Things Lost

Black Sweater
2 Cell phones
2 purses
wallet-license, school i.d., debit card
1 contact
camera
2 memory cards
ipod
house key
ring
bra

typical/home stretch

I can´t wait

-for mom´s cooking
-to not be sick all the time
-to reunite with family and friends
-to get my contacts
-to use soft toilet paper
-to eat what I want, when I want

Typical Ecua

-Picking your nose in public
-Staring shamelessly
-Falling on top of someone on the bus/pushing someone on the bus and not saying excuse me or anything
-Mande, Chuchaqui, Full

Ecua things that I really like

-Breast feeding in public and also artwork of mary breastfeeding baby Jesus
-$ .30 water


I know i´m gonna have culture shock when I get back. When I think about doing things in the states ( shopping, appointments, etc. ) I imagine my conversations in Spanish first and then sort of go ¨oh wait...¨

Home stretch. I gotta get my travel on. I´ve been to a lot of places that I have yet to write about. Stay tuned? or maybe it´ll have to wait until I get back.

Muñecas y Machismo

So it´s been a while since my last post. I´ve been having a blast and I´ve done lots of things worth telling but this post is dedicated to one thing...

YO NO SOY UNA MUÑECA.

No soy tu juguete.

No soy un objeto sexual.

One thing I´m looking forward to about being back in the states is being able to walk down the street without being called to like a dog. pss pss pss. I knew about the machismo ahead of time but seriously...I didn´t think it was this bad. And the things they told us in orientation are not helpful. In terms of safety in general they told us to sit close to the driver on the buses and to be friendly and get to know the guards in the neighborhood cause they´ll look out for you. Except that doesn´t work so well when those are the people making you uncomfortable and making you feel vulnerable/unsafe. Can you imagine a GUARD with gun and nightstick hitting on you on the street. I have no power in that situation, or at least I feel powerless. I have no options of saying or doing anything. I am in HIS space and he has the control and the power to do and say whatever he wants. His space being any public space. They also told us in orientation not to say anything to these machista guys because they will think we want to flirt or something. Which may be true, but it is still not right to tell a group of women to shut up and take it. I feel now that I can say something if I want but still have the fear of the consequences. Although, a friend told me a way to respond that I love ¨¿Se pinchó una goma?¨ so I´m looking forward to using that one day. Also, a girl in my gender and society class complained about a guard talking to her that way and he got fired. That´s power and I am so proud of her. muñeca is definitely the one that bothers me the most. I am a human being! not an inanimate object. I feel the need to avoid eye contact with men on the street, in buses, etc. and uncomfortable if someone even says buenos dias to me. I also feel like after 4 and a half months of this and having to stay silent every time I will be inclined to respond every time it happens in the states.

Identity is so ...here. Identity is important in the states and everywhere but it just feels so much stronger here. What it means to be a white woman here, what it means to be a black woman here, what it means to be a black man here, white man, indigenous, rich, mestizo, homosexual. My experience with sexual harassment, though valid, feels almost insignificant in comparison with the daily lives of women of color.
I am just thankful that I´ve met nice ecuadorian men here so I don´t leave thinking they´re all pigs. I´m also thankful I have extranjero friends who understand. And that I have some great ecua feminists in my gender and society class.

oh, Quito

Today marks 2 months in South America.

Quito is crazy. I think there are about 2 million people that live here which is worth noting. I feel like I have a love/hate relationship with the city. Its really beautiful but also really polluted. I went to the park again today. First time since the mugging. Thought I was good cause this time I went with an Ecuadorian but not exactly. It was so bizarre. We were leaving the park, no scratch that, we left the park, we were walking on the street that borders it and this guy, I dont even know what he said but it was something like, just give me a dollar and nothing will happen. so my friend gave him the dollar and he friggin says Todo bien ñaño. I couldnt believe it. How you gonna rob someone, granted only a dollar, and then call them brother. ñaño is a word only from ecuador that means brother. todo bien = all good. It was strange too cause I knew it was going to happen but I only knew because my friend knew. When he started walking fast I was just like...here we go. man oh man. I dont think Ill be going back to Carolina. Although, I do still want to go to the botanical garden and maybe the science museum..

last weekend was sweet. (ya know, minus the whole earthquake tsunami thing)
Friday I went to a karoke which was alright.
Saturday I went to Otavalo, which is the city that has this huge indigenous market. I bought a bunch of stuff. I want to go back though. I hear there is this amazing pie spot.
Sunday I went to have lunch with Patricia, the friend of a woman who works with my dad. her house was crazy. it was like out of a movie gorgeous. later I went to my first futbol game. bought a shirt that I kindof just bought cause the vender convinced me but i was really glad i got it afterword. its pretty sweet. also my team won which is especially great cause theyve been playing badly. it was great and I cant wait to go to another one.

this weekend Im hoping to go to Baños which is a place not too far that everyone raves about.

vamos a ver

El Oriente y la Costa

(Just for the record, I somehow didn´t see comments from my sicky post on jan 16. so I´ve responded if you want to check it out.)

Finally left Quito!!

Carnaval weekend:

Went to a place called Sucua which is in the province of Morona Santiago. About a 7 or 8 hour bus ride from Quito. Stayed in a hotel for $7 a night. Went with a group of 10 including myself. 9 gringos 1 ecuadorian. Went to two different rivers, hiked a crazy mountain, saw something in the tarantula family that was poisonous and blue, met an amazing ecuadorian family, ate some traditional indigenous food that I can´t remember the name, a club in the neighboring town where my friend was randomly given a free bottle of tequila from the dj or something-maybe he liked her dancing, water fights in the street with little ones, water fights in the river, getting bombarded with water balloons as we drove by sitting in the back of a truck (perfect targets), getting bombarded with smelly spoiled things as we drove by sitting in the back of a truck. Fun fun minus the smelly things. The hiking part was amusing because it was like...this is what people imagined me to be doing...hiking a mountain in the jungle with traditional indigenous paint on my face, and seeing blue spiders. haha. some REALLY incredible views out there.

El Oro:

Last weekend I went to the South of Ecuador to a province called El Oro (Gold). It was my host mom´s birthday and she wanted to go visit family out there. my host sister is on vacation right now so I missed classes Friday and Monday. El Oro is a lot farther. It was like a 12 hour bus ride. Going was fine cause we went at night and I just slept but coming back was terrible. We left at 10:30 am and got back around 11:30 pm. El Oro is coast. So I´m glad that now I´ve experienced the coast and the jungle but I didn´t really have a good time. I didn´t really like my host mom´s family that much. We didn´t do anything that was that fun for me. We went to Peru which was cool. It was just the frontera though so there´s like a big market there. I bought sunglasses and a purse. Other than that, we went to a relative´s birthday party. a 10 year old. that was okay. there I was able to meet some people my age and have some good conversation. but i didn´t really do anything else besides get bitten by mosquitos lol. the bugs actually weren´t that bad. everyone was saying how they must not like my estadounidense blood. So not sure it was worth it but also not sure I had a choice. If I had said that i didn´t want to go or that I couldn´t miss class I think they all would have stayed cause I don´t think they would leave me alone in the house.

anyway, thats all for now. I definitely need to continue travelling and getting to know the country. There are some really beautiful places here. Also, even though Galapagos is expensive I think I need to go. It´s probably my only opportunity and it´s got to be worth it. Daddyyyy...

Day 41

So today I saw something amazing on the Ecovia. There was a bee buzzing around near the window. This old woman sitting on the bus grabs the bee by the wing and flings it out the window. amazing!

last weekend was my friend gina´s birthday. It was soo much fun. First we went to mateo and anita´s apartment and had a nice party with music and fresh fruit and fresh guac. Then to a gay club in the Mariscal. It was such a great night. despite the fact that i drank too much.

Went to see Sherlock Holmes yesterday but watched it in Spanish so I feel like I missed some stuff. It was good though and had me laughing.

This weekend is Carnaval!! A friend of a friend invited us to his pueblo..Sucua. Its in the oriente aka the jungle. So most people go to the coast to celebrate Carnaval on the beach. But it´s not every day you get the opportunity to go to the jungle and learn about indigenous culture. So instead of partying on the beach I will be enjoying nature and fending off mosquitos. I´m excited. I know it´s going to be beautiful. and i´m finally travelling outside of Quito!

cotidiana

okay, whats happened in the last week...

pretty sure I saw a humming bird for the first time. it was pretty great.

went to the mariscal on friday. I´m already feeling like its getting old and i´ve only been like 4 times. also i feel like I lost my dance fever lol. but maybe it just has to do with the music.

Saturday went to the center of quito. saw the president´s house. the architecture there is gorgeous. beautiful churches and narrow streets.

sunday went to la mitad del mundo. that was cool. there were indigenous dance performances and stuff. took pictures with the fake equator lol. wish i knew where the real one was.

made my first purchase on a bus. I bought a salsa cd with like over 100 songs for $1. we´ll see if it works.

watched an ecuadorian film called Cronicas. it has jon leggazamo (sp?) and is based on a true story about a guy who kills kids. It was good but I was not in the mood to watch a movie so heavy.

also I had lunch with this woman, Patricia, who is a friend of a woman who works with my dad. haha. she was really nice and she has a son who goes to my university too.

I´ve oficially adopted the ecua word Mande. it means what.

Carolina y la mariscal

So now that I´ve assured my parents that I´m fine and everything is fine, I can write about what happened to me on Saturday.

I went to a park near my house-La Carolina-to do an anthro assignment where I had to observe people. I spent 45 minutes observing and then went to look for a new spot to watch from. I was about to sit myself in front of a tree with my little notebook and fresh mandarin juice, and two guys mugged me. It was 11 am! on a saturday when the park was full! crazy stuff. But I was so innocent there all by myself with my cellphone visible in my pocket. (something they told us not to do) All he did was threaten me, take the phone, and leave. Completely not violent and surprisingly not scary. Obviously I´m upset that that was money down the drain but honestly...I went home decided i was going to include the experience in my anthro paper, and my hostmom said we could go that same day to get a new phone. The fact that I went home and started writing about my mugging from an anthropological point of view and that I had the option of getting mugged in the morning and having a new phone that afternoon was more overwhelming than the actual mugging. Seriously? That´s my life? That´s how much privilege I have? that I can get mugged and easily buy again what I lost and use the experience for academics meanwhile these guys are mugging gringas at 11am...so much to deal with.

So now I have to figure out where to put my phone when I go out. I may need to buy a wristlet or something.

So far that and getting sick have been the worst. But last week was so fun. Wednesday I went to my friend´s apartment. They´re from the U.S. but they´ve been here since August so they´ve already done the host family thing and now they have this amazing apartment. Makes me a little jealous but I also like being taken care of like this. So that was cool, then thursday was avatar, and then Friday I went to la mariscal where all the bars and clubs are and where all the gringos go. Friday was soooo great for a few reasons. I was with a big group of friends which is always more fun, before going out I was at a friend´s house and her ecuadorian friends came over and that was fun and it was nice to hang out with ecuatorianos, then even at the mariscal we met a bunch more ecuadorians. So I met a lot of nice people and got to speak more spanish. I didn´t drink too much, didn´t eat the food, and had a blast.

This weekend I hope to be travelling to the coast to this place called Atacames. Stay in a hostel with my peeps, beach, baila, etc.

later days...

censo, boys, movies, etc.

Today I went to get my Censo which is the I.D. here. What a complicated process. First you have to register your visa. Its like the DMV. You take a number and wait and wait. You have to leave your passport and come back another day to get it with a new stamp. I go back but of course forget my receipt thing so I had to go back a THIRD time today. Then I had to find the place where they do the Censos which is near my house but I took the most round about way to get there. I guess I got some exercise but man, that was rough. Then more waiting and waiting. It wasnt sooo bad though, i guess, because I ran into the cute cubano from my ecuadorian culture class. He had flowers which made me think girlfriend but they were for his hostmom. how sweeet.
So anyway thats FINALLY out of the way.

a note about boys. There are so many attractive people here. In the states I feel like I hardly notice people. but there are so many good looking people. I feel like I saw the most attractive man in my life on the Ecovia the other day. The ecovia is the bus that takes you through Quito. So I´m talking Ecuadorian guys and U.S. guys. but mostly Ecuadorian guys.

Also, everyone dresses really nice. First of all, people are soo preppy at my school. I want to just sit down one day and count the polo shirts. I´ve even seen more than one person rocking that look with the polo shirt and the sweater sort of draped over your shoulders with the arms on your torso..know what I´m saying? its serious. but at least everyone wears jeans. They told us before that no one really wears jeans and thats a straight up lie.

I´ve seen some good movies lately. I watched this movie called El Estudiante with my host sister and I need to buy it. It was a romantic comedy. but it was sad too. and sooo funny. All in Spanish, no subtitles or dubbing just straight up spanish so that was cool too because I could understand pretty much everything. Then last night I went to see Avatar. ¨Wasn´t that the perfect movie to see while being exchange students?¨ yes. it was good. predictable plot. but good. and crazy cool animation. so sad and so true.

I´m trying to be conscious of all the social issues at play. I´ve managed to make friends with some pretty awesome and aware people. Race and gender issues here are soo blatant. and I think I have some cool feminist progressive liberation worker friends. so thats great beacause I have people I can talk to about all the stuff that goes down. still no ecua friends though. but my vecina that brings me to school sometimes is really cool.

okay. friday night time to go outttt.

<3

Sicky

So thirsty thursday is the worst idea in the history of ideas. I went out thursday, received three free vodka drinks, was drunker than I normally am after three (they say the altitude makes you get drunk faster) went to this place to eat, wasn´t even hungry but consumed a terrible mix of chicken pinchos, taco, fries, and milkshake. The following day, yesterday, was diarrhea and vomiting all the day. I even puked on the bus which was probably the worst part. Then I slept from 4pm to 10pm. took a break from sleeping from 10 to 2.30 and continued to sleep until 8ish this morning. all that sleep did me good and today I´ve been fine. But that was pretty terrible. I also may or may not have fainted for about a second. I think desmayarme was the word I was searching for when trying to tell my host sister I was about to pass out. but my host mom has taken good care of me. nothing to how my actual mommy would have taken care of me but it was okay. I´m actually grateful that I´ve been sick like that before because if I had never been that sick before I would have been freaking out.

now that I´ve grossed you out...
The food here is all natural and nutritious. Which is a big change for u.s. americans who eat all that processed food. but I´m happy to be eating healthy. even though I eat white rice literally every day. lunch is the biggest meal so even thats better..no big meals right before bed. So I feel like I´m living a healthier lifestyle with my food and dance class. I just have to be careful what i eat outside of the house i guess. tomorrow i´m hoping to go to church. I´ve been wanting to go and we didn´t go last week. Tomorrow will be my third sunday here...man oh man time flies I guess.

I still need to make ecuadorian friends and there are two people who live a floor below me that go to my school. i met them thursday and we talked about going to school together. they drive. so that might be a promising way to make ecuadorian friends. one problem with making ecuadorian friends is that its soooo much easier for me to understand the older generation than it is for me to understand people my age. I don´t know if it´s slang, speed, or dropping letters or what. but its always harder to understand people my age. I hope that changes.

my classes. four classes. two I like and two that I´m not sure about yet.
gender and society I like. dance I love. cultural Anthro seems okay but I wish i was taking a history class instead. And Ecuadorian culture....I´m not sure what it is that I don´t like. Being in a class with all extranjeros maybe. and maybe my professor annoys me a little but I´m not sure why. also so far i feel like we´ve learned cultural things that you just pick up anyway and don´t need to take a class on. like certain words ecuadorians use..you hear those things and figure out what they mean in context. we´ll see if it gets better as the topics change.

so now...based on this bad experience and the fact that I have class at 10am on fridays, if I go out on thursdays, its just to dance and no drinking. even though I think it was the food more than anything. or maybe the fact that i mixed milkshake with alcohol. not my brightest decision.

but tonight i´m staying in and I´m about to watch a movie with mami Bertita.

hasta luego!

Day 10

Now I have officially been here for a week!

So I guess there´s a lot to say. I´ll start with the buses which can be pretty funny. They don´t all come to a complete stop especially for the men. So men have to run alongside the bus and jump on while the guy who works on the bus (there´s one guy driving, and one guy who collects money and shouts at people on the street) yells ¨sube sube sube sube vaya vaya!¨ haha. pretty great. and all the buses cost only a quarter so thats pretty sweet.

soooo I live in the penthouse of this apartment building called Doral Almagro. or maybe it´s the reverse. not sure but its pretty sweet. I live with my host mom and host sister. there is a host dad too but i have yet to meet him because he´s travelling for his job. since I´ve been here already over a week and still havent met him I feel like its gonna be awkward when we do meet. My host mom talks a lot and has made me feel very comfortable. my host sister...i think she is a big partier. she invited me to go out to a club (discoteca) with her and her friends. it seemed like she knew everyone there. she didnt do a good job introducing me to her friends and I mostly felt awkward. by the end I was having a good time though. we don´t talk that much though in general. oh, and she´s 19. so its cool that we´re the same age (ish) and we get along.

what else is interesting so far...
I have only made friends with u.s. american students so far. I did not expect there to be so many! theres like at least 300. international students make up a major part of the student body. I really want to make ecuadorian friends though. The u.s. kids want to speak english and stuff. also, theres a place..it goes by a few different names, ¨la mariscal¨ ¨la zona¨ the zone and ¨gringolandia¨gringoland. apparently gringo isnt derrogatory here like it is in the states. it can be a term of endearment that just means foreigner. but anyway thats where all the gringos go to party. some ecuadorian students threw a party for us there on the first day, after orientation. So I had my first legal drink at an Irish pub in Ecuador. que chiste!

okay...i´m taking a class called gender and society and we´re only going to talk about male and female. I don´t even get it...how can you talk about the problems with having a binary system and then only talk about gender in binary terms?? that is upsetting.

love my dance class. love the scenery...beautiful mountains and volcanoes. love platanos but thats nothing new just now i get to eat them all the time. love how beautiful the university is. traffic is absolutely crazy. miss all my people back in the states, I hope you´re doing well and I´m looking forward to our reunion this summer.


<3

Saludos de Ecuador!

This is my first post of the semester from Ecuador.

I will try to post with somewhat regularity. 

Stay tuned!