and onward

this post dedicated to Madamoiselle Julia Winkels, who will soon discover regularly updating a blog whilst in another country is not nearly as easy as anticipated!

“Sometimes there just aren’t any beautiful words.
Sometimes it isn’t poetry,
it’s enchantment
and that just leaves you
speechless.”

Isn’t that the most hackneyed thing I’ve ever written? The thing is, it’s good hackneyed, as in I know the type of person who would find it charming and buy it for some sort of novelty product. I almost hesitate publishing it on this blog, as I fully intend to sell it to Hallmark and soon you will all be buying mugs with this blazened across a photoshopped image of a meadow or the like in a nice cursive font (not too small, so grandma can still read it and enjoy.) So, above quote? © Anna S. Kunin, future Miles Kimball catalog writer.

But seriously, I was sitting in a grove of ecualyptus trees this morning at the Parque Metropolitano, about a 15 minute from where I live – and almost straight up the side of the mountain, so let me tell you, it’s not an easy 15 minutes – and that is what I came up with while trying to start writing this next section of my blog catch-up.

What can I say? I travelled for almost a month – from the colonial town of Cuenca, then to Guayaquil (only for a few extremely early hours in the morning, where we were repeatedly accosted by security guards to not sleep on the ground on our backpacks, por favor, even though it was 3 in the morning and no one was there to look upon us and frown at our boorish gringo manners) and then up the coast.

Well, I can say it was wonderful.

But I can’t say something like that without a little more elaboration, can I? Not if I want to get my writing skills in shape enough to become head writer of Miles Kimball Inc, and god knows I have some pretty sharp descriptions for ceramic dress-up gooses bewing around my head that the world needs to know and appreciate, and then spend $29.99 on. (http://www.mileskimball.com/MilesKimball/Browsing/Category.aspx?CID=Outdoor&SCID=Goose+Outfits)

So! Starting at last week’s cliffhanger, CUENCA. Alright, class, there are three main cities to Ecuador – Guayaquil, the biggest population wise and historic home of commercial power (it’s a port city), Quito, second biggest population and historic home of political power (it’s the capital), and Cuenca, pretty dwarfish in comparison with the population giants above, historic home of the aristocracy, a much more obsolete power center. Cuenca hasn’t dominated Ecuador news channels quite so much since the 19th century I would say, but it’s still an impressive – and beautiful – city. Lots of colonial architecture. Very pretty, very quiet, very rich. Older. Still in the mountains, but not quite as rugged of ones like Quito.

If Quito were Minneapolis, Cuenca would be St. Paul. That analogy about covers it.

So! The important thing that happened in Cuenca happened in a Cuban bar/karaoke bar down by the river, where we were somewhat drunkenly singingly along to Shakira and Juanes with an equally eclectic assortment of travelers – the rest from Latin America, most of them artsenal nomads (There is a subculture that runs through a lot of LA, pretty much hippies, who constantly travel and make their way through some artsenal craft, whether it be jewelry making/selling or performance. They are a cool group and anyone who spends more then 12 hours at a South American beach will instantly recognize the type of people I’m  talking about. )

One of these people was a Colombian named Lina, who we hung out with pretty much all the night and tomorrow. She made me a rasta and braided seeds into my hair. We were enchanted to say the least, with the lifestyle – not always easy, such as the day she woke up with exactly 25 cents to her name, bought a bunch of empanadas and resold them at a higher price, gaining a little more and little more each time – and with the people.

Lina was the one who told us about La Playa Negra, a “secret” beach much farther north which, as you might infer from the name, had black sand. She told us about all sorts of beaches that we had to visit. She sat us down, lit up her 15th cigarette, and drew maps on paper napkins. She spun visions of waves and warmth and fruit and sand and we said, aw hell.
Hence, our split-minute decision to change directions and head to the beach.

Let’s see…this is for my own sake right here…we went from Cuenca to Guayaquil (already covered), Guayaquil to Montañita, Montañita to Canoa, Canoa to Mompiche and La Playa Negra. Detour back to Quito to pick up MN friends. Montanita for New Year’s, Montañita to Puerto Viejo, Isla de la Plata and Los Frailes. Los Frailes, home to Quito and the start of classes.

jesus. alright, let’s try at least to get through to New Year’s. The thing is, each of these beaches has a very specific personality, very specific experiences, I could write an individual blog post on each. no time for that. already doing new stuff! don’t want another 2 month gap again.

okay. Montañita.

Mateo says: “¡Que bestia!”

Que bestia indeed.

Montañita is, I would say, the best known/talked about beach in Ecuador. It is the compelling mixture of a hippie-haven, tourist trap and surfer’s club. I saw a book being sold there which was titled “Montañita – Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll and Surf.” I suppose an adequate enough description. There are definitely all of these things in abundance.

We just swung here for a day on this part of the trip. I had been there before, so we contented ourselves to revisiting all the little gems we discovered last time – the thirty cent ice-cream cone man, the dollar batido ( which is fruit milkshake essentially, very delicious) woman, the artsenal bread hole-in the – wall shop, the super-chill surf-shack owner/weed dealer (oops, did I say that?) Hey, travelers – look for the gems. the non-adventrous will stay on the main street and end up paying 1.50 for their batidos, the suckers 50 cents! that’s 10 bananas! that’s 5 mandarinas! That’s 2 and a half empanadas! That’s two bus rides! That’s 1/3 of an almuerzo! 50 cents goes a long way. This woman is precious, and you can mix flavors. I suggest mora (a type of blackberry) and pina.

Right. We knew we were going back here for new year’s, so we travelled up to Canoa.

Canoa.

Mateo says: |So good, you want to run in the morning|

Canoa has a lot of the surfer-hippie vibe of Montanita but a lot less locura, a lot less partying. A lot more tranquilo. A lot of egg, plantano nescafe breakfasts. Early morning runs on the beach to heat up the blood and then – plunge into the ocean. Book exchanges. I found the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Micheal Chabon, which is itself an amazing book exchange find when most exchanges are dominated by awful Nora Roberts romances or trash-novel mysteries. Not my favorite reading material, which is why the string of amazing book exchange luck I’ve had since this find has made Canoa an especially fond memory. (Since then I’ve switched it out for The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, and then Beloved by Toni Morris. All these books are highly reccomended. I’m visualizing a Kurt Vonnegut find next, something I haven’t read yet.)

Something about these beaches that is very common to Ecuador, is they aren’t as sunny as you might imagine. Canoa is grey a lot of the time, but don’t be fooled. You are still on the Equator. You will fry right through the clouds, the sun is so strong. Close your eyes, tilt your face to the sky and you will swear to god it feels like it’s incredibly sunny out, but open them and by met by clouds. My friend Emily got some second degree sunburns – yes, you read that right. Slather it on, pale Midwest folks. Slather it on.

One of the highlights from Canoa was exploring the point and the sea caves. Of course I fell at one point – those rocks are damn slippery – but don’t worry Mom, I came away with only minor scratches. Well, one a bit deeper then other, but the salt water cleaned the blood up right away! Scarring should be minimal.

Collected a lot of sea shellsSlightly awkward bonfire moment with a crowd of all-male surfers. . Drank some of the national beer, Pilsner, at midnight, watching the moon on the waves.

But Canoa can’t really compare to what was waiting for us farther north at Mompiche and much later, Machilla National Park, and waiting for you on the next blog post.

chau for now

demasiado, demasaido

*preliminary note*: this post is specifically dedicated to Ashley “pseudostalin” Dow. thank you for kvetching enough that I am writing again. 

WEEEoooo. It certainly has been a while since I have last updated. well, you can’t blame me too much. I dare anyone, ANYONE, who lives in another country for more then four months to regularly update their blog. Impossible!

Much has happened. demasiado, demasiado (too much, too much.)To help you all (and myself) and breaking this all down, I will be writing seperate sections (possibly in different posts.) Here is an outline for those interested…

1. “Ch-ch-changes” – escape from CIMAS, apartment searching, red tape rants, sickness

2.  “Nomads and Beaches” – month of travel…colonial city of Cuenca, travelling south to north up the pacific coast, Christmas/New Year’s Eve adventures 

3. “University Disney” – impressions of Universidad de San Francisco Quito, classes, people, etc. 

4. “¿Que más?” – ruminations on what might come next 

vamos. 

1 . Ch-ch-changes

This will be a short section, mainly for expositional purposes.

I got out of the MSID Ecuador program, run through the CIMAS foundation, due to my disillusionment with the program and my decision that I wanted to return to a university atmosphere. 

My friend Mateo (actually  Matthew, from Minneapolis lo mismo, but like I am Anita, he is Mateo) and I had about one week to finish all the red tape involved in switching programs, finding an alternative program, finish…or start…our 25 page (Spanish) research papers and say goodbye to friends who were leaving back for the states. Oh, and find a place to live. before leaving on our trip (as of yet unplanned but focused on the idea of getting to Macchu Picchu.)

Apartment searching in Quito! oh what fun. there aren’t really classifieds, so what you do is basically walk around and call phone numbers from posters people post up in windows. a pair of binoculars came in particularly handy one afternoon and we successfully secured a place to live. Actually, a very nice place. I will never have an apartment this nice ever again my life probably, or the top-level security, or enough furniture to comfortably seat 17 people. The apartment came with a panini maker for god’s sake, which I quickly christened the “white privilege panini maker.” it does indeed make delicious sandwiches, but especially after coming from the impovrished communities of La Calera and Perroto (in the jungle, where Mateo had his internship) it was painfully obvious that we were making a lifestyle choice, one that we had access to based on our comparative wealth. Keep in mind neither of us are “rich” by any means and instead very much fit the poor college student stereotype. But here? not so much. 

Oh. White privilege! Speak of the devil. finding an alternative program. while the red tape process with the University of Minnesota was most definitely a bitch to slog through…especially from a different country…we basically just waltzed into one of the most elite universities in ecuador and they registered us. Without the “required” entrance exam. Without the “required” Spanish level exam (the meeting was conducted in Spanish, so perhaps they realized we weren’t as completely inadequate in this respect as some other interchange students…more on this later…). Without an official transcript! They obviously had some documentation we weren’t insane, but it was ridiculously easy. 

And then…THE GRIPE CAME!! (the flu)

Mateo, myself and another friend from CIMAS, Emily – the three of us planning to make it to Machu Picchu – all got disastrously ill. Well, not disastrously. but it knocked us out for a good four days (thank god for ridiculously cheap oranges which made the best juice I have ever had…Senorita, would you like to buy these imported Florida oranges? They are from your country! They are much better….Um, hell no! Give me the huge green-yellow globes that are the  nationals (14 for 2 dollars) and I’ll be in vitamin C heaven.) 

During these four days, we realized JUST HOW FAR AWAY CUZCO IS. SO far away. as in, impossible to get there with the time we had and the obligations we had (to pick up Mateo’s friends visiting from Minneapolis in Quito…oh, and go to the beach for New Year’s….very important. unavoidable, even.) it is 24 hours in bus just from Lima to Cuzco…which are both in Southern Peru. It would take us almost 24 hours just to get to border. Needless to say, dreams were juggled and plans were changed. Travel books were flipped through and itineraries left open. 

We decided to head for Cuenca. 

(I promise the next section will not be 2 months in the whole…good things to come.)

the two sides of my mouth

haven’t updated in a while. been furiously…or rather, unwillngly…working hard on the 20 page paper I have to turn in Friday (in Spanish.) it is one of the most uncomfortable paper writing experiences I have ever had, mostly becuase I don’t really want to do it and it seems to be neverending. The Spanish is actually not all that bad as I seem to have a pretty good grip (while still basic in some repsects) on the language now. I actually had an administrative meeting completely in Spanish yesterday.

what? administrative meeting? well, here’s the down low for you all.
I’m switching programs. I had a meeting with the faculty of International Programs at the Universidad de San Francisco  yesterday to discuss direct enrollment options. It went great and the next semester instead of being part of MSID I will be taking classes along with another year long student who was disasstisfied with the MSID Program.

Why was I disasstisfied? Why do I want to switch from continuing to teach English in a rural indigenous community for four more months to taking classes at the most elitist (and only) liberal arts college in Ecuador?

My god Anna! What a hypocrite. You run your mouth on and on about solidarity and putting theory into practice and etc. etc. etc.

While I do feel somewhat hypocritical, my time at La Calera has taught me several things.

1. I couldn’t possibly teach English at José Vasconcelos for four more months. It was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done and I was completely without support.

2. While I love the community of La Calera and truly  bonded with Inés and Kairik, who I already miss, and formed many of my new ideas about what solidarity really means, there were no other  internship options available there.

3. My other options besides teaching were far too isolating. I realized I was not ready to be in the jungle for four months completly isolated from people my age, my own language, etc.

I can have that sort of experience later, when I am ready. It’s not a sign of weakness as I initially thought. The class aspect of MSID was the most dissapointing part and I truly feel like if I leave Ecuador without a deeper understanding of history, politics, colonialism etc. I will regret it. I think taking classes will give me this.

Also, I miss taking classes. Inés told me that since I have the opportunity to go to college – which many don’t – I should make the most of my time while in it. I miss art and theater as you all have heard me kvetch enough about. I miss theory.

I MISS CHOOSING MY OWN FOOD. this is probably the greatest factor in Mateo and I looking for our own apartment in Quito. I have gained a little weight, not a significant amount which I don’t care that much about…it’s more that I just can’t bear to sustain myself on basically just rice corn potatoes bread soup and meat any longer. vegetables and fruit are dirt cheap here but are not a huge part of the local diet. I am going to reclaim my health. I feel like I am completely made out of starch. a walking human shaped starch mass.  this needs to change!

I could ramble on a lot more about how La Calera was, how it has changed me, and I most certainly will but right now I am mentally exhausted from this paper and red tape processes and need to finish said paper.

Before I left inés gave me some parts of the indigenous traje – a blouse and a cinta for my hair – and I have never felt so honored. I never felt comfortable being indigenous dress at a market, or renting it as a costume – which you can here for fiestas! – because that is so much human zoo to me, cultural tourism. but this was different, inés wanted to share it with me as a reminder of what we shared together. I gave her a nice watch becuase hers broke and she was always needing to know the time to run off to one meeting or another. I connected with her so much more then my host family in Quito.

augh. need to wriiiiiiiiiiiiiite (ensayo)

leaving Monday to adventure to Macchu Picchu. soooooo excited!

new photos will go up later today of my time in La Calera –

http://picasaweb.google.com/annakunin

lluvia y fiebre

((rain and fever))

 

couldn’t sleep last night. caught a fever and had horrible chills. feeling much better today and Inés is taking care of me well. finally, finally it is raining. hopefully this means an end to the random blackouts the government has been intiating in light of the water shortage (no water to power the dam that powers the country.)

 

otherwise I’m doing much better. Inés and I have had some great talks by candlenight when there’s no electricity and teaching has gotten easier every day. my academic coordinator came to visit and is in complete agreement I should do something else for my three month span of internship time. getting excited for my break and the unplanned planned adventure to macchu picchu. excited to be here for three more weeks hanging out with Inés and Kairik and Mishari. got to visit the Otavalo market and buy textiles and earrings and presents. got to climb a mountain. what else do I hope to do before I leave…perhaps more chasing pigs through the dark (literally.) more work in the garden. more english examens!

 

hope I feel completely well by tomorrow.

 

trying to upload some new photos. internet is slow. they will come.

 

going back to bed.

and not a drop to drink

sooo I’m 21 now.
WOOOOO PARTYYYYYYYYYYYY no en serio no es la realidad.

I spent my 21st birthday farming, essentially.

using a hoe for the first time, as in legitimate breaking up land I’m in a Van Gogh or Millet painting only in South America oops there goes my blister from cutting alfalfa a couple days ago god I’m tired Inés you’re still going?! Second soup kettle bath.  In bed by, I don’t know, 8:30.

It was a farreado, or holiday, and I was hoping I would get the chance to meet some people around my age over a coupld beers to ease the akwardness, or meet some more of the family, or something. Inés and I were working till dark on this and that. What happened as night fell, we went out to see if her mother was making bread for the day of the dead and see if they needed help. I realized, is that A. there does not seem to be anyone my age in La Calera at least that I have easy access to, as the population  cut off seems to be around 17 and starts up again around 30 and B. all the men were getting way too drunk, and the women were sitting outside on the corner with not a drop to drink. I didn’t drink either. honestly it scared me. wayyy borracho, esos hombres. It just reminded me of the story Inés told me, her story, of the abuse she suffered from her husband especially when he got drunk. beatings. he would lock her in a room. once she had a meeting at the asemblea in town, as she is one politically active woman, and escaped through the window.

they were done making bread.

we went home.

a drunk neighbor or cousin or uncle I don’t know, came into the house, so drunk I didn’t know how he was standing, basically in Kairik’s face going on and on, something about Kairik’s father, maybe their shared alchoholism, but his words were too slurred for me to understand. I’m sitting at the table slightly agape waiting for Inés to throw him fucking out. he´s in her kids face. but she just waited and watched and eventually he wandered away. Borracho, dijo Kairik. he knew what was going on, obviously had seen it before. I bit my lip. it was hard to see.

it’s lonely here. it’s only been a week, but it’s lonely at times, and hard, god it’s hard to teach here.

day after my birthday, walked for about an hour with Inés and her sister and her husband´s sister (…who HAPPENED to be my age! but doesn´t live here during the week arrgh), who when she told me how she knew the family all I could think is, well, how evil her brother had been to Inés, and Peta – now on referred to as Mishari, her kiwcha name and what I just found out she prefers to be called – and Kairik, to the cementary. It was like a fair – people selling toys and candy and food everywhere, soo many people just sitting by their families tombstones and eating eating eating. everyone sharing food, so everyone is carrying insane amounts of bread or cooked beans or eggs or platanos on their back, sets it down, and then people go around with bowls and exchange. it was surreal. I could have stayed all day but went into Quito.

oh! finally I am able to travel small (SAFE, Mom, SAFE) distances by myself without feeling panicky! At least this is a sign of major improvement in my Spanish. went into Quito to hang out with two friends who stayed in the area and celebrate my birthday a little more united states like. had a mojito and a banana split and some indian food, which, while wasn’t that good, was five million times better in terms of flavor then the food here because….well..IT HAD FLAVOR.

the bread, oh god, the bread. I just keep putting more and more of it in my mouth, maybe expecting THIS time it is going to have a taste! wait, oops, no. okay, let’s try again. nope, nothing. maybe one bite more…ahh what am I thinking.

at least I’m eating vegetables now and walking more.

came back into Otavalo today and re-visited a shop that I believe has the best pie on either side of the hemisphere. had a slice of mora and some coffee and watched tourists walk by. my birthday treat to myself.

feeling extremely homesick lately. having trouble focusing on the here and now and find myself daydreaming about when I’m going back, what my life will be like, etc. the one thing that’s grounding me right now is the fact that I still am determined to get the best spanish I can, actually learn the language, and the only way that’s going to stick is if I stay. that, and my determination to get to Machu Picchu, climb Mt. Cotopaxi, get to the beach again, and manage these damn 7th graders. that and perhaps make a shadow puppet show about my experience when I get back.

 

unease queasiness as nightmares of teeth crumbling in my mouth as I eat continue since the age of four, well maybe the taste would be something other then potato or rice or corn, the streets are dust and don’t have any names, packs, packs of dogs five cent candy and the smudged cheeks of children, the ambercrombie shirts of the boys as soon as they hit 13. my ankles roll out if I hit the random cobblestone wrong. my skin peels as it handles rough wooden handles. my sides quiver as I dump water over my head from a soup bowl, crouched in the shower that has no water. face a classroom of students and realize, well there are no balls make one from my scarf. there are no markers or paper can we scrounge for nubs of crayons and colored pencils? do you have a notebook? um, no tape. I hate schools. I want out. I wrote my major about education reform. what the hell am I thinking.  I want to run away. I want to go home. I want to be in a stage. I want to find the hippies of Quito and travel through South America making bracelets and never having ties to anything except the knots I make in my macrame necklace.

 

earthquakes inside waves rolling through. someone remind me: this is what I wanted.

why do I always choose the hardest thing? perhaps what’s harder for me is choosing something easy. giving myself a break.

 

but I talked with a woman for two hours last night back outside of Quito about birth, birth stories, I love birth stories. had a little wine so the spanish was rolling off my tongue. told her about my mother, three months in bed, even here no one can believe. two hours of conversation about birth and pain and women and mothers and not a drop of english. well a couple splatters here and there but, well, three months ago that would be i-m-p-o-s-s-i-b-l-e.

 

how can we connect, stay connected, to use a phrase I absolutely hate – in the digital age? more then that. the distance. the digital is what allows me to stay connected at all. but it disconnects me from now. seeing production photos from the latest play at the U keeps me “up to date” but in a way just pushes tme closer to an edge farther away from the horizon of Imbabura. I need to stare at the mountains more. well I wake up everyday and do so because it still shocks me, so surreal, terror awe, but I need to do so more. look at the damn cuys in the corral. stick my fingers in the dirt. at the moment I’m temporally geographically emotionally physically and spiritually, linguistically, displaced.

 

I can actually feel the earth spinning.

 

 

 

¡Anita, apurate!

wellllll here I am in La Calera. I love it. thus far. Haven’t actually started my internship, which consists of being IN CHARGE of English for three or four grades….there is a lot to be defined yet there….but I love my new host family. My host “mom”, who is like more of a friend then a mom – as she prefers it – is a huge social activist and is involved in about five billion things, which include holding workshops working against machismo and domestic violence, being an asembleista, working for indigenous rights, hand embroidering shirts, making bracelets, taking care of our chickens, cuys (guinea pigs), sheep (only one), and pigs, taking care of a couple plots of land, owning an internet cafe, raising a 7 year old son naimed Kairik (after the Andean emperor) and a small dog named Abel…Inez, thus far, rocks my world. She was even in a play once.

so yes. we have an internet cafe, attached to the house, and a small plot of land and pigs in the backyard. I was walking around today watching people farm and blast Ludacris from radios. this is definitely a rural area…animals are everywhere, there are no street signs that I can see, everyone seems to know each other, I believe there is one local store, one fútbol field, etc., but the contradictions have my head spinning. Kairik literally brought pachamama (mother earth), our sheep, into the kitchen one second after I emerged from the internet cafe which has a bunch of slick slim screen monitors. it seems to be a magent for the local teenagers, all of whom seem to fall in either rockero or hiphoper sub culture.

I went to the school but still have so little idea of what´s happening there I´d rather talk about the other kids I met. My host brother, Kairik, and his five year old cousin, Peta, are pretty much going to be my best friends. They were the ones that took me on the walk. I found out some other very interesting transnational phenomenons, such as the fact that children seem to love, just love, to steal my water-bottle and will always asked to be pushed harder on the swing even if you are afraid you are going to push them right off. I loved hanging out with them because, well, they really like me. It´s all about making jokes, finding the right moment and the right spot to tickle, and to make them think they are smater then you. I´m glad I know enough spanish to achieve this. “Apurate” means hurry up, essentially, and was Peta´s favorite thing to order me to do, including when I was in the bathroom. When I opened the door she was standing right outside, on the verge of opening the door and dragging me out I suppose.

It is an indigenous community and I have already met a couple people who don´t speak Spanish. they are older, of course, but I still find it amazing in this area, which is not isolated at all, not like some of the communities in the Amazon, there are people who don’t know any spanish. I’m hoping to learn some Kiwcha but it looks and sounds fiendishly hard. Spanish has some of the same ancestors as English. Kiwcha…er. not really. I bought a dictionary and literally could not find a pattern I understood the grammar. vamos a ver I suppose.

It´s also great to finally go a day without hearing any English. I´m sure I will have a day when that is all I want to hear, but I´m excited to see where my spanish goes here.

I´m surrounded by mountains, that I can actually see, and there are actual green spaces. the air is full of dust when the wind blows, but it´s still a thousand times better then the clouds of black smoke that poured out of all the cars in Quito. I´m hearing a language I´ve never heard before (Kiwcha), that the Incas spoke. My host family here has about 20 times more books then my well off family in Quito, and more then half are about community organizing and woman´s rights. I loved helping Kairik with his homework and having his other cousin Rami show me the local game, spinning tops essentially that you throw. I love the fact that the fridge is full of vegetables and I dug potatoes out of the ground….who knew potatoes grew in the ground?! Well, I did, but actually pulling out of the ground was fucking miraculous. It´s food. that came out of the ground. I don´t know how I feel when we knock off one of the animals and eat it but I´m sure I will find the experience equally miraculous. it´s just so much work. Iñez seems to be able to fall asleep anywhere and take deep sleep power naps. I don´t blame her. My bed is slightly softer then bedrock but I think I´ll sleep just fine as well. It´s been a lot to take in at once. I´m not looking forward to when I get lice or fleas, which seems to be slightly inevitable, but I´ll wash my hands and be generally fine. there´s no hot water and no washing machine but this house has three floors.

contradictions contradictions contradictions. traditional kiwcha dress and tennis shoes. more palm trees against a backdrop of more mountains. cows in the street and a cell phone in every pocket.

will post photos when I can. I feel so much safer here. I feel so much happier here. I also feel so much more nervous here. the responsibility of teaching. being part of that pattern of three month volunteers re-teaching and re-teaching the english names of colors and animals over and over again because they can´t afford an english teacher, a pattern I hate and would hate if I was a student. the absolute terror I have of 7th graders, the group I will probably be working the most with.

vamos a ver. I plan to take long walks.

 

time to go lesson plan my first day.

ya me voy

well here is my last night in quito for a while. The First Annual Zombie Pub Crawl, Quito, Ecuador, 2009, was a resounding success. I got to satisfy my Halloween craving by making people up. trying to pack and generally failing. still really have no idea what age kids I’ll be working with, pretty much anything at all. guess I’ll find out when I get there. looking forward to kicking for good the cold I’ve had on and off for the past, I don’t know, month, Quito pollution – literally black clouds of smoke coming out of cars and buses – isn’t very conducive to trying to heal a sore throat.

I’m a bit nervousand also saddened to leave the other people in my program, some of which I’ve made quite good friends with. some other people have others in the same internship site and while from the outset I didn’t “want” that, right now it sounds like it would be pretty good. I am going to be essentially solita, well, close enough to some other MSIDer’s see them on weekends if we so desire, but unfortunately not the ones I am closest with. good people of course but cie la vie.

I went to a house party a couple nights ago in Guapolo, the so called “arsty/hipster” neighborhood of Quito, which I had generally been avoiding as a French girl was shot point blank there a few weeks ago (she actually had been living in Ecuador for a couple years.) at any rate it was this amazing little apartment, colorful walls and bare minimum furniture, music playing, homemade canelazo, and a bunch of people from FLASCO, social researchers, filmmakers, an animated little thin old man with grey hair in a ponytail and a cigarette and beer in hand, and it was great to sit down and chill with some people to whom theater and art were not strange words on the tongue. too bad I’m leaving so quickly, and it made me hunger to quit the program and go find these types and people and just learn that way.

and other then all this right now I am ridiculously nervous, don’t quite understand how I got myself in the position of teaching english, literally being in charge of english for an entire school, when that is the one thing I did not want to do, why I am not in Peru with pupeteers, why am I not x, why am I not doing y, why has my spanish been so awful this past week, etc. etc. etc.

remember, 20 minute walk from internet. welcome to even less frequent updates. or perhaps more frequent actually, planning to make a once a week walk to work on my paper, so might update weekly now.

WHO KNOWS

I don’t even know what age kids I will be working with, if there are paper and markers….if there is not I do not know what I will do with myself

buy them, probably.

I just keep reminding myself this is an adventure, and it will be worth it no matter what, as awfully trite as that sounds.

it’s just an incredible feeling to wake up today and have no idea what my life will be like tomorrow, this evening. I guess that can apply to any day of any life however. you never know. that truth is just painfully, splendidly, awesomely – in the true meaning of the word awe – clear at this moment.

adelante

hummingbirds and conifers, palm trees and doves. this is a country of countradictions, of stagnancy and sudden change, of paros and unending plates of rice. political discontinuity but the light never changes. same dawn same dusk. I feel like I’m stuck in time. I bought a mango from a woman on the street who was weeping. I ignore the children selling chicles as I drunkenly weave my way through Mariscal Sucre, oh mariscal mariscal you won the stones beneath my feet from Spain, and now your heritage is discotecas cheap beer and military men patrolling the streets with shotguns machine guns dogs and jeeps. won’t find that sort of force hanging around the corner of First Ave. or Hennipen smoking a cigarette as they watch you pass, the guns too large to be real how can they be real but they are real. just passing by señores. is this supposed to make feel safer? it unsettles the ground more then the zhumir and tilts the sky sideways. machine guns and glittery-assed jeans, camoflague and cover charges the mist hangs heavy thick how can the taxi even know where the stoplights are? here’s a little reminder for you all, the mountains say, remember where you are.

hummingbirds and confiers, palm trees and doves, I didn’t mean to interrupt this woman’s grief eyes on the mango just want the mango ¿cuanto cuesta uno de etsos? oh. lo siento. tears rolling down lined cheeks as she sends her small son to run a packet of limones y sal over to the buisnessman impatiently waiting on the corner. Simon Bolivar watches over our shoulders the surge of people etched in stone swelling up around him Simon Bolivar I’m sure you wouldn’t have wanted this. Estabamos mejor con Lucio. ¿En serio? the things the walls say here. fuera CIA del Ecuador. muerto a Israel. Diagolo por la vida, Sep. 16th. ¡Todos a los calles! the revolution beckons peering out behind cement reaching out with long graffiti letter fingers, black and fuzzy and enchanting. curls around my legs soft softly as I speed past on my way to catch the bus, hope I can find a spot where I’m not hanging half out. wouldn’t that be nice, a revolution, but already the children in the street and the man with no legs who plays the flute, badly, I’m sorry but badly, on the corner of the Plaza Grande in sight of the Presidential Palace well it all just becomes so much background. and then you realize it’s 10 in the morning and shouldn’t she be in school? so much background. Hannah Montana Jonas Brothers y Disney Disney Disney! self-contained reality sucking out the marrow of what could be a real culture both here and in the states.

thunder sounds the same. people still use baby voices to talk to the their pets, which I find to be a somewhat surprising trans-national phenomenon.

Part of me really hates Quito. I’m ready to leave in a week. I am terrified to teach English, yes, but I am ready to leave Quito.  Leave the city. I’m not going to be in an insanely out of reach place. A 20 minute walk to pharmacies and internet cafes and the lovely little town that is Cotacachi. But I know La Calera is going to be different from anywhere I’ve ever lived before, especially considering that I’ve considered the same house in suburban Plymouth my home since I was three months old.

Went to one of the main musuems yesterday. I was very dissapointed, and the art history snob in me, outright horrified (hyperbole!) at the mal organization of the musuem. The lack…well the lack. I have never felt so priviliged to have the Walker and the MIA and also musuems like the Art Institute of Chicago or the Met within my own country.
Just finishing up classes. One week left. Going to lead a workshop for the people in my program. Excited about that. Not quite sure what my life is going to be in a week.

Reading the blogs of friends who are also studying abroad, thinking I’m not seeing things not nearly as hard. but I could never go on a poverty tour, which some programs that proclaim to be about social justice amount to in my opinion. the very idea riles my blood. not that it isn’t probably incredibly eye-opening and beneifical for those who go on those programs, but I’m trying to see it from the point of view of those who recieve this visits. Firstly, are they getting paid? Even if they are, I can’t help but think of human zoos. Third-world exhibitions. World Fairs. I’m setting myself out to spend a little over 4 months in La Calera. I want to go deep. 4 months probably isn’t even enough time to scratch the surface.

This past weeks in Quito haven’t been a waste. Spoken more english then spanish probably, but my spanish still has improved astronomically. I can actually hold conversastions for one. Went to more discotecas then musuems. A different kind of social development right? Stuck in class 8:30 to 4:30…..uy.

readytogoreadytogoready to go.

wawa’s

wawa is kiwcha, the most common indigenous language here and the one spoken by the incas, and it means child or baby. isn’t that deliciously descriptive?

went on a trip with my education class to visit two schools. it got me excited to be around children again…I really loved being Arts and Crafts leader at plymouth’s day camp last summer. the thing is wherever I end for my internship….on which I will give details as soon as I know them and have actually decided where I am going (pretty much know but want to hold off saying something)…..I will be teaching english

I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO TEACH ENGLISH *panic panic panic*

Also I don’t know how credits are going to work out for me as I convinced my professors to give me credit for a class that turned out not to be offered (arts and cultural studies track, it’s why I’m in education now) and an internship that included theater aspects I have no idea will actually come to fruition and a research paper on local art forms I have no idea if I will have time to actually study. if my family needs help in the garden or tending the chickens or cows and the rest of the time I’m making up lesson plans because the students need to know english to get into high school, well, that’s what I’m going to do and fuck you university of minnesota.
I apologize, that was perhaps too much of a strongly worded statement. I still want to do all of the things I said above, but I am preparing myself to fail to do any of them and succeed in having an experience I can’t fortell.

Except for the fact I will be teaching English.

Literally the one thing I told everyone in the states I would NOT do.

oh well. one of the schools was practically begging for us to come and teach. in the face of such a need – not just an aspect of cultural and language imperialism, but a bona fide need in order to continue the educational process while at the same time they realize the aspects of cultural and language imperialism and fight to maintain their own culture…but they want their children to go past the 7th grade…and I know English and could probably teach it pretty decently and teach it through my artsy ideas, well, I can’t say no.

waaaugh. anyway, seeing kids play and attempt cartwheels and headstands and push each other down small hills and cry and scream and laugh has confirmed my belief that kids, in any country or culture, when they are young, are pretty much the same. although I definitely give props to the girls doing cartwheels in traditional indigenous dress, the long skirt would completely mess me up.

at the second school some of the kids performed some traditional folk dance, to andean flute tunes mixed with electric guitar solos played on a cd player….they got us up and we danced with them…I don’t know how I feel about it. it was the type of experience that I think can be done very superficially, where we come and pose and take photos with them and of them (except a couple other girls and me stepped out of the photos, and didn’t bring our cameras…)….I don’t know. human-tourism and the whites walk away feeling like they’ve done good. on the flip-side, they generally want to share their school with us and this was their way of welcome.

I am getting eaten up by some sort of bug that may or may not live in my bed…or the moment I step outside I’m getting bitten by something. why is my blood so deliciously sweeeeeeeeet

also my ear with the new piercings is a little red and throbby right now. trying not to worry about it. but perhaps worrying will send more white blood cells to the area! who knows?!

in order to get an ecuadorian prescription for my anti-anxiety meds I had to go see a psychologist and was evaluated in spanish. I was asked all sorts of normal questions, about my family history, appetite, sleeping habits, any suicidal or self-destructive thoughts, but also some new questions for me, such as, “Are your parents sane?”, “Are you using crack?”, “Are you looking for an Ecuadorian boyfriend?”, and my favorite, “Have you participated or thought about participating in any actions or protests against authority?” (Questionably, no, señor I don’t need a boyfriend to be happy, and no but hotdamn I would like to.) Generally in the States these questions are grouped under “Are you using any drugs?” and “Any changes in your normal behavior?” but I was treated to these questions, and many more, that specifically went into any conceivable instance of a deviation from normal behavior. it was entertaining and I think I said “no” more then I ever have before in a period of 15 minutes. ended getting my prescription without any further consequence so I don’t think I mistakenly said anything in Spanish that made me look insane.

and as my parents are half or more my reading audience I would like to apologize for implying you are not both 100% completely sane in eveeeeeeery way possible, riiiiight?

(you may be offended from a distance)

time for bed or rather soaking my ear in salt-water and thinking about the mountains for a while, trying to ignore my distend stomach full of nescafe and delicious delicious lachipungas

love, anita

free verse

I hate.

I hate facebook. I hate when the internet signal finally comes through and I can see the long list of people currently online and think take in deep how few people how what relationships friendships I thought I had I never had. who reads this. who thinks on me and my body and my mind thrown flung halfway across the world. why am i analyzing myself when I came here to get out of myself…

I never had a relationship with my grandmother not a true one I’m sorry I’m saying telling showing truth now and I didn’t, and now I can’t, because she is dead, and what part of me now is dying? blood rusts. blood flakes. blood scabs. grandmother brother father step-father who else who else I will list the names of those who have dealt me blows by not touching me and mourn for what has not been. what a ridiculous concept, what a complicated structure of time. what is? now?

now. knee pain. alpaca sweater. I hate, Quito is too western, well i want to see reality and the reality is that latin america IS westernized because it IS colonized, economically politically and culturally. there is a reason hollister is popular here but there are no hollister stores. don’t you feel privileged now? go buy your shitty jeans at the mall of america and do it with a shit-eating grin on your face. why do they import grapes from the US here when there is a YEAR LONG growing season? because they are supposed to be better? tonight I have eaten fruits I have never eaten the texture of sweet wet cotton or filled with seeds the size of my thumb and I cannot describe the tastes because I have never tasted them before. but the grapes, the grapes, the grapes are from california, the clothes from california, the tv shows from california, the movies from california, california california break away already with an earth rending shudder of disgust at yourself and come float down to those who would look upon you as the second coming of the messiah.

god, I hate, my mouth turns downwards and streches and there is a lack of bitterness because the coffee, the coffee, the coffee I hope it stains your teeth shit brown because it grows here it grows here it grows here but all there is nescafe. to buy a drink made from beans, colombian beans, not ecuadorian beans mind you, you are the one drinking the ecuadorian beans, it costs dollars an american dollar an AMERICAN dollar because the sucre has died went up in sugary flames in 2001, 2.25 dollars for a latte.

lunch – sopa. plato fuerte, jugo, postre, 1.50. 1.70. and people roll up in their imported suv’s to juan valdez cafe to buy colombian beans for the above price, which is sin the 12% tax.

now.

I love.

now, I love, but not you, I’m sorry. I love the mountains. I love the wind. I love red wine on top of the mountain. I love drunken conversations by the fireside the lights of otavalo spread out beneath us. I love getting lost in the countryside, I feel odd when we realize we are walking through other people’s farmland. la luna la luna thanks for the map but we got lost anyway and ate mandarins looking out over the volcanic lake. I can’t see the tops of the mountains because of the clouds and no photo will accurately represent the colors of those clouds right now. I love when the spanish isn’t hard because it is hard almost all the time I like talking about future trips and moving to south america for longer then an academic year a completely arbitrary amount of time and the stars are bright up here and I bought a sweater that is softer then any touch softer then anyone could hold my hand.

go listen to manu chau. i made ceviche tonight. I have tarea to do. I want to run away.