, a few, and any in conjunction with food.  My students were completely and totally engaged. It was one of those great, rare moments in my teaching career when I felt like I had figured out a great lesson. This lasted until my students found the pasta section, which boldly highlighted a dish called Penne Rosa.  In Spanish, pene is the word for penis, and rosa is the word for pink.  So, no matter that penne the pasta has two "n"s; my students quickly abandoned their desire to investigate the menu for a fit of giggles, laughing and pointing, and rolling on the floor in exaggerated laughter.  They the two girls who found this dish first chanted "pene rosa" enough times to make all of my male students turn red. I eventually got the students back on track, but I continued to hear whispers of "pene rosa" throughout the afternoon.

December Recap and New Year's Resolutions

December was a very busy month and I should've posted more, but obviously I didn't. We had a lot going on at school between the Christmas program, end of the grading period, and Christmas workshops for the kids.  As per usual at school, I did a lot of work planning my part of the workshop based on the direction given to me by the national teacher I was working with, only to have him change his mind so that all my plans became useless. Then I did slightly less work to create a new plan based on the new direction, but again none of this work was used.  I was pretty frustrated with this, but it definitely teaches me to let go. Actually, every day at school provides a lesson in learning to let go in one form or another.

Aside from school work, I also decided to home-make gifts for all my gringo friends, which was very time consuming. In true Becca-fashion, I am not quite finished yet (even two weeks after Christmas), but the gifts are turning out quite nicely, and I don't think my friends mind too much. 

I was also able to go home, which was the best Christmas present I have ever received. It was so refreshing to be with my mom, dad, sister, and grandma for nine days, and then to be with my friends in Chicago for seven days. It was wonderful to not worry about my sentence structure, pronunciation, or word choice.  It was wonderful to be with people that know who have known me for so long that our relationships only require maintaining, and not building. It was wonderful to sleep.

After a two week refresher course in all things United States, I returned to Cuenca on the fourth. It was really late and I immediately went to bed.  But, yesterday I was able to spend really intentional time returning to my life here.  I  immediately began speaking my very broken Spanish with my roommates, unpacked and settled back in to my apartment, Skyped with my sister and a good friend, and went to the market. I also spent some time reflecting on the last four months. They have been hard but good, and have provided many opportunities for me to learn about myself. I also realized that while I am not yet comfortable here the way I am in Minnetonka or Chicago, I am much more comfortable here than I was even a month ago. And that thought in itself is comforting. Moreover, now that I have reached a base-level of comfort, I have decided it is time to really live this adventure to its fullest. It is time for me to explore Ecuador, which I have done disappointingly little of thus far. And so my New Year's resolution for this year is born.

With this attitude, my friends and I hit the town last night. We went out for dinner and went to two of our favorite bars.  It was good to be with them again. I didn't realize how much I had missed them until we were reunited. I was also reunited with my love of dancing, which I hadn't done much of in the last month or so.  I danced a lot of salsa, but eventually the DJ switched to 80's pop music. My very silly roommate and I closed down the club with our interpretation of 80's dance moves. It was a great way to return to Cuenca, my friends, and my life here.

The Gift of Going Home

About a month after I got to Ecuador, it became apparent to me that I would not be able to afford to go home for Christmas.  This was pretty disappointing news, but I accepted it as a part of this adventure, and was going to try to make the best of it.  Just before Thanksgiving though, my mom emailed me to say that she and my dad had decided to buy me a plane ticket to Minnesota for Christmas.  She told me that no one was really looking forward to Christmas without me and truth-be-told I wasn't looking forward to spending a Christmas without them, though I have come love my friend-family here very much.

Being able to go home is a gift in-and-of-itself, but what is more, I also get to see my dear friends in Chicago because it turned out to be $400 cheaper to fly into MSP and then out of O'Hare in Chicago.  Being able to go home felt like a gift, being able to go to both Minnesota and Chicago is an even bigger blessing. But lately I have come to realize that knowing I am going to be able spend Christmas and New Year's Eve in the way I want to spend them has increased my desire to be in Ecuador.  I get to do both: I get to live in Ecuador and have a big adventure, and I get to spend the holidays the way I want to spend them, and with the people I want to spend them with. And I couldn't be happier.

Overview of the last weeks in November

Things are going pretty well here, though I have been very busy. I finally received a visa, though it is a Comercio visa, and not an Intercambio visa, and therefore I will need to go back to the Edificio Astudillo (office where visas are granted in Cuenca) in May to have my visa extended. As it turns out, every organization which hosts internationals in Ecuador for cultural exchange is currently being investigated. According to the visa regulations, an Intercambio visa is only supposed to be granted to International persons who live in Ecuador to teach a language (and/or other aspects of culture) and in exchange learn Spanish and experience Ecuadorian culture.  Furthermore, this is considered to be a volunteer-type of exchange rather than a form of employment, and therefore those granted Intercambio visas are only supposed to receive a living stipend, rather than wages, for their work. However, it has recently come to the Ecuadorian government's attention that some organizations were employing people (paying them wages and all) but asking them to get an Intercambio visa instead of a work visa, since it's so much easier to obtain. So long story short, no Intercambio visas are being granted right now. While this is somewhat annoying, I am grateful to have been given a Comercio visa for the mean-time, and to be able to continue my big adventure.

In other news, the last two weekends in a row I went hiking in Cajas (the national park in the mountains that I posted about previously).  On the 18th I went to Tres Cruces (Three Crosses) with a motley crew of various Internationals and Cuencanos. Tres Cruces is fairly high up in the mountains, and there were times when I was very easily winded and needed to stop to more fully catch my breath or drink water. The hike lasted about five hours in total, and afterwards we ate fresh rainbow trout at a restaurant in the mountains. It was probably the most delicious meal I have had since being here, and I enjoyed it all the more after having completed what I consider to be a fairly intense hike. On the 25th I went to Cajas again but this time I was in the company of all my fellow teachers, our students, and their parents. This time we walked a lower level loop around a lake next to an abandoned brewery. This was much less intense, and while I was not enamored with the fact that I had to go in to work on a Sunday morning, it was fun to watch my students interact with their parents, and to have the opportunity to play with my students without needing to be mindful of class time or curriculum.

Cajas from my November 18th trip.

An Alpaca hanging out at the top of a mountain

Standing on the top of a mountain.

Another view of the mountainside.
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My professional life this month was somewhat crazy. But, every month I feel like I fall that much more in love with my students, and that helps me to deal with whatever the chaos brings. I have had a student teacher for the past two months, from White Water Wisconsin. It was a very interesting experience to be given a student teacher after having only one month of professional teaching experience, but we managed to figure out how to work together.  From our first weeks together I told her that while I lacked sage wisdom and experience, I could offer her independence and the opportunity to be my professional peer, instead of my professional understudy. She was a very big help to me when I was sick and when I had to miss school to meet with visa officials, because she took over all my classes without hesitation. Anyway, this last week was not only the end of the current grading period, but also my student teacher's last week. And just to add a little more chaos, the entire school performed in a Christmas program at the local mall yesterday, but practice for each grade level's part of the program was held during school. On top of all of that, the boys soccer team had a game this week which was held during school hours (and the whole school was mandated to watch), and practices for this game were also held during school hours. 

Needless to say, there was a lot to keep track of and a limited amount of actual class time, despite the fact that it was the end of the grading period and our student evaluations needed to be completed by Friday of this week. Tension was high throughout the whole school, this week, but as far as I know, everything ended up working out and everything got done, in one way or another. Working at CEDEI is definitely a test of my flexibility and patience. When I worked for Seton Home, I was often told these were two traits I possessed that benefited my team of co-workers.  Here, I feel like I am forced to develop these traits in a much more concrete and sometimes extreme way. I think I am rising to the challenge, though I do not always do this gracefully.  I will be the first to say I was extremely frustrated this week, and had to do a lot of self-care at home in order to successfully let go of the way I wanted things to go, and let them happen as they actually did.  It was also extremely helpful that this week was peppered with many moments which provided the opportunity to bond with students, and during which students revealed their genuine kindness and tenderness over and over again.

In case you are interested, this is the link to CEDEI School's Facebook page.  For confidentiality purposes I would never post photos of my students on my blog or personal Facebook page.  However, the parents have given CEDEI permission to post photos of their children on the school's page, and if you are interested in a visual overview of everything we do at school, you should check It out.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/CEDEI-School/302520179765496?fref=ts

Fiestas de Cuenca

Two weekends ago was Fiestas de Cuenca, a city-wide holiday which celebrates Cuenca and South American culture in general.  Artisans from South American countries came to Cuenca selling their goods. Traditional and modern Ecuadorian musicians gave free concerts all over the city.  Traditional dancers from Ecuador and other South American countries performed in every square. And, traditional Ecuadorian foods were sold in parks all over the city.  There was food, drink, dance, music, and other aspects of culture abound in Cuenca for four days.  It was really energizing to celebrate and experience Ecuadorian culture with the entire city of Cuenca. Here are some photos of the celebrations, and of Cuenca in general.

Traditional Mexican dancers.

Traditional Peruvian dancers.

On Thursday, November 1st, my friend and I walked near the river to check out all the vendors and other festivities.  We stopped to watch the different musical and dancing traditions of South American countries.  Here are photos of Mexican and then Peruvian dances.








On Saturday, November 1st, I went to Parque San Blas to eat traditional Ecuadorian food. I was able to try Cuy, or guinea pig, which is very popular in the mountainous regions of Ecuador. Unfortunately I could not bring myself to eat more than two bites, mostly because cuy is served skin-on. Aka: my plate actually held half of a dead guinea pig, feet, bones, skin and all.  While I did not take a picture of my actual plate, below is a picture (taken by a friend of mine) of cuy being roasted.



Cuy

 

Cuy was not the only food being sold at Parque San Blas for Fiestas. The following two photos are of chicken, pork, and potatoes being prepared.  Please note the aprons with the large pouch in front.  Vendors at the market, whether selling prepared foods or groceries, all wear these type of aprons.  They serve as both protection for their clothing and also as a wearable cash box.  Though the aprons in this picture do not have many pockets, most women wear aprons with multiple pockets, for different amounts of money.  The safest and most efficient place to keep money in Ecuador is on your body.  It is much easier to steal a purse or a cash box than it is to steal an apron off of someone's body.  That being said, there are thieves in Cuenca, but I have not had any trouble yet, knock on wood.

Traditionally dressed women making chicken and mote.



Roasting pork.



















To the left is pork being roasted.  Funny/embarrassing story: the day before this photo was taken my friends and I went out to eat with some of our fellow teachers. One of my fellow gringas confused the word for pork, chancho, with a slang term for vagina, chocho when discussing what to order.  At the time, I had not yet learned either term.  When I went to Parque San
Blas, I attempted to recall the word for pork, but ended up making the same mistake and instead asked for a plate of vagina. This was very amusing, not only to the woman taking my order, but to everyone cooking and standing in line as well. 


Aside from providing ample opportunities to experience Ecuadorian and South American culture, this weekend also gave my roommates and friends and I lots of time to play and bond with each other. Here are some pictures of my roommates and I being goofy in front of a jacaranda tree, which blooms purple flowers instead of leaves.

Rafa and I attempting cartwheels.
Rafa is obviously much more skilled at this than I am.

From bottom to top: Nico, Rafa, and me.