Olivia’s Travel Tips: DO bring enough socks to last you two weeks, or else you may find yourself sporting Ecuadorian pairs emblazoned with phrases such as “pretty lady” and “sexy me.” DON’T wait to register for classes until you are in the jungle with internet access a la 1998.
MIERCOLES SIGNIFICA FUTBOL
Wednesday night was the most wonderfully unexpected night here in Arajuno! At around 4:30 we took the bus over to the house of a friend of the Project. His name is Manuel, and he lives with his son Brian in the coolest house ever. You simply walk off the road down into what looks like a tunnel in the bushes, but it leads down into his home, which is really nice, especially compared to the other homes in the area. Manuel is a pretty prevalent member of the community, and is highly devoted to making sure that his people are as educated as possible. In order to meet this goal, he opens up his house once a week to everyone who would like to come and learn English.
This week there were about 10 people there, so we set up some tables on his little patio and worked by the moonlight and light from strands of bulbs hanging from the trees. It felt very cozy and personal. I worked with a man named Masias. He is 40 years old and has two daughters who currently attend high school. Initially, he was really shy about speaking English with me, and really would not respond to anything unless I translated it into Spanish for him. He kept hitting his head and calling himself a cabeza del galllo (chickenhead…), which was more than a little strange. After a while though, he opened up, and we began translating some phrases together. Once we both got bored of that, we had the chance to simply start chatting about our lives. Perhaps I should have tried harder to speak more English, but hey, I wanted a chance to use a bit of Spanish too!
It turns out Masias and Manuel own about 100 acres of the jungle, and they have this dream of building another house like the one we live in so that they could house English-teaching volunteers just like Arajuno Road Project does now. It was touching that these two men thought that our project was worthy of imitation and that they were saving up a lot of money towards meeting that goal.
As it grew darker we started wrapping up evening class and then, when I assumed we would hitch a ride home, Manuel told us that his friend was coming to pick us up and bring us to Triunfo. Everyone else seemed to know this, but I was pretty surprised and curious as to what we were going to be doing.
Apparently, “Wednesday means futbol!” in Triunfo, and that, along with socializing and grabbing some dinner was why we were going into town. (I am realizing now that the word town is a bit mis-leading. When trying to picture the size of this place, imagine making an “OK” sign with your fingers. Now, close one eye and hold the circle up to your open one. You would be able to see the whole town from this circle.) I was surprised to see that this little strip of convenience shops that looks, frankly, nothing but dusty and deserted during the day, comes alive at night. It seemed that everyone in the community gathers on Wednesdays for the weekly soccer game. We stopped and grabbed some empanadas and beers (legal in Ecuador-woohoo!) and brought them over to the stadium to get ourselves some seats.
It may sound strange that such a small, poor town has an indoor soccer stadium…and, well, it is. I don’t mean to make it sound like they’re playing at Gilette or anything, but there is a pretty large, clean, well-lit stadium that is open to the public for however long the game lasts. That’s more than I can say for Cochicuate!
I felt so at home during this soccer game. As we sat on the bleachers, all of the kids from school and their older siblings would come running over as soon as they spotted us and start chatting. Some made brave attempts at English, whilst others vastly over-estimated my Spanish skills and forced me to resort to the ever-appropriate smile, shrug and nod. We joked around for hours about everything from movies, to life in the United States, to their love interests and little siblings. I felt more and more comfortable expressing myself in Spanish because they were more than willing to try and puzzle out what I was trying to say.
It was altogether an excellent night, and I really did feel like I was a member of this tight-knit community.
No comments:
Post a Comment