Cultural Trip - Mascarillas

June 28 2009, Sunday

Hard to believe that the last time I wrote anything down for my blog was three days ago. These past couple of days have been really crazy and busy and a lot of fun at the same time. But before I get to all of the new stuff that I did this past weekend I have a couple of things that I have figured out/remembered that I should probably write down and have forgotten too.

This past Monday June 22nd Estella, my Ecuadorean mom, was running around like crazy trying to get breakfast for me. I didn’t really think much of it, just that she was in a hurry or that she knew I was. Later that day when I came back from training though I learned that the reason she was running around so much. Her daughter went into labor that morning and had a little baby girl in the Cayambe Hospital that day. Estella was running around trying to get me breakfast before she went with her daughter into Cayabme, an hour trip one way by car, to give birth. Crazy, I know. Now there are a couple other crazy parts to this story as well. One being that I know realize that Estella has two sons and two daughters. She just didn’t list the one down on the paper that I filled out with her because her other daughter actually lives next door and not in the house with us. So long story short with that, I believe now that Estella has two boys (both single), one 14 and one 22, and two daughters (both married) one 23 and I’m not sure of the other’s age that lives next door with her husband and son. The father of the new born is 31.

Now the real crazy part of this story in my mind is that the new mother came back home the same day she gave birth! Not only the same day, but in a 13 hour time period including the two hours of driving. They left the house at 7am and came back the same day at 8pm. The poor new mother could barely walk. Now the new baby girl is absolutely adorable and probably just about the tiniest baby I have ever seen. And of course when they walked in with her they asked me if I wanted to hold her and I basically said nuh uh, that baby is way too small and cute for me to hold on her first day of life. Another crazy point to this story is that the father did not go to the Cayambe Hospital. He waited here at the house for phone call updates on the situation. Just a little different I thought that the mother would go but not the baby’s father. And the last crazy part of this story is that the baby still doesn’t have a name. When I asked the new mother about naming the baby, she basically said, we get to name it whenever we want to and have a good name for her. All in all though, quite the experience and now we have lots of family members and friends that are constantly coming and going. The poor new mom has to stay on bed rest for a month though which means that Estella waits on her whenever she can.

So that really was the big update which I forgot to tell you about…my bad. Quick wrap-up of the week activities is that we had a lot of classes and lectures. Moving on to this weekend, which started bright and early at 5am on Friday. We went on our cultural trip this weekend. My group, the whole 45 got split up into two different groups, went to Mascarillas (an Afro-Ecuadorean culture) while the other group went to a Native Ecuadorean culture where they speak Kitchwa, the native dialect. Mascarillas was about a two hour bus trip from Cayambe. So we all meet together in Cayambe at 7:30 in the morning to head out (thus the getting up at 5 because Cayambe is about an hour to an hour and a half trip).

Now Mascarillas is another smaller type community area like the areas we are currently in. However, Mascarillas is two hours DOWN the mountain which means, you guessed it, that it was much warmer (up to the 80’s) which we were all very excited about. So when we got there, everyone changed into our skirts, shorts, t-shirts, tank tops, and most importantly…sandals. Next we watch one of the local crafts take place of making a clay mask…it was really really good. Everyone had to try to make their own mask but none were as good as hers was, which she made look so easy to do. We then went on what I would call a nature walk around the community where our "tour guides" showed us the plants and their uses which included but where not limited to, bug repellent, sun screen, makeup, herbs for teas, medicine, and more. After that we went on a walk to the river…now the kicker here was finding the river. Sounds easy, right? Not when the whole river is surrounded with brush and who knows what. There really wasn’t a path to the river which might help explain why we went the wrong way about three times. At first I was wondering why one the tour guys had a machete with him…that quickly made sense. And of course in the process of making our way to the river we picked up the lovely companions of mosquitoes. So needless to say, my legs were all types of bitten up. The best part though, the river was really worth it; so beautiful and peaceful. After that we went back into the city and watched some people perform a dance known as the Bomba. It was pretty darn crazy and I have video of it that I would like to upload at some point. These women dance and they balance a glass vase on their head that has water in it while they dance around; definitely a talent. The one woman even got down during this dance and did some push-ups with this vase on the top of her head not faltering once. Pretty darn neat I thought…and a lot of talent! Everyone then ended up dancing and it was a lot of fun. We ended the day by all meeting up at the sports center and watched the locals play indoor soccer and then had some games of our own.

The following day was a lot shorter so we would have time to get back at a decent time. First, we walked down to the local compost where the men basically make fertilizer from decomposition stuff. So we learned all about that process that takes a total of about 6 months for one row to become decomposed. Next, we had a nice talk given to us by a musician of the Bomba music and he spoke about how the Afro-Ecuadoreans have had trouble and still are today. His talk was really interesting. That was pretty much it for the second day of the trip because we then had to make our way back to La Chimba.

Now the kicker to this Cultural trip is that I was just getting over my sunburn disaster and now my legs are eaten up like none other by mosquitoes. The good thing is that I didn’t make my sunburn any worse during the trip, only mosquito bites. The trip home though was a hard one for me because of those bites. I really got eaten up around my ankles and the combination of my skin’s reaction to them and my legs being down all day and walked upon made my ankles swell up. By the time I got home, it hurt to walk on my ankles and it basically looked like I had two rolled ankles. So today, I spent a lot of time trying to stay off of my poor swollen ankles. Basically, I managed to get rid of one disaster, my sunburn, and replace it with another, my bug bites. Now on the good news though, my stomach is taking things better, so the fairy has left me for now.

Today we walked over to Olmedo for a little while because that is where the fiesta is this weekend and today is the last day of it. It was really interesting to see the fiesta, which is basically a parade where people get all dressed up and going around drinking a ton starting at about 8 am. The people also dance and sing to this one same sang over and over and over again. It was really interesting though and we meet up with some other PCT there as well. All in all, it made for a pretty fun day. I came home at about 3 pm and washed my cloths by hand on my rock and put them up on the clothes line. This took me about a total of two hours to complete. That was really about it for the day. After I washed my clothes I met up with the other La Chimba girls to work on some "homework" type stuff that we have and then came home for dinner and now am in bed.

I sure do hope that I get to sleep some tonight though. I have taken enough Benadryl for my bug bites that I should be knocked out here pretty soon. The one thing though about the fiestas and sleep is that you don’t get a whole lot even if you don’t part-take in them. Last time I was woken up three different times, about 11 pm, 2am, and 4am, by singing people in their costumes banging on my door. You see, it’s tradition for people to go around at night and knock on doors for bread and other food and then sing you a song and have you dance with them in a circle. The down side to this is that even if you don’t answer the door, which people don’t really late at night, then the dancers just make a whole lot of noise to try and get you up (aka, they sing really loudly and pound repeatedly on your door for about 10-15 minutes). I asked my host mom today if it was better to give them food or to not give them food. She said it was better to not give them food because then they won’t come back, and yet she gave them food anyways so I asked her way. And she said simply, its tradition. So it will definitely be an interesting night for me with more banging and singing I’m sure. Oh and how could I forget the dogs barking! Must not forget that part! Sweet dreams to me.

P.S. I did already see a guy "resting" in a ditch on the way home today at about 7pm – This is common during fiestas. And a little FYI, fiestas in this area over all of Cayambe last for about four months from May to August (La Chimba has their fiesta in August).