Political Awareness (or the Distinct Lackthereof) in Ecuador

Although I am a proponent of sensitivity towards cultural differences, and consideration towards the feelings of others, I do find myself frustrated at the (in my opinion) sometimes excessive amount of political correctness that is floating around our country and specifically around Middlebury College. In an atmosphere of “first-years” and ¨Little People”,  “Native Americans/Indigenous persons/Indians” , and “womyn”, I sometimes fear that in the effort to avoid offending someone, we miss out the opportunity to hear a critical argument, genuine question, or worst of all, a really funny joke.

So, when I got to Ecuador, I was relieved to discover that the rules of language were a little more lax here.  One Ecuadorian student who had studied abroad in Missouri told me that the one thing he simply did not understand about American culture was the concept of “political correctness.”  As he said, “here, we sort of just say what we want to, and if it´s something bad, people generally just think we´re joking.¨  I did a little celebratory dance inside my head.  Finally! I was in a place where people could talk freely!  Gone was the need to censure ourselves! Distasteful jokes could be made without several Proctor tables full of politically aware Middlebury students turning to give me their nastiest looks!  I had arrived! Or so I thought, until I saw what a lack of political correctness is like in practice.

This weekend, I found myself in the Oriental region of Ecuador riding a trolley up the side of a volcano at night.  Beautiful views, cool people, a cup of traditional hot wine, and life was good.  Then, when things could not get any better, we turned around to see the rest of our tour group (all Ecuadorians) gathering around a bonfire.  Being gringos, and generally clueless, we naturally all assumed that we were going to be treated to some sort of show put on by people from the indigenous tribes of Ecuador.  We eagerly ran up to the fire, ready to have our minds blown by the ancient traditions of these people who have resisted modernization for so long.  Turns out, we were not watching a traditional fire dance.  No, just a magic show featuring two magicians who could not actually perform magic tricks.  So really, we were watching more of a comedy put on by two brothers frolicking around a roaring bonfire.  Disappointed, but still ready for a few laughs ,we settled into the show.

Over the course of the next 30 minutes, these two men managed to insult nearly every group of people you could ever think of.  Black people, white people, indigenous people, gay people (though they used a much more offensive slang term), women, Chinese people, people from the entirety of Asia, orphans… I could go on for the rest of my 650 allotted words, but I think you get the picture.  These men took the most offensive stereotypes about each group and mocked them incessantly: ponytails, pinched eyes, stilted speech and a sort of waddle turned one into a Chinese man, whilst the other killed the crowd by flicking his wrists and speaking in high-pitched, lisping Spanish in his imitation of a gay man.  With each joke, we got more and more irritated and shocked that these performers (and the audience) actually thought these crude generalizations were funny.  We ended up leaving the show in favor of exploring the mountainside and appreciating the amazing views.

So, for all of you who read my first paragraph and were appalled that I, a student of Middlebury College, cannot understand the need for accurate and sensitive language, consider my lesson learned. At least, partially.  I still maintain that sometimes the PC-ness of our country and campus goes too far, but I have come to appreciate that a balance is, indeed necessary.  If I am trying to be an empathetic and understanding person, then the language I choose to use needs to reflect this goal.

This does not mean, however, that I cannot still appreciate a good blonde joke.  

PUENTING VIDEO

In lieu of a real post...I leave you with a link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIa-umpMASw

September 3rd, 2011

This weekend I hung around Quito despite the fact that my friends were going off to exotic locations such as the Mindo Cloud Forest and a beautiful camping trip at a crater.  I did so supposedly because I wanted to experience a weekend in the city, but mostly because I had already paid 15$ for an International Students Party and was too cheap to forefeit that ticket money to go on another trip.

So, Saturday morning rolled around and I found myself waiting outside of one of Quito's stadiums with roughly 60 other gringos who were waiting to board the buses that the university had told us would arrive at 10.  It was then 10:15, no buses in sight.  At 10:30, I led a little expedition of people on a walk around the stadium, to see if by any chance the buses had parked somewhere else instead of right in front of the stadium, in the most clearly parked, wide open parking lot available. You never know...so, we saw some buses that looked suspiciously like the charter buses we were waiting for, only not a single one of them had a driver.  Huh.  We walked back to the group of gringos, defeated.  We then waited until 11:00, when finally those buses drove up to find us...hooray!  We then boarded the buses, only to sit there till 11:30, when we started moving.  After driving for a SOLID 10 meters, a car hit one of the buses. Oh my god.  Not a serious hit, but enough to merit some arguing and paperwork, which took a solid 30 minutes.  FINALLY, when we arrived at the ranch where the party was to be held, it was 1:00pm.

The ranch was located in a suburb of Quito, and I guess it has some affiliation with the University.  The advertisements for this party has promised, food, a DJ, dancing, games, and beer, which sounds great, except when we got there, there was only....nothing.  We got off the bus only to find a tent set up with some chairs and banquet tables set up.  There were no school employees to welcome us or tell us what to do.  It felt like someone had invited us all to a wedding and then forgot to actually plan the party, or even show up for it.  So that was weird.  We all shuffled around aimlessly for a bit.

Luckily, before things got TOO uncomfortable, some of the international student leaders and Ecuadorian "buddies" showed up and broke us up into groups to play some "traditional Ecuadorian games."  We were all a little more than reluctant...after a late Friday night who can really claim to be THAT interested in party games more appropriately suited to the abilities of a 6 year old?  But, being the good sports that we are (and knowing that out return buses weren't coming for 7 hours) we set off for the playing fields.

My group's first game was a typical field day race where you balance an egg on a spoon, put said spoon in your mouth, and trot around for a bit.  Easy.  My team was slated to compete in the second heat, so naturally I was paying CLOSE attention to the other competitors to see how to gain an advantage.  Spoon in teeth? Lips? Head tilted? Slow and steady? Go for broke? The possibilities were endless.  I was intently zeroed in on the race, when this Ecuadorian girl comes up and hands me a tray of like 60 eggs.. Thinking this was for me to prepare for my race, I took them. She then instructed me and my friends to "throw one."  What?? I turned to my friend to make sure I hadn't made a translation error.  I hadn't.  I turned to the girl, "throw them? why? at what?" "AT THEM!" she shouted in English.  I laughed nervously.  Surely she could not be serious...I was not going to throw raw eggs at the people who I am supposed to be trying to make friends with.  We backed away slowly, but by this point the Ecuadorian was getting frustrated.  The race was well underway, and so far nobody had any yolk on their face.  She took matters into her own hands, and started firing away.  Soon, all the Ecuadorians joined in.  I literally could not believe this was happening.  They had no mercy, chucking eggs at us from all directions, rolling them under our feet, it was crazy.  Then it was our turn to race, and despite being fired upon by the Ecuas, my team managed to pull out a victory.

Our next game was a game more typical of the ones played in villages around festival days.  How it works is there is a large wooden pole, and you have to climb it.  If you can touch the cow/pig/bushel of wheat at the top, you get to take it home!  However, by the time we approached this telephone pole height piece of (really, really smooth) wood, we were already soaking in egg yolk and were feeling less than enthusiastic about the prospect of being able to climb what was essentially a fireman's pole.  The Ecuadorians kept saying it was possible though, and that we were really wimpy if we didn't at least try it.

I kept having Mulan flashbacks, and soon the group started to feel a little more hopeful that maybe someone, could by some miracle, climb up the pole.  Mulan could do it.  There are, however two main differences between what happens in the pole-climbing scene in Mulan and what happened with us.  1) we lacked those cords with heavy medallions attached to both ends that proved to be extremely useful and 2) Mulan is a cartoon.  Needless to say, all we managed to do was sort of jump up, hug the pole in sort of a sloth pose, and then slowly slide down until our toes touched solid earth in a dust poof of defeat and shame.  Unsuccessful.

After the party games, we were finally allowed to start eating and drinking, and from there the party actually became really fun.  Lots of dancing, chatting, and meeting new people filled the day, and I was actually glad I had stayed in Quito to attend the party.

Loooongggg Overdue

August 31st, 2011

Today I became an Ecuadorian.  How? By taking falsifying government documents and taking advantage of a corrupt government system, of course!  I know, I know.  I've never skipped class (ok, well there was that ONE psych class I accidentally slept through, but the fact that I remember it so vividly and with so much guilt shows how out of character it was for me), am reluctant to jay-walk, and NEVER eat the snacks in the so-called "free food aisle" of Hannaford's, because that is stealing.  So you may not believe me when I say that I am most definitely an illegal alien here in Ecuador.  But rest assured, I am.  Here's how this happened...

So, when you come to Ecuador as an exchange student you must register your Visa within 25 days of arriving in the country.  Then, also within 25 days, you must use your registered Visa to apply for a Censo, which is the Ecuadorian national identity card for foreigners.  I registered my Visa on my 20th day here, and applied for my Censo on my 32nd, mostly because I was too lazy to do it beforehand.  For a country that has it's own time "hora Ecuatoriana", which means that everything happens a half hour late, I pretty much expected them to not care at all that I was a couple days late. How wrong I was.

As I sat in line at the Foreign Services Office, I practiced my best "Aye, Dio Senor! I thought I had 25 business days to register my Censo. Perdoneme!" speech, and my very best "lost gringa in a strange country" face" that has come in handy many a time here.  After waiting in line for two hours and growing increasingly nervous, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the clerk flipped right past the page with the date on it.  Little did I know, this sigh was premature.  So, so, sooooo premature.

The clerk (actually an immigration policeman) flipped through my papers, and said "I have bad news for you." Shit.  And he pointed to a date on my Visa that someone in Immigrations had forgotten to date.  He then proceeded to explain that in order for him to give me a Censo I would need to go to the Visa processing Offices and have them re-date it.  The only problem with this solution was that if I went back to that office, someone would surely realize that my Visa had technically sort of expired, and I would have to pay a fine of a couple thousand dollars, or maybe be deported...wasn't really sure.  At this point, my host mom and I were both really stressed out and worried about my being sent to the US of A, so naturally we went right to her mom's house to enjoy a nice long lunch.  Typical Ecuadorian reaction there.

Then, after lunch, we had a sort of family meeting to decide what we should do.  After weighing all the legal options, we decided that forgery was the only option.   After all, the missing date had simply been written in with a Bic pen...which we TOTALLY had lying around the house.  Perfect!  Then, we used my friend Katie's passport as a template, and had a little contest to see who could most closely imitate the handwriting of a government official.  My cousin was determined to be the most skilled, and she did the honors of falsifying a government document.  Mischief managed.

Except for one teeennyyy problem, we sort of messed up the year that she was supposed to write.  So my passport now said that my Visa expires in August of 2011, when it was supposed to say 2012.  Double shit.  Lacking any other better option, we just sort of changed the 1 into a 2.  It looked sort of like this: 2012.  In other words, it looked terrible, and like we had done it in our living room. Which, of course, we had.


Anyways, Karla (my host mom) called her dad, who called his friend who just happens to be the head of immigrations and I guess he sort of warned the guys in the Foreign Affairs office that I would be coming in the next day, and that they should help me out.  Thank God.  The next day, we ran in at 8am, presented the same clerk with my homemade passport, and got the Censo.  The clerk had clearly been instructed to ignore our hackjob, but he couldn't help mocking us a little bit. "Oh, what idiot wrote in these numbers, the made a mistake again?" "You didn't write this in at home, did you?" Whatever, he still gave me the card.


 Woohoo!!  So illegal, but it felt so good.

August 24th, 2011

SE HABLA ESPANOL

So I’m speaking a lot of Spanish these days.  Mostly, it’s going pretty well…but as would be expected, it’s also waaayyy harder to be somewhat interesting/funny in one’s second language (if you can even call it that).  I am enjoying the chance to get to hear how people really speak: a lot of times in Spanish classes we learned really Spain-specific, formal manners of speaking that don’t translate well to everyday life in South America.  Because I am too lazy to write coherent paragraphs right now, I’ve organized my experiences as a gringa trying to speak Spanish in the following list.

1)      People here LOVE to use the diminutive forms of nouns.  That is, in Spanish you put “ita” or “ito” onto the end of a noun to indicate that it is remarkably small.  Only here, you put “ita” or “ito” to indicate that you feel affection towards the noun in question, or towards the subject that the noun is acting upon.  And Ecuadorians are affectionate folk.  Therefore, almost everything you say changes to its diminutive.  I am often called “mi hijita” which means “my little daughter”, and every morning am offered a “técito” or “little cup of tea.”  Sometimes they use the “ito” to make offensive things less offensive.  For example, a neighbor referred to someone as “gordito,”  theoretically to indicate that although he may be fat, I do still feel affection towards him.

2)   Ecuador (as do most South American countries) has a lot of its own words that do

You would never learn in a typical Spanish class.  For example, they say “chompa” instead of “chaqueta”, “carro” instead of “coche”, and absolutely everything is “chevere,” which means “cool.”  If you ever plan on visiting Ecuador, you must must must learn the word “chevere.”  You can never overuse it.  Usually it’s pretty easy to pick up these new country-specific words.  The only unfortunate thing is when you use a slang word from another country that has quite a different meaning here.  Take the word “chualo”, for instance.  In some countries it means “cute” or “precious”, in other words, very appropriate thing to call a baby.  Turns out, parents do not appreciate this word being used in reference to their children, as it means here “pimp” or “john.”  Oops.

3)      For the most part, I can understand what is being said in Spanish when someone is

Either a professor addressing a quiet classroom or someone speaking directly to me.  I tend to tune out a bit though when I’m with a group of 3 or Ecuadorians who are all talking to each other about something not really related to me.  It’s hard to listen to multiple people talking at once with a lot of slang and excitement thrown in.  Apparently I get a confused/spacey/bored look on my face, because everyone in a while in the middle of such an Ecuadorian conversation, someone will suddenly feel the need to make some dull comment related to me that I can understand.  They say it in the same tone of voice that the parent of a bored child who has been forced to attend an adult dinner party would say something in an attempt to get the child to liven up a bit.  “Today, Timmy did watercolors and painted a tree” is not so far removed from “Today, Olivia read outside on the terrace.” Wow!  I then smile and nod vigorously.

 4)      This road goes both ways.  Sometimes I find myself in situations with only one or

 Two other Ecuadorians, and whenever we fall into a silence, I assume it’s my fault because I’m not                       being foreign and interesting.  So, naturally, I feel compelled to make some inane comment or another.  The following are some direct quotes from yours truly (translated into English, but don’t worry, they were just as (if not more) stupid in Spanish): “there is a lot of space in this lawn” “there are a lot of buildings on this street” “I like this painting because it has a lot of red.”  Needless to say, after these thought-provoking and original tidbits conversation resumed with unprecedented energy.