Quito is known populary (Mostly by Quiteños) as the "Face of God," I don't know if that's exactly what I'd call it. Be it what it may, call it what I may, for now it's "home."
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The title of of this blog reads, "To the Hell with the Pastors, Christmas is Over!" For those of you who understand Spanish, you'll note the more "G-Rated" word substitution of miércoles in place of mierda, a common practice in Ecuador-speak. For my non Spanish-speaking readers, miércoles means "Wednesday", which is a word that conveniently begins with the same "mier-" as mierda, which is a much more inappropriate word that DOES NOT mean Wednesday; I'll let you look it up if you're curious enough! :-) Anyhow, the reference to the pastors comes directly from the bible's story of Christ's Mass, "The pastors, the pastors, they come to see the baby Jesus," which are highly celebrated around this time of year in Latin America.
It's the 25th of December, here I sit in a very warm upstairs room in Quito typing and jamming out to KoRn's brand new single, "Narcissistic Cannibal." Listening to KoRn takes me back to older days, the nostalgia sets in, but I haven't a single idea who the heck the featured groups in the song are, Skrillex and Kill The Noise. Is my age showing? Nonetheless, I'm well over Sarah Mclachlan's "Wintersong" and am ready to welcome in the New Year with some good old 90's Rock!
After getting some feedback on my last, rather skeptical, entry about Navidad, I decided, in honor of the season, that I shouldn't let my readers down entirely. In an effort to save some literary face, I gracefully came through, just a few days earlier, with a Christmas card to all of you, my loved ones, which contained honest and upfront personal sentiments. At the same time, I admit that I rather enjoyed replacing all of Santa's reindeer with animalitos of the selva. I hope you all got a chance to take a look at the card and read up a bit on Yachana's struggles as well. If you didn't get to look at the annual update, please follow this link, http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Happy-Holidays-from-Yachana-.html?soid=1102313672756&aid=AkjA-sqe1gw
Now, before we completely say adiós to the pastors, let me come through on another Christmas promise, telling you about the Navidad celebrations in Quito. Ecuador, like the majority of Latin American countries, is populated predominantly by followers of the Catholic Faith. What this means for Christmas is that many people here still adhere to holiday practices and traditions that are directly linked to the church and the birth of Jesus Christ. Those of you who know me know that I am far from religious, but that I am respectful of the beliefs of others and feel that we should all be free to choose whatever we wish to think or believe. As long as people are not hurting others, impeding or imposing, I think they should do as they wish in terms of this subject. As a secular, non-baptized and non-Catholic individual, I still enjoy observing the practices of the people and even participating in some.
One of my favorite traditions here in Ecuador, and one that I had the opportunity to see for the first time last December, is the displaying of pesebres, or nativity scenes. Just like in the states, where you find a Christmas tree in most every house, here you find a display of the scene of the sacred night in Bethlehem. The first time I saw the pesebres, some of them didn't have baby Jesus. When I asked where the baby was, I was promptly told, "No llega hasta el 25" ["He doesn't come until the 25th"]. Well, duh! :-) In the Cathedral and Convent of San Francisco de Asís of Quito (Saint Francis of Assisi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_and_Convent_of_St._Francis) they display arounf one hundred Nativity Scenes, which are all enrolled in a competition. I'm not really sure what first place wins. I really enjoyed going to see these Nativity Scenes and I made two rather interesting observations: 1. Many of the pesebres were designed with depictions of the Holy Family as indigenous peoples and 2. The plaza where the San Francisco church is located is found right over the ruins of what was the palace of the Inca ruler Atahualpa. I'll let you be the judge of the significance of that historical point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atahualpa).
I could lecture you on the injustice of the Latin American history and the Spanish Conquest, but I'd imagine you can figure it out for yourself. Anyhow, it's not very Christmasy to talk about how horrible it is that small groups of Spanish forces came and literally wiped out an entire continent of intelligent, well-developed and well-established civilizations of indigenous. Let me just say that I am at least slightly pleased to see the Holy Family being represented as indigenous in Nativity Scenes. It's not entirely justice, but there is some justice in that, I should say. Here are some of my favorite pesebres of that style:
Now you might be expecting me to write that in Ecuador they haven't fallen into the tragic commercialization of Christmas, that they still remember what Christmas is for and they aren't affected by any of the crazy gift-giving mania, but, unfortunately, I can't make that claim. Point in fact, Exhibit A:
Yes, that's a huge Coca-Cola Christmas tree (net) in relief filled with red and white balloons (photo enlarged for effect) smack dab in the middle of a plaza in the Historic Center of Quito, with the Virgin of Quito looking on in the distant background. I love and appreciate the irony of this photo! Unfortunately, just like most places in the world, Ecuador is not untouched by the sickness of commercialism that effects us all in the modern world.
I don't want to end this on a negative note, after all it is the Super Special Christmas Blog Exposé. I will tell you that I am skeptical in terms of the coming year, I have my doubts and worries as always. I continue to have my own interior conflicts that I wonder if I'll ever resolve, I find myself thinking about people and things that I've turned over in my mind since the start of this journey and blog. Myself aside, in a macro schema, I worry about what our world is coming to, pollution and its environmental impacts scare the hell out of me, wars continue to be fought, injustices are found around every corner. All of that and more, and yet, I still feel something inside of me telling me to fight. With a look at the micro schema, I see a group of kids from the Ecuadorian Amazon that are reading, writing poems, reflections and short stories, learning math and English and preparing themselves to better the world. What we are doing does matter and I'm not going to give up. I do have hope for humanity still; we must keep in mind that, while we aren't one race, culture, political party or religion, we are one people. We must not let the falseness of borders drawn on a map separate us literally. Pray, hope, dream, sing, yell, cry, bet and WORK for a better world, for a better society, for a better existence for everything and everyone this 2012.
Deck the hammock with a Chris, relaxed and comfortable, swaying in the heat of the selva
Many of you may be wondering, "Just how to they celebrate the Christmas holiday in the Amazon jungle?" Well, let me tell you, they pretty much don't. That's right, no Christmas insanity! Many of my readers are probably feeling sorry for me in this moment and wishing I had the chance to experience the traditional holiday procession, but you're sympathizing with the wrong person if that's the case. I couldn't be more thrilled about the prospect of no Christmas catastrophes, no quilombos navideños, this year!
Yes! No "Jingle All the Way", no packed malls, no traffic, no worrying about what to get for Jon Doe's girlfriend's niece, no getting fat, no burnt cookies, no ringing bells, no tacky decorations (okay, so maybe there are some of those, I'll explain later) and, best of all, NO WHITE CHRISTMAS, ZERO SNOW OR ICE! Oh I'm thrilled, in case you couldn't tell. I'm sorry my people, but you just don't realize how insane it has all gotten with the commercialization of Christ's Mass. My words can't explain how liberating it is to be free of all of that and see it from the outside. Do you guys remember what Christmas is even about? Why do we go through all of that holiday insanity in the US? Well, while you're thinking about the true meaning of the holiday, I will be here, resting in my hammock and writing away.
Don't think that no Christmas mayhem means that the people here aren't happy, really it's quite the contrary. The thing is, people here are, in general, alegre (happy) and there's not really anything that they are missing in celebrating Christmas that would make them happier. Would buying a bunch of presents and gifting them make them happier? Not quite, what money are they going to use to buy all of these presents and what would they buy anyway? The nearest supermarket is about four hours away by canoe and bus. Do we need Christmas trees? We're surrounded by the Amazon Forrest. Christmas music? We've got Salsa, Merengue and Reggaeton, like always :-). I'll I want for Christmas is for the arenillas to quit biting me!
Here in the selva, people don't really need to use a holiday as an excuse to spend time with their family, they do that every day. Some of the practices that we try to employ during the holidays are things that should be common sense and take place year round. Here, they do. The holidays are a time for sharing, for being happy, for celebrating and for being with loved ones and relaxing? Like I've always said, life here is just more simple. Well, every day here in the selva we share food and other simple gifts, we celebrate life and the naturaleza, we work together, we spend time with each other and you can bet we relax. We certainly don't need to stress out about money and whether we'll have enough to gift material objects, we gift our compañerismo, our comradeship.
Just when I was beginning to think that there would be absolutely no earmarks of the western commercialized Christmas, I came upon quite a sight upon my return to the lodge, after the last break. As I walked up to the reception area, I couldn't believe my eyes. I saw horribly draped dancing lights around the desk, that awful plastic type of garland and the ugliest little LED Christmas tree I have ever laid eyes on. Well, I guess they felt like they had to satisfy any foreign guests we might have during the month of December. On second thought, the guests may be so appalled by the horrid sight of the adornment that they run all the way back down to the river and hop into the first canoe that passes by.
We have few days left in this academic session; we have a shortened term this time around for the coming holiday break. Instead of twenty one days, we are only in for fourteen this time around. At the end of this week, we will all be leaving Yachana and beginning a three week vacation, I know you envy me and I apologize :-). I have plans to go to, you guessed it, the great gran Quito. The holiday celebrations in Quito, and the rest of the sierra, are much different than those of the selva, but I will write about those later on this month.
Don't worry, I didn't do away with all of the Christmas traditions: "Lake is frozen over, trees are white with snow, and all around reminders of you are everywhere I go...Merry Christmas, my love..."
"Entonces [Daniela Báez] salió del automóvil envuelta con el abrigo hasta las orejas, y le preguntó al guardia en un francés perfecto dónde había una farmacia" (Márquez, "El rastro de tu sangre en la nieve").
Jorge Luis Borges said, "Muchas cosas he leído y pocas he vivido," [I've read many things and lived few], this is exactly what I am trying to avoid in my life. I have read MANY things and I will keep reading, but I want to live much more and write about all of these experiences. Yachana and the selva are giving me stories and experiences to share for years, that's a big part of why I don't want to leave. When I go to Tena, native guides ask me if I am interested in a jungle tour and I tell them, "My life is a jungle tour." Today I was talking with a woman who mentioned that there was an insect exhibition at the Botanical Park of Quito. Guess what I told her, that's right, "My life is and insect exhibition."
Well, I have a question for you. If I receive absolutely no response, then I'll have my answer. Are you still reading this or am I writing to myself? I heard one time about a writer who held the belief that his work was somehow too good for people and that they didn't deserve to read it, so he didn't publish anything. I'm most definitely not that egotistical and I certainly see the value of having an audience. Writing for and to yourself is very valuable, but I also do have ambitions, not all ambition is bad, and I love to share my work and get feedback. I guess what I'm saying is the following: I, just like many people, would like to say that I don't care what others think, but I have enough sense and sensibility to know that that is not the true way I feel. We live off of "give and receive" in this world and I would like to know if what I am sharing socially is worth the cost, the time it takes you to read it. Time is also a commodity and I certainly hope that you aren't spending yours unwisely when you read what I write. I would like to know if you care to read about Ecuador, about Quito, Yachana, the selva, my woes, my sadness and my alegría (happiness), all from my perspective. Please leave a comment and I'll know, I won't change anything because that's just how I am, but I'll at least know. If not, I'll just keep writing to myself.
I know that the term "Drama Queen" ("teatrera" o "meladramática," en español) exists, but is there also a "Drama King" ("teatrero") and, if so, am I one? Here I am in Quito once again, feeling sorry for myself, once again. Maybe my drama is a little more real this time around, we had one hell of an academic term this November; it has been a little rough. We have had everything from discipline issues, which is to be expected with teenagers, to water problem, after water problem, after water problem. On the upside, we survived and we did much more than just that. I must confess that I am finding it a little difficult to write this time around, which would explain why I haven´t done it for such a long period of time. Well, here goes nothing, or "her" goes nothing (that's what I typed before realizing the error and correcting it, double meaning or simple error?)...
I have come to the realization that traveling alone is just no fun, big surprise right? Here's the thing, I love to be in the jungle, I can´t get enough of the work I do there and I even wear myself out on a daily basis, but it's amazing! There's always a new challenge, something different to discover, and I love being with my Yachana family in my home, the selva. After a term like the one we just had, I always say to myself, "I can't wait for our break," but, after just a couple of days of being away, I always find that I can't wait to get back to the selva and get back to work. You all know that I love Quito, I love the fact that I have a place to stay and relax and that Mónica treats me as if I were her own son, but it does get lonely here. Even though I'm a grown man, it still gets to me when I have to do things all by myself. For example, who wants to go to the movies by themselves? If you do, please leave a comment, I´d like to know what your perspective is on this. I do have friends here in Quito, but they are all older and have jobs and other obligations. In other words, I have no one to hang out with :-( I´ll teach you a new word in Spanish, desamparado, it basically means "helpless" or "abandoned". That´s why I wonder if I´m a Drama King, because that´s how I feel in Quito by my lonesome. I wish my conecshión was here with me right now. The ironic thing is that I told a student, after she expressed worrying about thinking too much, that you can never think too much, I am now eating my words. When you're alone and you have a lot of free time, it's very easy to think too much. I think about the past, future and present, old and new relationships, people I haven't seen in years, long lost friends, friends that are far away, think about family (I have a lot of those), think about sad things and worry a lot, and I think about writing everything that's in my mind...here we go:
Now that I have gotten my customary "self pitying" paragraph out of the way, let me update you on my latest adventures. As I briefly mentioned earlier, the students were a bit difficult this time around. This group of students had never been in the high school with us before and we just didn't share the same level of connection as we did with the others. I do think this changed by the end of the session. They’re all great kids, but this group was a little "big headed" going into the term and they thought that they knew everything (what teenager doesn't?) or that they were somehow above the subjects. The sad thing is that they didn’t know it all, of course, and I worried a lot that they were getting behind the other students because of their over confidence. Many of the kids' responses to my questions were not well-developed nor thought out, but, if there's anything I've learned from teaching, you can't expect a perfect group every time. Every class is different and you will always see a different dynamic among different groups of students. One student can change the environment of an entire class. Even though I was facing these difficulties going into the term, I wasn't going to go down without a fight, I pressed on and I urged the kids to do the same!
Since this was the first time we had this group, I revisited Motorcycle Diaries with them and we watched the film together. I'm not sure that these kids were as impressed or interested in this, but I can't really tell. It's not that this group is indifferent, but they just don't express themselves like the other kids do. This means that it's really hard to tell what they got out of the lessons. On the other hand, these kids read at an astounding pace, they seemed to really get into the books they checked out from the library and they showed an amazing passion for English learning.
One thing that I did differently with this group was follow the Motorcycle Diaries on a map that I hand drew. For everyday of reading, I marked on the map, with a different color ink, how far we got. The photos explain themselves:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
As you can see, we actually finished the book in just four short days, I was impressed.
Other points of interest: 1. If you get a chance, look up, “sangre de drago” (Dragon's Blood), it is considered a miraculous cure-all here in the Amazon. Check it out on wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons_Blood I don’t know if it is as "miraculous" as some of the potions in Márquez' stories, but it does seem to have many valuable uses. Any time I have some kind of ailment, the answer is always, "Sangre de Drago."
2. If you were getting bored with my blog, maybe this will help grab your attention! I wanted to mention, in case you haven't noticed, that our nutria (the baby amazon otter, Yaku Warmi) is growing a lot! She's beautiful, don't you want one for your own home?!
Savage attack otter mode!
Playing dead...
And I'm spent!
Yaku is kind of like a bug and she kind of reminds me of my friends' dog, who is actually named Bug. She's so cute, but her situation is a bit of a sad one. She is part of an otter species that is endangered, her mommy was killed and eaten, and she is fully domesticated now. The fact that she's domesticated means that she doesn't fish on her own and can't be reintegrated into the wild because the other otters would probably kill her or she would die of starvation. She'll just have to stick around Yachana, which is fine because she's just so damn cute! When she's lonely or hungry she squeaks constantly and it's so heartbreaking.
3. Speaking of bugs, let's talk a little about my relationship at this point with the Amazon buggies, arenillas and sleeping under a toldo (a mosquito net). I know I have written about bugs before, but I just wanted to tell you that I have become friend of most jungle bugs, with the exception of a couple. In the "civilized world," I know it's a common reaction to kill any and every bug you come across, but, in the selva, we have just as much respect for them as we do for Yaku. The only bugs that I kill are the following: arenillas (these horrible, microscopic, sand flies that bite you, it hurts, and then itches like crazy! If you scratch, it leaves a mark for days and days. I still have some and I've been in Quito for almost a week), the Brazilian Wandering Spider (I only kill these guys if they're in my room and/or being very aggressive. They're the one's I told you about that can give you intense pain for 10-12 hours, cause impotency or a heart attack), sancudos or mosquitoes (for obvious reasons), and cockroaches (if I find them in my room, again, for obvious reasons, especially the flying ones that are the size of your fist). The rest of the bugs I admire, respect and leave alone. We maintain a live and let live relationship.
I also wanted to say that I'm becoming more and more lax about the whole toldo situation, it's really quite a pain sleeping with a net, it can be very hot and suffocating and tucking and un-tucking it is ridiculously tedious.A toldo can also have the exact opposite function that you want it to, if bugs somehow manage to get inside of it, they usually can't get out and that means that they're sleeping with you ALL NIGHT! None of the kids nor the people that live in the community sleep with a net. As a result of all of the annoyances, I have kind of stopped worrying about sleeping with the net as well. The only cases of Malaria or Dengue that I have heard of have come from areas outside of Yachana, I'm good to go!
4. I learned to fish in the Napo River. It actually feels pretty cool, I can officially say that I have been fishing in one of the Amazon rivers! Makes me think instantly to River Monsters on Animal Planet. Fortunately, my experience was not anywhere near as dramatic as that guy's. I learned that the perfect time to go fishing is when the river is subido (up) and the current is fast. We rode out in canoe, upriver, to an isleta (the small island formations in the middle of the river, "islet," in English I believe), tried to tie up the canoe the best we could with rocks and we set to work. The most important part about fishing with a net is making sure that there is no basura (trash) in the net line. The basura can be anything from seaweed, to leaves, to sticks that the net picked up the last time it was used. If you have this kind of stuff in the line, the net will not open fully in the water and you're likely to not catch a thing. After you clean the net, one person goes upriver, río arriba, to throw the net out, and another waits downriver, río abajo, to catch the net. With any luck, you will eat fish for dinner. The first time that I went out to do this we did manage to catch something, a bunch of leaves and large branches. On the other day, the pesca (fishing) was much more successful; we caught around eight Bocachicos (Small Mouths)!
See why they´re called Bocachicos?
5. Thanksgiving Dinner in the jungle was a very interesting experience! The other volunteers developed a very good idea to share a little bit of North American culture with the students and prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. Of course, considering that we live in the selva, we weren't going to obtain traditional Thanksgiving ingredients. Here is how the substitutions panned out:
-Stuffing = mashed and fried plantain mixed with onions
-Turkey = chicken
-Mashed potatoes = mashed yucca
-Cranberry sauce = raspberry sauce with babaco
-Rice was added to the Thanksgiving tradition. We learned that you better not dare try to deprive Ecuadorians of their rice!
6. I learned that we are NOT, by any means, roughing it at the high school. How did I learn this? We took a day trip to an ecological reserve that is ran, in cooperation with Yachana, by a British organization known as Globalvision International. These poor people are the ones who are roughing it! They do not have a generator at all, they are limited to one shower a day because they pump water from a stream and they are all entirely eaten up by bugs! The experience at GVI was very interesting. We learned how they throw themselves in the middle of the monte (forage) to hunt for frogs to classify in the middle of the night, how they trap and classify butterflies and birds as well, and took some very interesting jungle walks. It was incredible to learn about the selva from a scientific point of view and to learn the importance of all of the things it has to offer in terms of scientific research.
I'm sure I had other things that I wanted to write, but I find myself a bit tired. I'll just leave you with saying that I've gone fishing for new ideas...
Deck the hammock with a Chris, relaxed and comfortable, swaying in the heat of the selva 
