Lessons Continued

Hello! About blogging once a week…yeah…Anyways, I’m still here, happy and healthy. Not a day goes by without a funny/ridiculous/awkward situation that teaches me a lesson about Ecuador. I decided to add on to the list of lessons that I learned at the market back in the sierra with my ex-host mother, with some experiences that I have learned from here on the coast.

Lesson Five: Beware the “Family Effect.”
In the U.S., its common to live in the same general part of the country as your family. All of my close family, for example, are spread around the state of Minnesota. In Ecuador, people don’t tend to move more than a few blocks away from their immediate family members. With the exception of the one or two relatives that decide to move to Spain or the U.S. to live and work, most of the family will stick around the same neighborhood, and if not, the same town. This phenomenon started to become more apparent to me as I would hear comments like, “Hey, I heard you were at my grandma’s house last week,” “Someone told me you met my nephew!” and “That was my brother’s foot you stepped on at the store yesterday,” on a daily basis. The “family effect” as I like to call it, creates an everybody-knows-your-name atmosphere and can make a town of 7,000, feel like a town of 17.
Sometimes the “family effect” can work to your advantage. It makes it easy to relay messages, borrow things, and make connections in the community. However, while the “family effect” can often make life easier, it has it’s obvious disadvantages. For example, your neighbor’s brother was the one who drove you home the other night when it got to dark to walk, but he was also the one who saw you flip the bird to the annoying middle-aged guy with a mullet down the road who makes a point to catcall every time you walk by. (Just an example.) The other day I was apartment hunting as our mandatory three months with a host family are coming to an end. I was sitting outside chatting with my potential landlady when a guy my age who has been on my case about a date since the moment I got here came up to say hello. I gave him short, cold answers like I usually do, and eventually he took the hint and left.
“You know him?” The landlady asked me.
“I mean, he’s just this guy who won’t stop trying to ask me out. He kept asking for my number, and I finally just gave him the wrong one.” I snickered at my cleverness.
“He actually really gets on my nerves,” I continued, “and I don’t want to get to know him.” I confided in my new friend.
“That’s my son.”
Whoops.
“Uh…Oh! Ha ha. Uh…ha. Well you know, I uh…I’m just not looking to date right now…? Ha ha. You know?”
The landlady did not know.
“How about this weather?!”
Needless to say, I did not choose to live in that apartment.

Lesson Six: Don’t Take it Personal.
A couple of my friends who are teachers in the States expressed to me an interest in starting a correspondence with some of my classes here. That is, my children here would draw a name of one of the students from the U.S. and the two of them would become pen pals. Since sending one, normal-sized letter from Ecuador to the U.S. costs between two to four dollars, snail mailing a classroom’s worth of letters is out of the question. I decided to type up all of the kids’ letters on my computer in order to later send them all via email. While typing the letters and reading what the kids had written, I came across one little girl’s letter that cracked me up:

Hello! My name is Sarita and I am 12 years old. I was born in 1997. My skin is the color of cinnamon and I am a little chubby. My hair and eyes are brown. My favorite food is chicken and rice and my favorite subject in school is English. My favorite outfit is a pair of shorts with a blue shirt. What color are you?


I not only like this letter because I know exactly which outfit she is talking about, but also because its a great example of a major difference between Ecuadorian and U.S. culture. Whereas we are taught to dance around certain physical characteristics when describing ourselves or others, Ecuadorians feel very comfortable with describing someone as Black, White, fat, skinny, etc. I sometimes like to imagine how I would have reacted had someone in Northern Minnesota greeted me with a “what’s up Black girl?!” or a “how’s it going, chubby?!” But in Ecuador, terms such as “negrito/a” (black), “morenito/a” (dark-skinned), and “gordito/a” (chubby), are seen as terms of endearment and are a part of everyday conversation. Though hard at times, I have to remind myself not to take it personal.
The other night I was sitting around the house when a familiar voice entered my head. “Eiiiiiiiiik…have you had any ICE CREAM todaaaaaaay?” I tried to tell the voice to shut up, but I should know better by now. The voice will not stop nagging me until I get up and get it some ice cream. I had never been an ice cream fanatic in the States, but 15 cent, homemade ice cream cups at every corner have a way of changing that. I walked down the street to my neighbor Lorenza’s house, who is the sweetest old woman with the best ice cream cups in San Vicente. “Thaaaat’s it,” the voice in my head said, “keeeeeep walkin.” Before I even had a chance to make my request, Lorenza got up out of her chair and headed for the freezer. I smiled as she handed me my favorite flavor - rum with raisins. “Yessssssss.” My neighbor sat back down in her chair as I enjoyed my ice cream cup.
“How are you, Jennifer?”
“I’m good! How are you doing?”
“Good as well. You are looking much fatter!”
“…I am?”
“Oh yes. I was talking about it with my husband today. You are fatter than when you arrived here.”
I held my ice cream with one hand, and shook my fist at the voice in my head with the other.
"Oh, ha ha."
I smiled, finished my ice cream, and canceled all of the ice cream missions the voice in my head had planned for the rest of the week.

Lesson Seven: Learn to Dance.
As soon as Ecuadorian children leave the womb, that is, before the umbilical cord is cut, before their fingers and toes are counted, and before their little pulse is checked, one of the nurses comes in with a straight face, a boom box, and a salsa tape, and the newborn is taught to dance. Men, women, boys, girls, old, young, the demographic doesn’t matter. Everyone knows how to dance and if you don’t know how to dance or at least fake it really well, you’re kind of a really big loser. The first time I realized that my Latin dancing skills were subpar was about two months ago when I went up to one of my friend’s site about 2 hours away. The majority, if not all of the towns, villages, and cities in Ecuador set aside 3 or 4 days a year to celebrate becoming a town, city, etc. Think state fair. Now replace the corn dogs with chicken empanadas and the country music with kumbia, bachata, and/or salsa. Cancel school. Insert six-hour dance party. The volunteer´s town was just starting it’s fiestas, and I, along with 4 other volunteers, went up for the party. Though my plan was to just sit there, chat, and watch other people dance, I soon realized that when an Ecuadorian man asks you to dance and you say “No, thank you,” they hear, “Ask me again!” I eventually gave in and even though I didn’t really know what I was doing, I looked at the 8-year-olds on the dance floor and thought, “how hard can it be?” My dance partner was a 45ish, chubby man who was shorter than me. I felt that all of these things would work to my advantage. I was wrong. My friend, we’ll call him Manuel, lead me out to the dance floor and started to move his hips in a way that I thought only Shakira was capable of. Manuel’s arms moved like he was a cool person who had decided to go for a run but didn’t really want to sweat. I watched his feet, his serious expression, and his Lazy Susan hips, when I realized that I wasn’t dancing back. Come on Eik, you have rhythm. Dance. Trying not to appear as overwhelmed as I felt, I put on my best I’m-too-cool-for-this face, swung my arms, and shuffled my feet from side to side. I was concentrating hard on a) keeping with the music and b) not being out-danced by someone who was old enough to be my father, when Manuel felt that we should have a conversation.
“SO, WHERE ARE YOU FROM?” He shouted over the music.
Normally decent at multitasking, something about the complexity of his question threw me off.
“WHAT?” I continued to shuffle my feet.
“WHERE. ARE. YOU. FROM!”
Hey! This is no time for questions! Concentrate!
“THE UNITED STATES!”
“AH! WHAT BRINGS YOU TO ECUADOR?”
Shoot. I thought the first question was tough. Hmmm…how can I answer in one word? Peace Corps? No, that requires lots of explanation. And its not one word. Family? Now that’s just a lie.
Hey! Keep dancing!
“WORK!!” I yelled as I tried to keep up with my dance partner.
“I SEE!”
Manuel gave a fancy twirl not missing a single beat of the music. His twirl made me nervous. Was I suppose to twirl?
Where is your rhythm!?
“MOVE YOUR HIPS!”
“HUH?”
“YOUR HIPS!! MOVE YOUR HIPS!!” My partner demonstrated by over exaggerating the movement in his hips.
Dang it. This guy was on to me. I thought I was moving my hips.
Well what the heck!? Do what the man says!
I tried to loosen my hips and move like Manuel, but probably looked more like someone with a bad ankle doing the Macarena. Then, as if somebody above could no longer bear to see me suffer, the song ended. I let out an audible sigh of relief. Manuel thanked me for the dance and I returned to our table frustrated that not a single college dance party had prepared me for what I had just experienced. I made a silent note to self: learn to dance.



On another note, there are mysterious animal droppings appearing in my room (pictured below) and I am giving YOU the chance to play detective!! For about a week now I have woken up to weird, Rice Crispy-like droppings on the spare bed in my room. I wikipediaed bat guano and when my droppings and those pictures didn’t match up, I was stumped. I’m not as worried about the animal in my room as I am sick of cleaning up poop every morning. The question is: (que game show music) WHAT KIND OF POOP IS IT?! Bird? Mouse? Monkey? Take a guess!! Join the contest!! The winner will receive an all expense paid trip to visit Yours Truly here in Ecuador**!! So come on kids! Take a stab at it! What do you have to lose?

UPCOMING EVENTS:
Saturday November 21st: Move in day! New apartment! Holler.
Thursday, November 26th: Thanksgiving dinner with PCVs at Ambassador´s residence.

LOVE!

**Airfare not included