Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 9 - Bananas, Plantains, Chifles, Maduro...

In William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, there is a reoccurring reference to bananas, which are at once exotic yet obtainable in 1930s America.  This is what I remember waltzing into any restaurant in Ecuador.  Plantains in Ecuador are like potatoes in America.  We do our taters fried, mashed, baked, as hash browns, as french fries, etc.  They do their plantains mashed, sweetened, with cheese, as chips, as breading, etc.

Starchy, sweet, mushy, or crunchy: plantains are a staple of the Ecuadorian diet and one of the things I'll miss most in Ecuador.  For the uninitiated, a glossary - abbreviated - of plantains.

• Chifles - shaved, fried plantain chips.  Good with ceviche.
• Patacones - flattened but still thick, fried plantain disks.  Eat them with sauce, with cheese, pile food on top, etc.
• Maduro - very ripe plantain.  Baked or fried and served with rice and beans.
• Verde - under ripe, firm, starchy plantain.  Used for tortillas, empanadas, bolon, corviche, and breading on fried meats.  (deserves a subcategory all its own)
• Guineo - what we call "banana"  

Later this week, I'll be posting photos of my baking attempts.  Until then, I strongly recommend you check out http://laylita.com/recipes/ for other Ecuadorian cuisine.  

Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 8 - The House Gecko

It stalks its prey in the darkness of night.  Its beady eyes shining across the room.  "Cheep, cheep, cheep," it peeps, scurrying from beneath the frame of calla lilies on the wall.  It's on the prowl for any trespassers, and I welcome it's appetite.  ........He's the house gecko!

No, as my dad lamely joked, he does not offer any other types of insurance, but it serves its pest-patrol purpose well and is usually quite tidy about it.  Plus they are tiny and adorable and sort of pink-colored.

Unfortunately, being that they are nocturnal, I don't have any photos.  In lieu of the house gecko, please accept this photo of it's Amazonian brethren, a bigger, well-fed fellow that was visible by candlelight.  

As you can see, they prefer corners and stay close to the ceilings.  This is fun when you have to clean their poops.

A version of these friendly reptiles has been introduced to my home state.  The reason?  To keep grillos and cucarachas at bay in my college town.  Maybe I won't have to miss the house gecko after all.  That is, if they ever migrate past the campus.

Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 7 - Deliveries

Stateside there has been a lot of press recently surrounding Burger King's roll out of delivery service in select cities.  I don't want to encourage the "fat American" stereotype, but um....exciiiiting! 

When I first vacationed in Mexico several years ago, many cities were amazingly walkable thanks to Spanish colonial design.  Delivery service played an important role in this.  As I cruised the plazas and peatonals, dirt bikes and scooters whizzed pass, touting delivery service for every food and convenience imaginable.  It was not that these companies encouraged lazy living.  On the contrary, many people walked everywhere and many did not own cars.  The deliveries had developed as a way to bring food and services to these people. 

Fast forward a few years, and I'm living in Ecuador.  Delivery services are not only by car or motorbike.  They are also by bike, cart, and foot.  Some companies specialize only in delivery.  You tell the service what you want picked up, and they arrange to deliver it to you for a fee.

America Norte has yet to understand the awesome abilities of delivery services and the important role they can play in cities which want to encourage more pedestrian activity, fewer carbon emissions, or just greater help to the elderly and disabled.  Hail to the delivery service!

Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 6 - Surfing

His arms waved in big circles as he walked around the house.  "What are you doing?" I asked.  "I'm just mind surfing," he responded.  I laughed.
 
That was months ago.  Now, back in the wind and cold of the United States, I'm laying belly down on the cold garage floor after a run, practicing cobra pose and yes, wheeling my arms through the air.  I give one more paddle to catch up with the wave, then pop up and check my stance.  I don't have a board underfoot, but I'm pretty sure it's a good pop-up.  I imagine I ride my wave in close to the shore, now almost in warrior pose, keeping my arms out for balance.  When I think I've stood there long enough, I stand up again (mountain pose), take a deep breath (or maybe it's a sigh), and go indoors. 

Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 5 - Glass Bottle Cokes

I once had friends, logical and rational friends, who would swear to me that glass bottle Coke was the best type of Coke, and that, in fact, glass bottle beverages of all types were inherently more delicious. Their reasoning was inexplicable and seemed to toe the line of delusions such as "the yellow m&ms taste more lemony and the brown ones taste more chocolatey."   My response was always bemused.



Now in Ecuador, glass bottles are the preference, and something about these mystical bottles has pulled me in.  Is it the instant relief they provide from the equatorial sun?  The novelty of drinking out of a glass bottle?  The convenience store community of glass bottle drinkers?

After hours of taste tests and contemplation, I've come no closer to understanding the mysteries.  I have instead hatched numerous plans for bringing glass bottles back to America Norte  - my most elaborate being a "Coke for America" campaign that knows no bounds.  For those with a belief in the power of social networking and common sense approach to change - or just a belief in glass bottle Cokes - you can sign the petition to get Coca-Cola back in glass bottles.

Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 4 - Fireworks

As I watched this week's fireworks display from my living room window, I thought of the Ecuadorian flag.  The frequency of fireworks in my neighborhood alone is enough to honorarily re-purpose the yellow, red, and blue of the flag into the tri-color of a burning flame.  This nation is a nation of pyrotechnics.  Birthdays, holidays, and festivals all require explosives.  While my weekly fireworks shows are probably the result of birthdays (always a big to-do here), the most famous displays in Ecuador occur during January. 

In the weeks leading up to New Year's Eve, cartoon characters, political figures, and celebrities mingle in the streets as papier-mâché figures known as año viejos.  They can be as small as a kleenex box or as large as a house. Businesses keep small change jars, and customers contribute money for fireworks.




Then on New Year's Eve, these "old years" are strapped to cars and buses, driven around the city, and finally toasted and exploded in bacchanalian 
fiestas across the nation.  It's similar to Las Fallas in Spain, but without a lot of safety precautions.  This year, I'm saying good-bye to the old year by leaving Ecuador, but this is one tradition I hope to take with me. 

Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 3 - Dollar Coins

In the States, I used to hate dollar coins.  They were either:

1. Given as tips by old people who thought they were novel
2. Refused as a legitimate currency at vending machines
3. Less flat and easy to shove in your pocket or wallet

Back then, I preferred twenties.  Of course, now that I live in Ecuador, land of the fifty cent coke, the eighty cent popsicle, and the $1.00 pound of peaches, I covet Sacajaweas.  Ecuador switched from the Sucre to U.S. dollars in the 2000s to have a more stable currency.  It's awesome for travelers from the States, except for one thing:  Twenty dollar bills have become a liability. It's difficult to break them.  So, you carry only fives, and you hoard your dollar coins, refusing to make change even for friends. 

You may be wondering, "Won't these be in the States when you return?  What's all the fuss about?"  Unfortunately, as NPR reported in June, dollar coins are costly to make, rarely used and, therefore, soon to be discontinued in the States.

Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 2 - Being "The Miss"

"Meess!"  I hear from across the room.  "Xavier is molesting me!"  It's times like these when I realize the importance of being an ESL teacher.  "Then tell Xavier to stop bothering you," I correct.  In honor of my students, the things they have taught me, the way they have made me laugh, and even the way they have driven me up the wall:  a few moments of mistranslations. 

• "Miss, I need a SHEET! ...of paper!"  (trying to say "shit")
• "I want world piss."  (peace)  
• "My vactions fucked."  (sucked)  
• "Do you have a buff?"  (BFF)
• "Can I eat chips today, pleeeeeassee?  I'm so angry."  (hungry)
• "What does swayga mean?"  (swagger, or swaggah a la M.I.A.)
• "Miss, feel my squares."  (a six-pack, cuadras in Spanish) 
• "It's a poopy!!"  (puppy)
• "I need to have a sangria!" (indenting your paragraph in Spanish)

A few of my students during World Culture Week.  Please note the ninth grade Hitler.*



*The student meant no offense by this costume.  They are encouraged to include famous historical figures in their presentations.  Maybe Einstein would have been a better choice though.

Good Bye, Ecuador! Two Weeks of Things I'll Miss: Day 1 - The Musical Garbage Truck

I'm leaving Ecuador in February :(  Over the next fifteen days, I'll be posting my scrapbook of things I'll miss in Ecuador.  Here's number one:

I love thoughtful incentives for social change, hence, the musical garbage truck:  a Pavlovian reminder to set the trash out at appropriate hours.  No rats, no litter, happy streets, random dance-offs.

Chicle

It’s 10:00 on a Friday night in Las Peñas, Guayaquil’s infamous bar-hopping spot.  Across from me is a gold-encrusted fairy godmother from the “art of the human statue” fund.  I watch as someone places money in her bucket, and she waves her wand over their head and stiffly dances.  I don’t have any change, but I could really use some of her magic right now.  My taxi has gone, my phone has suddenly stopped working, and my friends aren’t at the right meeting place.  It’s an all-night bar hop going sour.  I want to leave, but I wait a little longer.
While sitting, I’m approached by a small girl carrying two packs of gum.  She is so tiny she can only hold one pack in each hand.  “Chicle?” she asks softly.  There is no sales pitch, no cute act.  I know she is talking to me because she treats one pack of gum more like a matchbox car that she rolls along the edge of my park bench.  “No, gracias,” I say, in the voice you use for children this small.  She does not seem to notice my answer.  She continues to wheel the gum around like a car.
I’m relieved she is playing.  I look up quickly searching for the person who’s waiting with the other packs of gum.  “No one sends a child this small out on her own,” I reassure myself, but no one meets my eyes.  “There is nothing I could do anyways,” I think.   It’s another line I recite to myself, just like I recite “No, gracias” to street-working children.  I have learned to have prepared responses.  Then, I won’t have to feel the full shock of each experience over and over again.
Of course, each experience begins to run through my mind as the minutes tick by and my friends are still missing.   The little girl rolls her gum-car in front of me, and I see the hands of another child playing across the window of an open-air restaurant in Mexico two years earlier.  A little boy had stopped to entertain the dining tourists.  His mannerisms were puckish as he played out a little scene with a friend for my amusement.  I dropped my guard.  Instead of shooing him away, I watched his act.  As he stood at the window grinning, I gave him some food, then some more.  He stayed silent, waiting for more.  When dessert came, he reached across the table and grabbed for the plate.  For a moment I was disgusted, then ashamed.  “What had I taught him?” kept flashing across my mind.
“What am I teaching this little girl?” I ask myself.  Since the incident in Mexico, I’ve had an education.  In Ecuador, my friends work for foundations.  They say decisively that children cannot make money or receive food, or they’ll always be on the streets.  Admiring such a confident answer, I do what they say, but there are always obstacles to following the rule.  This is how I feel with the little girl now.  She is too young to learn this lesson, I think.
She does not have the tricks of the kids who have worked on the streets for a long time.  They have gimmicks.  They have street personas.  They understand who to hassle and who to avoid.  Young children like the vendedorita don’t have these skills.  At times, I’m unable to rationalize saying no.  Each time the children walk away, it is like dogs retreating with their tails between their legs.  They don’t understand the disgust behind each refusal they receive.  The little girl is not acting this way, but I worry that the memory of each “no” she experiences will be harder.  My heart is torn.  Should I have said “yes” tonight?
Before I can think it over, my friends arrive.  The little gum-seller doesn’t even notice our group of gringos, an amazing sales opportunity.  My friends don’t seem to notice her either.  As we walk away, I’m equal parts sad and grateful she is too distracted.  I do not have any change to give her anyways.  I can postpone a difficult decision for another day.

The Perils of Photographing Monkeys

I mentioned earlier in the week that I saw a lot of monkeys in Cuyabeno National Park.  Something I failed to mention was that my lack of photos was mostly due to the fact that photographing monkeys is probably a lot like photographing some celebrities.  Monkey are high maintenance.  They need zoom lenses, the right setting, good lighting, crazy shutter speeds, and soothing noises.  They need freedom and maybe a good snack spread. 

Most of my monkey photos lacked these things.  They look something like this:

"Hey there blurry monkey.  In my hurry to photograph you, I didn't realize that I practically bokeh-ed you out of the photo.  Now you look like someone's house cat.  Maybe the close-up of the leaf will be enough to confirm that this was, in fact, set in the rain forest."


Unfortunately, compared to my other photos, that one looks like something out of National Geographic.  The majority look more like this: 

There once was a pair of two monkeys sitting here kind of cutesy-like with their tails hanging down.  Then they fled like a thief in the night.  In between photos of caterpillars and tree frogs, I have long series of these.  Everything else about these photos is so focused, well-lit, or well-framed that I honestly had to spend time thinking about why I had so many photos of leaves.  Then I realized what they were.  They are now called the Pointless Tree photos. 

Of course, none of these unsuccessful monkey photos are even that upsetting until you consider this:   On the day of our departure my camera batteries died.  It was the same day that a family of 20 or so monkeys crossed RIGHT OVER OUR BOAT.  Even the tiny local baby on board pointed and said, "monos, monos!"  I just sighed.  I contemplated asking the guide to sift through my suitcase for my camera.  Maybe there was still a tiny bit of juice left in those batteries.  I knew there wasn't.  I cursed myself for trying to photograph the bats in our bathroom the night before.  I tried to tell myself that I was really just enjoying the moment.  I didn't have a shutter speed to worry about; I was just experiencing pure, unadulterated monkey observation.  It was lies.  I'm bitter.  I wanted that cool monkey shot.

If ever you are in the forest, know that if you bring anything less than a $700.00 camera, the little monks will elude you time and again.    But also know that you will be in Ecuador, and you will have so many photo-worthy opportunities that a $700.00 camera will be worth it.  If on these same travels you should see someone near the side of the road selling shirts that say, "Monkeys:  so badass pink river dolphins are just okay next to them," buy one.  It's my business.  I'm saving up for a $700.00 camera and another trip to the rain forest. 

“One’s destination is never a place.....

....but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

One of the best parts of my visit to Cuyabeno National Park was getting to meet people who had traveled all over the world just to visit or live in the Amazon.  Traveling in groups has a weird way of creating community among strangers; it is easy to find yourself in conversations you would normally only have with good friends at home.

On the second or third day of our trip, my travel group had visited the Siona people.  That evening's topic of conversation had kept coming back to whether these people were living like "true" natives.  Yes, it sounds disgusting.  We all knew it did.  Everyone agreed that you couldn't deny these people the right to modernize, yet there was a surprising distaste in everyone's mouth.  No one wanted to be spectators in a human zoo.  Still, the question kept popping up from different mouths as if by accident, "Why did we visit them if they weren't really all that native?"

I can't say that I was expecting anything different from what we had seen that day, but I have lived here longer.  I understood the others' disappointment though.  I had had it before.  I think their question was not posed well.  I think on some level what we really wondering about was whether there was anyone in existence who was truly untouched by modern conveniences.

It was later that night while sitting beneath the candlelight at the dinner tables, barraged by cicadas, that we found our answer.  Years earlier our guide had lived with a tribe called the Waorani.  When he heard our dilemma, he spoke up.  Everyone wants a better life, he said, yet our desire to improve our lives and the lives of others is something that should be controlled.  His answer surprised me.  People wanting to help other people was a problem?  Wasn't that the definition of humanity?  I thought it over as he talked.

During the months that our guide had lived with the Waorani, he was completing research for his thesis.  He had gone to learn about the oil companies' effect on the Waorani lifestyle.  Ethically, he could not do anything more.  When the Waorani people wanted to learn from his research, he had to reject them.  It forever changed his relationship with the community.  However, if he had helped the Waorani, he could not have predicted what would have happened next.  Their environment was unstable.  The desires of the people would change.  They could be taken advantage of.  He could not predict the dangers that might come, so he did nothing. 

"How could he have the strength to do this?" I thought, "How could one person deny the urge to help another and feel confident that they had done the right thing?"  At the same time, I had a strong trust in my guide's beliefs.  He had a respect for the tribes that I had not seen before.  Even as he disliked denying anyone help, his conviction and logic suggested that he had not made his Waorani decision lightly.  The experience left me with new things to think about.  Did the tribe need the modern conveniences?  Were we denying them basic human rights?  Or was it wrong to believe that the most important priority on earth was prolonging human life at any cost?  

We had spent all day feeling wrong for expecting more "nativeness" from the Sionas than we had gotten, yet those people had lost their ability to survive without tourism and government support.  In some ways, they were worse off than they had been before.  In other ways, their lives were better.  Their future seemed so delicate.  Recent years had brought so much change for them.  The slightest shift in power, a sudden drop in tourism, and their livelihood would be in serious jeopardy.  Yet the Waorani, though more secluded, were just as prone to this same problem.  My tour group and I were a necessary evil.  Like our guide, we would never be sure whether our actions were the right help at the right time or just another good effort with a bad outcome.  As our chat wound down, we sat quietly and watched the moths burn in the candle light.  We slowly drifted to bed without reaching any conclusions.  We didn't bring up the topic again, but two mornings later, as we filled out our departure survey, no one ranked the Siona visit as their least favorite activity.  Perhaps the trip had changed us.

My First Trip to the Amazon!

When I was in the fourth grade, I had an amazing teacher.  As a teacher now, I think back on her classes, and I'm always impressed by how much she impacted my life.  She was the first person to teach me about simple machines, my state's history, the middle ages, and, of course, the rain forest.  And now, over a decade later, I've made it to the Amazon!

On Monday the 29th, as my motorboat sped for two hours down the Amazon, I couldn't believe my own luck.  I whispered little thank yous to my teacher as a toucan's notorious beak caught my eye just before it soared into the trees.  I remembered having spelling tests over drip tips and bromeliads as I noticed different ferns and orchids from the boat.

I was traveling into Cuyabeno National Park, the second largest in Ecuador.  One of my guides told me that Cuyabeno has twice as many opportunities to see wildlife asYasuní National Park, which has gained more publicity and tourists due to its oil-fields and law suits.  Maybe it's a testament to how much I fell in love with the area, but after four days there, I believed him.  Among the things we saw were monkeys (at least four types), bats, birds (too many types to remember), white and red piranha, caiman, snakes, turtles, river dolphin, tarantulas, frogs, assorted insects and fish, peacock bass, an enormous arowana, and a gecko. That doesn't include the flora, like the Ceibos trees, a type of palo santo tree, sangre de drago, and some honeysuckle-like plants that I kept referring to as "chupitas de miel."  I couldn't possibly sum everything up in one blog post, so I'll stop here and start the photos.  Thank you to Cuayabeno National Park, the Siona tribe, Jamu Lodge (highly recommended), my assorted travel partners, and, of course, my fourth grade teacher!   

swimming and sunsets on Laguna Grande

piranha fishing

 hiking on the Tapir trail

almond-scented centipede

Monkeys!

"­¡Qué chévereee!"

People-watching

People-watching is a favorite activity of mine, odd behavior is a specialty, and odd behavior bordering on the philanthropic is even more amazing.  For example, once in Spain, I turned a corner down a disturbingly dark alley only to hear "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" coming from the depths. As I crossed the shadows and cobble stones, what I found was even more surprising: a man with a ukelele had rigged strings to his fingers and arms so that his music was accompanied by a tiny mannequin with his own tiny ukelele.  It was hokey, but unexpected.   A pleasant surprise after a day getting lost in the city.

In Guayaquil last week, I was a little angered with a car that had stopped suddenly in a busy crosswalk as pedestrians were trying to rush through.  "Typical Guayaco driver," I thought as everyone had sped up to avoid getting hit. But, as I looked back to give the driver an angry look, a tiny, old nun stepped out of the car with a large, plastic bag.  She reached the pedestrian island, scooped into her bag, and rained cat food down on the pigeons in the vegetation.  The nun smiled with delight, watched a moment as the pigeon's ate, then hobbled back to the car. It was over as quickly as it had begun.  She drove off and everything went back to normal, all just a part of the daily routine.

Virgencita, Help me

I don't offer a lot of glimpses into the minds of my students here, but this time I'm making an exception.  My kids handed in their final notebooks last week, and there is a particular brand of notebooks they have that cracks me up.  Here's a sampling of some of the messages the children tried to stick in my head before I gave them their final grades:

"Ave Maria, give me a shot."  I especially like the worried face next to it.

"Little Virgin, I swear that I studied but give me a hand."

One that I somehow failed to photograph offered a rubric of ways to grade the student.  The options included:  buena, buenissima, and buenisisisisisisima.  There's more of the less religious/grade-concerned types below.  Apologies for quality as they were taken with my webcam while I was at school.

An included folder/bed complete with sheep and pillows.  "The 5-star hotel for your loose papers"  The chameleon says things about the types of papers that may rest there.

"Official lunch planner"

This notebook says such wonderful things about school as: "Lunch is the best moment of the day!"  Beneath this is a menu suggesting various comidas tipicas for the student: "Monday:  cheese empanada with sugar, Tuesday:  salchipapa (french fries and hot dog bits) with mayonnaise, ketchup, and cola, etc., etc."

They're super-cute, spunky, and quirky, a little snapshot into the "verdadera bombacitas" in my classes.  And, yes, the ninth-grade girl inside me wants a few. 

Vacation Accomplished

Four to five meter-high waves greeted any beach-goers during the 10 de agosto holiday weekend, and as always, I forgot my camera to record it.  Amidst whale-watching, sun-drenched private beaches, amazing seafood, and a tiny little earthquake on Sunday, there is a lot to record in Ecuador...if you can remember your camera.  Unfortunately, all I've got is my words, and if there's one thing I learned from reading "Moby Dick," it's that reading about whales is way uncool.  Seeing them in person, however, is amazing, and I highly recommend it.  And, hey, if you've got $6,000.00 or so to spend on a vacation, might I recommend building your own beach home in Puerto Lopez?  Yes, that's a real price for beach property.  Yes, you should retire here.  Or maybe with all these recessions in the first world, Ecuador should have a new slogan for tourists:  "Why not live here?"

I need a vacation

When you're practically traveling for a living, it might seem selfish to say this, but I need a vacation.  My school, which typically has a 10 to 12 week bimester, is now running on week 13 of a 14 week bimester.  The students are used to being on vacation by now, and they seem ready to burst.  As they have been fond of reminding me this week, it is like "everyday I'm shuffling."  In between reminders to sit, stop singing, and talk in an inside voice, my inside voice is praying for the weekend.  Until then, I'll be dreaming of things like this:

If it were my home...

I just heard about the amazing website If It Were My Home.  For anyone who has ever lived abroad, this is the perfect website to email to friends and family members when they ask what it's like to live in a developing or third world country.  If you're like me, your stories never seem to have the same impact that they have on you.  Numbers are harder to argue with.

If I tell you that the average person in Ecuador makes $7,000.00 a year, and then I tell you that a dvd costs between thirteen and eighteen dollars here, then suddenly you understand why there's an industry for fifty cent pirated dvds.  While these numbers don't cover everything, it's an inventive way to see the world with new eyes. 

Día del Niño

Last week, Ecuador celebrated Día del Niño.  It's a day set aside to honor children, much like Father's Day or Mother's Day in the United States.  In Ecuador, children receive gifts from their families.  Most schools have special events or take a half-day off.  While it may seem strange to first-world people, it's an important holiday to celebrate here.  Many parents are not able to take care of their children the way they would like to.  Their kids have jobs or take care of brothers and sisters while mom and dad are gone all day.  Many poor children do not go to school, or if they do, they may not attend regularly.  For these reasons and more, Día del Niño is a day to honor children for their contributions.

The impact of this holiday wasn't obvious to me at first.  I work at a school where most students own several Blackberries and parents regularly beg their little ones out of tough situations.  These kids seemed pampered enough.  The reality of the holiday became obvious to me over the weekend.  While some children played with new Power Wheels and bicycles in the park, others were out selling flowers and candy to make a living.  On Saturday night, while I was out drinking with some friends, a young girl stopped at our table to sale roses.  Everyone saw her coming, and we all seemed to be uncomfortably preparing ourselves for the moment when she would finally reached our table.  Then the worst thing happened.  One of my friends said cheerfully, "Oh, hi Maria!" (not her real name). The demeanor at our table changed immediately.  No one had wanted this child to have a name or to be memorable, but suddenly we had no choice. 

This is because my friend works for an organization that assists families in need.  Her job is to give working children a break.  We all knew that some of the children were found while they were working on the streets, but we had never realized that she might run into them while she was out celebrating the weekend. I was amazed at how collected she was while she talked to Maria.

In the face of all this, I began to understand the importance of acting like my friend did.  She set aside a moment to face the problem, then moved on with the evening.  At a time when I have spent too many afternoons feeling helpless in the face of such enormous problems, it suddenly made sense to me.  No, setting aside one day to break the mammoth into smaller pieces doesn't immediately solve anything for Maria.  However, it does bring the situation out of the "What can I possibly do?" paralysis.  While living in a country surrounded by economic and social hardships, sometimes that is enough.

*Edit:  This week while reading U.S. news, I stumbled across the following excerpt from a piece submitted by Jonathan Franzen to the New York Times.  I think it sums up the difficulties one person faces in trying to grapple with social change far better than I could explain it:

"...My anger and pain and despair about the planet were only increased by my concern for wild birds, and yet, as I began to get involved in bird conservation and learned more about the many threats that birds face, it became easier, not harder, to live with my anger and despair and pain.

How does this happen? I think, for one thing, that my love of birds became a portal to an important, less self-centered part of myself that I’d never even known existed. Instead of continuing to drift forward through my life as a global citizen, liking and disliking and withholding my commitment for some later date, I was forced to confront a self that I had to either straight-up accept or flat-out reject...
When you stay in your room and rage or sneer or shrug your shoulders, as I did for many years, the world and its problems are impossibly daunting. But when you go out and put yourself in real relation to real people, or even just real animals, there’s a very real danger that you might love some of them.

And who knows what might happen to you then? "

Finals Week / Grunge Lives On

The past few weeks have been full of the Southern Hemisphere School Time Blues:  grading papers, filling out paperwork, telling students they are failing, and reading all of your Northern Hemisphere friends' Facebook posts about the glorious end of their August to May school year.  It's not all bad, of course, but it is exhausing!  One of the few things I have to look forward to after these long days is a calm jog in the park.  The weather is finally cooling down here, the sun stays hidden behind the clouds, and there is a breeze after five o' clock.  It's perfect for attempts to improve your distance running.

In the middle of last week's jog, I'm celebrating all of these things when I hear a guitar banging from across the park.  "Raaaape meeeee!  Raaaape meeeee!  Raaaaaaape meeeee!" blares out from the cement music dome a quarter kilometer away.  I imagine I hear the hard thud of several iguanas falling from their trees in shock.

What is this delightful chorus?  Just another Ecuadorian teenage band playing all of the hits from the '90s.  I'm not sure whether this could be considered a cultural phenomenon or not, but you know how all of those high school kids fell in love with Weezer a generation after "Buddy Holly"?  It's like that.  You can't go to any rock club or concert here without hearing some cover of Nirvana's "Rape Me" or  Radiohead's "Creep."  Sure, some people branch out to include some "Black Hole Sun" in their repertoire, but it's a novel concept.  

Why?  I don't have any answers to that question; I only find it worth documenting.  After a long day of listening to my students' love for Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, I also find it strangely endearing that  there are still some kids out there who think "Pablo Honey" is a modern classic.  Maybe MTV played a role in its resurgence, but for now I'm going to enjoy my ignorance of that.  Rock on, music dome screamers.  May your parents never know the true meaning of "rape me."