For a fairly conservative culture, Ecuador has some awesome graffiti.
Traditional Inti Raymi mask.
"We don't want development. We want to be free."
No love
"Don't see whores where there are just women."
Thomas Hardy has a great description of what distinguishes unbroken folk traditions from revivals:
A traditional pastime is to be distinguished from a mere revival in no more striking feature than in this, that while in the revival all is excitement and fervour, the survival is carried on with a stolidity and absence of stir which sets one wondering why a thing that is done so perfunctorily should be kept up at all. Like Balaam and other unwilling prophets, the agents seem moved by an inner compulsion to say and do their allotted parts whether they will or no. This unweeting manner of performance is the true ring by which, in this refurbishing age, a fossilized survival may be known from a spurious reproduction.
Personally, I draw a different distinction. I find that revivals have some kind of logic to them. My old Morris team used to tell the audience, “The sticks represent the spirits of the earth, the handkerchiefs represent the spirits of the air, and the bells represent the spirits of the other world.” It made a good spiel, but it's way too tidy to be true. We have no idea why Morris dancers started using those particular things. People add stuff they like, and eventually you get a hodgepodge of things that no one remembers the origins of.
Today I saw the summer solstice festivities in Otavalo, Ecuador, also known as San Juan or Inti Raymi. The solstice doesn't mean a lot at the equator – the day and night are each 12 hours every day of the year – but they surely do celebrate it anyway. It began this morning when a bunch of folks in rainbow masks carried a figure of John the Baptist into church, and it's still going strong. In between there have been parades, a bouncy castle, and a lot of corn products. Currently folks are having a city-wide street party playing music and dancing in circles. A gang of teenagers playing melodicas, flutes, and guitars just jogged by my window. Sorry, Mr. Hardy, but these people appear to be having a blast.
Watching a folk tradition that was totally new to me, my mind was full of questions:
Why are those guys dressed in drag?
Why are conch shells a traditional instrument so far from the sea?
How come there aren't any female musicians?
Why are there tentacles on your hat?
If Ecuadoran folk tradition is anything like the ones I know, the answer is probably, “Um, I'm not sure.” Which makes perfect sense.
Who counts as Native American in the US is very different from who counts as indigenous in Ecuador. In the US, it's something kind of rare, kind of special. Americans love to tell you about how their grandmother was part Cherokee.
Here 7% of the population is straight-up indigenous, and 72% has mixed indigenous and European ancestry. People here with glossy black hair, sharp cheekbones, and russet skin mostly identify as mestizo. Whether you're read as indigenous or mestizo seems to depend mostly on your dress, hairstyle, and language rather than your physical appearance.
Here there is no Tribal ID number, no process of enrolling in a tribe, no affirmative action, no casino profits. If you marked “indigenous” on the census with only 1/32 Quichua ancestry, people here would laugh at you.
Family in Otavalo
In Massachusetts, 90% of the indigenous population died of smallpox in the first two years of contact with the English, and more were killed in clashes. (Ecuadorans are shocked when I tell them this. Here, the Spanish valued indigenous people as slave labor rather than trying to exterminate them.) The fact is that being Native American means something very different in a country where those people were almost wiped out than where they now constitute most of the gene pool.
At the daycare where I volunteer, another American brought in some coloring sheets for the kids. They had pictures of Disney characters, including an Indian from Peter Pan, half-naked and grimacing as he aims his bow. “Look,” she told the kid who received it. “Un indio.”
I didn't want to cause a scene in front of the kids or the teacher, but I wanted to ask her, “Did you think about the fact that every one of these children is descended from indigenous people? Did you think about the fact that “indio” is an insult tossed around on the street here? Did you notice that the teacher in the next room wears her hair in a long tress? Have you observed that growling and shooting stuff are not common pastimes here? Have you observed that four-year-olds absorb every scrap of information we give them? Do you realize you're teaching them more than fine motor skills?"
In much of Asia and Africa, people carry heavy things on their heads. In Latin America women use a rebozo instead. It's a rectangle of cloth that can serve as a garment, sunshade, or carrier:
And of course, it's the classic method for carrying kids. You see a lot of kids with their parents in Quito. A lot of people can't afford daycare or stay-at-home parents, so they take their kids to work with them. You see people, especially indigenous women, selling things in the street with kids tied on their backs.
While the rebozo is traditionally hand-woven wool, modern Ecuadorian mothers favor other materials. The one above has Strawberry Shortcake characters printed on it. A lot of women just use polarfleece blankets.
Unlike US parents, who have heard about SIDS a million times and are always checking that their child is still breathing, Ecuadorian parents often cover their children entirely with a polarfleece blanket. You'll see a woman walking along with a large bundle in her rebozo, with perhaps a little foot dangling out the bottom. Ultraviolet radiation is very strong at this altitude, so the blanket is probably keeping the kid from getting burnt.
I'm pretty sure there's a kid in there
While Americans tend to buy special baby carriers, even if they're going with a simple rectangle, Ecuadoran women seem to use any convenient piece of cloth. The babies are all very chill about it.
One does see the occasional child in a stroller or a storebought baby carrier. Most young children are carried in arms, which seems inconvenient but maybe doesn't have the negative connotation of being an "indio". And while I see plenty of men carrying children, I've never seen one use a rebozo.
My five-year-old Ecuadoran host sister has some new paper dolls. She has just heard that Jeff and I met through dancing, and she wants to reenact this. Her interpretation of how people meet and shack up is fascinating.
She dresses her paper doll and commands me: "You be a boy who wants to dance with her."
I hold up some paper clothes to be a boy. They dance with her paper girl. After several dances: "Now she wants to go home, but you ask her to wait."
"Don't go home. Wait!"
"Okay. Now you have to say, 'I want to live in your house.'"
"I want to live in your house."
"Okay, let's go to my house. But there's a crocodile."
"Ahh! A crocodile! We have to jump over it."
"Okay." (The dolls jump over the crocodile.)
"Now we go home." (They go to a sofa cushion.) "Now you say, 'I want to sleep with you.'"
"What?"
"You have to say, 'I want to sleep with you.'"
"....I want to sleep with you."
"Okay. They sleep in the bed." She lays the dolls side by side and covers them with her hand. She waits silently a few seconds, then crows: "Kukuriku! It's morning."
"Good morning."
"Now you make me breakfast while I put on new clothes."
"Okay. Do you want eggs? Toast?"
"Eggs. I'm going to wear this short dress so you can see my pretty legs."
This repeated for a few sleep-and-breakfast cycles, then she staged a wedding. I don't remember it happening quite like that, especially not the crocodile.
In college I spent a semester in Denmark partly because I wanted to see what a really well-run society looks like. And it was extremely civilized: people had good free health care, good free education, pleasant public spaces. Studies consistently rank Danes the happiest people in the world. There were few rich people and few poor people. Other than the xenophobia, it was almost an ideal nation.
And Ecaudor, too, has a lot going for it. People here are mostly polite, friendly, and involved with their families. The weather and natural environment are beautiful - it possibly has the most biodiversity per square mile of any nation. It has the potential to be a really delightful tourist destination.
And yet things aren't going so well here. 10% of the country lives on less than $2 a day (adjusted - that's what $2 would buy in the US, not what it would buy here). There are thousands of street children whose parents are dead, imprisoned, deported, or who abandoned their kids. Picketing, purse-cutting, and muggings are rampant in the cities, making them unattractive to tourists. Every house has a wall around it with barbed wire or broken glass cemented at the top to stop housebreakers. Even the grocery stores have security guards. People don't trust the police much anymore since they went on strike and held the president hostage in 2010. People were looting stores and the police did nothing. Freedom of speech is not a right here - people have gone to prison for criticizing the president. Bus accidents are more common here partly because mechanics will rent functioning parts to bus companies so they can pass inspection - then they take them back and reinstall the faulty parts. Firefighters don't always have functioning equipment, and recently there was a case when firefighters refused to show up to a fire. If you go to a lawyer, many will ask "how much help" you want - i.e. if you just want their legal services, or if you will also pay them enough to pay off the judge. Bribing the police is also common.
It makes me realize what difference a well-functioning government makes. It makes me think charter cities are a pretty good idea. Not that Ecuador is a failed state - it does have a decent level of functioning, just not as good as I was hoping for.
The other night we walked in a charming colonial street where families stroll, eating pastries and listening to traditional musicians. A girl with a dirty face, about seven years old, walked up and down begging for money to buy bread. (To be fair, at one point she was doing this with her mouth full of chicken kebab, which made it less convincing.) Eventually she tired of the routine and began playing with pieces of a broken bottle.
I left the street sobbing, furious with the adults and the systems that had abandoned her. The US foster care system is flawed, but at least we have an option other than the street. At 10 pm that girl should be in bed. She should be going to school in the morning. She should have parents who don't let her play with broken glass.
I kind of knew this is what I would see. I wanted to see a developing country to know how most of the world lives. And a lot of it is horrible. Which is why I want to change it.
Today our Spanish teacher told us that one problem in Ecuador is that people steal babies from hospitals.
"Steal?" we repeated.
"It happened to my uncle," she said. "His wife gave birth in the hospital, and she fed the baby for the first time. Then a nurse took the baby away and it disappeared. They looked for it, but it was a newborn and she didn't remember if it had a birthmark or something. They never found it."
"Why do people steal babies?"
"There are women who can't have their own babies who steal other people's. Also, there are North Americans who will pay a lot of money for a baby. So people steal babies for them."
"I knew that happened in Guatemala, but..."
"It happens more in Guatemala, but it happens here too."
I think adoption can be a very good thing in some situations. But this is one more reason why we need reforms.
I keep thinking that it was a bit silly for me to have traveled in Europe in college when Quito has so many of the things I enjoyed there, and for much lower prices. For example, in Copenhagen I ate Danish pastries maybe once a month because I couldn't bear to cough up $4 for a snack. Here I buy fresh pastries every day because they cost 60 cents.
Here's a comparison of my experience of Quito with the European cities I spent time in (Copenhagen, London, Paris, Barcelona, Amsterdam). I understand Buenos Aires is the most "European" city in Latin America, but I've never been there.
Advantage Europe:
less crime
better food for a larger budget
less air pollution
probably better for obviously gay people
no altitude sickness
more and better art
Advantage Quito:
better food for a smaller budget
hiking / birdwatching / rafting / ziplining
landscape (misty Andes, cloud forest nearby)
lower prices on everything
cheaper to fly to (our tickets cost $600 round trip)
I'm practicing a language that's useful in the US (unlike Danish)
plants and animals (ideal climate for orchids, roses, hummingbirds)
Similar:
Streets with charming old architecture
Sexual harassment (I get shouted at here about as much as in France and Spain, less than in London or Copenhagen)
Lots of old churches
Cute children (somehow foreign children are always cuter)
Last night, after over a week in Ecuador, Jeff and I ventured out at night for the first time. Destination: an Irish pub we had seen posters for, located in the hip neighborhood a few blocks from our homestay. This was exciting because:
-It was our first time out without sunscreen and hats. With not much air between you and outer space, sunburn is a big deal in the Andes.
-We don't usually live within walking distance of a hip neighborhood.
However, we forgot some key facts:
-Walking distance does not mean walkable: everyone we knew told us to take a cab if we didn't want to get robbed on the way there.
-Said Irish pub was actually a bar, complete with deafening music (and not of the variety played by old men in flat caps.)
- Jeff doesn't drink, and I only like drinking with people I trust. A bar full of strangers speaking a foreign language in a city where two people had already tried to rob us was pretty much the worst place for me to enjoy a beer.
- We're terrible at small talk and meeting people.
- We're cheapskates.
We ended up walking to the bar, pausing at every corner to debate which street was least likely to get us mugged. We spent about two minutes in the bar before agreeing to leave. We got hot chocolate instead at a shop where the waitress locked us out on the patio. Then we walked home, hearts pounding.
Maybe we just need to acknowledge we're not nocturnal creatures. At least not here.
- Polarfleece. Wool used to be big here (this is the land of the alpaca, after all) but now blankets, jackets, pullovers, and hats are almost all polarfleece.
- Theft. This week two different people tried and failed to rob us. Normally wearing your backpack on your front makes you look like a tourist, but here even locals do it to avoid cutpurses and pickpockets.
- Meat. I was expecting more bean-based dishes, but people eat chicken or beef at almost every meal.
- Pantyhose. Most women wear pants, since it's always in the 50s and 60s, but older indigenous women usually wear knee-length skirts with knee socks or pantyhose.
- Stretch velour. Younger indigenous women favor white blouses and ankle-length stretch velour skirts.
- Soup. Every lunch and dinner starts with soup.
- Shoeshines stands. I don't think this is because so many people want their shoes shined, but because it's a low-cost business to operate for people who don't have better options. Likewise people selling candy or oranges on the street.
- Disney Princesses. Vendors who sell reading material on the street invariably have a couple of princess-themed coloring books. Disney On Ice is coming to Quito next month, and my five-year-old host sister is very psyched.
- Blackberries. Blackberry is the favorite flavor for juice and ice cream here, though it tastes different than blackberry at home.
- Nuns. Way more nuns here than in Boston. Or maybe Boston nuns are just less likely to wear habits.
- Breastfeeding in public.
Jeff and I have arrived in Quito, Ecuador for several weeks of studying Spanish.
There are police visible here, more heavily armed than in the US, but they seem to take a more casual role. The first day we saw a police officer in serious body armor patrolling a playground, crouching at the bottom of a big slide and urging children to slide down it. Yesterday at the botanical garden we saw a gaggle of smiling cops gathered around a booth at the plant sale, buying cacti. (I assume the cacti were purchased out of horticultural interest, not for some interrogation technique.)
Abortion is illegal here. Luckily, this sign lets you know you can procure "safe abortions" by calling the number! Great to know the black market has folks covered when it comes to medical procedures!
juliawise07(at)gmail.com