Destined by Chance

I know that I’ve taken an embarrassingly long hiatus from blog writing, but I have an interesting story that I hope will make up for my month-long absence of material. This story actually finds its beginning in another country, taking a few years’ worth of steps back in time. It’s a story that has yet to conclude, one that, with any luck, will continue for years and years to come. The most recent chapter took place in Ecuador, but the story begins on a VERY hot day, hace unos años atrás, in the city of sueños (dreams) and Tango, Buenos Aires, Argentina (Capital Federal).

A young man (you could call him young for the fact that he was, but the term “young” certainly didn’t reflect his state of mind at that time) was embarking on what would become a life-changing trip. He was dropped off by friends and family at IND, destined for a transfer in MIA and an eventual arrival at EZE. He was a bit strange for the fact that he had no fear of flying and, unlike most people, he really quite enjoyed airports and the whole process of getting on a plane (he still does, in fact, enjoy them). If you haven’t guessed by now, the young man was me, and I definitely didn’t know that the trip was going to be life-changing. I should think that, if we did know which of our actions were to be life-changing, we would most likely not take certain risks or make such decisions due to the presence of our constant, annoying and persistent fear of CHANGE (with capital letters). Fortunately, I had little to no idea what was in store for me in Buenos Aires and, as Robert Frost said, “…that made all of the difference.”

I remember distinctly driving into the city from the Buenos Aires Airport, Ezeiza, and beginning to question myself about where I had gotten off to. If you haven’t seen Buenos Aires before, then it may be a bit hard for you to comprehend, but I will try to explain it. The city is Euro-Latino, that’s the best way I know to put it. The buildings, plazas and parks are beautiful, most of the constructions date back at least a hundred years or more, but the city is also filled with trash, graffiti and dog shit awaiting the unknowing foot on all of the sidewalks, among other unpleasant things. The porteños, people from Buenos Aires, are a rare species of Latino, many, but not all, of whom lack every quality one loves about people in South America. They don’t tend to be the friendliest, many are quite pretentious, when you ask them where they’re from they usually say Spain or Italy and they almost seem contemptuous of the detail that they just so happen to be born in Latin America. To make a call back to Frank Sinatra, luck was a lady with me when I got my roommate for that tiny apartment in Buenos Aires over Calle Viamonte. He was Argentine, no doubting that, but he most clearly was not porteño.

My first couple of months in Buenos Aires was actually a little depressing because I got my room and there was absolutely no one there. I waited and eventually arrived at the conclusion that I simply wouldn’t be getting any roommates. I went on a trip to Uruguay with a few friends and, when I got back to BsAs, I walked into my apartment to find a very long-haired young man sleeping in one of the extra bed. We made introductions, he told me that his name was Branko, and the very first thing I learned about Branko was that he was a TALKER! If I recall correctly, we spent the next three to four hours conversing about most of Branko’s life story, which was great because I had gone two months with hardly anyone to talk to.

During the rest of the time I spent studying in Buenos Aires, Branko and I became very good friends, we were brothers. We also got another roommate, José Manuel, whom I also consider a very dear friend. When I left Argentina to study my Master’s, I had to say goodbye to a lot of friends, but saying adiós to my roommates was the most difficult. When you live with people for some time, it is a drastic change when you check out. I wasn’t sure if or when I might see these guys again, it was  rough.

            When I went back to the states, I was a bit of a wreck for a year. They call it culture shock in reverse and it hit me pretty hard. That whole year all I could think about was BsAs and the life I had there. I didn’t really know how, but I had to figure out a way to get back. After a year of studies, I decided to bite the bullet and pay the ridiculously expensive ticket back to EZE, even if I was only going to be able to spend a month there, I knew it would be worth it. It turned out that Branko and José were still roommates and that they had acquired a pretty decent sized apartment in the barrio (neighborhood) of Flores in Buenos Aires. So I stayed at their place for a month in the summer of ’09. Being back in the city just made me want to live there more, but I had to head back to finish up the MA, me despedí otra vez, I said goodbye again to my friends and to Buenos Aires.

            I spent two years in Terre Haute, studying  my Master’s, teaching, working and dreaming up different schemes for how to find my way back to BsAs. I maintained contact with Branko through Facebook, but nothing regular. Slowly but surely, I got used to living back in the states and I had to forget about my vida bonarense, the Buenos Aires life. I progressed into the last stage of my Master’s in 2010-2011. During that time, I made a trip down to Ecuador, over the holidays, and made some painful observations that began to direct my thoughts and desires into a definitive decision. I came to the realization that I, most selfishly, wanted to go back to Argentina mostly for personal reasons, just for me. Argentina is a fairly well-developed nation, one of the wealthiest in Latin America and things are more or less stabilized. Of course there is poverty and there are many things that could be improved, but the situation is not totally dire. What I saw in Ecuador, to the contrary, was an extreme poverty, a people hurting and a huge need for some change. I also met incredibly humble and inviting people who treated me with a hospitality that I hadn’t ever known before. You already know how the rest of the story goes and how I ended up here in the middle of the Amazon, swatting arenillas as I write this blog and they proceed to bite the hell out of me.      

            Now, let me fast forward to January/February 2012.  At the beginning of the last jornada I got a Facebook message from Branko, “¡Chris, estoy en Ecuador broooo!” Branko made a five day trip in bus from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Lima, Perú and ended up in Montañita, Ecuador. I could hardly believe it when he told me, but my dear old argentine brother was in the same country as I. In the last week of January I headed up river to Los Ríos, made the three hour bus trip up to Tena and, after some walking around, found Branko in the flesh with a huge backpack on his shoulders. It was a sublime experience to see him again after three years, and in the Orient of Ecuador of all places.

            Branko spent a few days in Yachana, he went around everywhere barefoot and shirtless and didn’t seem to get bit by a single bug, qué envidia (what envy). All of the others got along with him very well; Branko is an easy person to get along with. I actually did something new that I had yet to experience in Yachana with him and the coworkers, we went tubing! It’s a pretty simple concept, you just get one of the old style semi tire inner tubes, get in a canoe and go up river, jump into the Napo (the tributary of the Amazon that we live by) with your inner tube and let it carry you downstream.  The only trick is to make sure you can paddle a bit with your hands so that you wind up on the shore when you get to where you want to stop. The Napo does have Cayman, Anaconda, Piranha and other such animals, but they seemed to just leave us alone, I guess we weren’t interesting enough.

            At the end of the week we headed back up to Tena along with the group of other volunteers. We had decided to all travel to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador. As you might expect, the bus ride from Tena to Cuenca was quite miserable and deserves a bit of story in itself. Our original plan was to travel in train from a city called Riobamba (about five hours from Tena) down to Alausí and the Devil’s Nose (this is a famous railway for two reasons; because it’s a feat of incredible engineering that cuts its way through the Ecuadorian sierra and you used to be able to ride on the top until someone, quite literally, lost their head). Once we got to Riobamba, they informed us that the train was not operating, “When will it be up and going?” They told us, “In June,” which in Ecuadorian means, “In a few years.” The other volunteers decided to stay in a “classy hostel,” which cost about $8 a night, and Branko and I opted for the more economic option, $5 a night. You can imagine what $5 a night looks like, but, on the plus side, we got to leave our mark on the wall. Who’s classy now?

 

            We grabbed a bus on down to Cuenca, which meant another six hours through mountain highways and no bathroom, what joy! Branko, after having spent five days in a bus, didn’t have a single complaint about six hours. I fell in love with Cuenca just about as soon as I got there. It’s very similar to Quito in the fact that it’s between the mountains, but that’s about where the similarities end. Cuenca is incredible clean, it’s cold, but a bearable cold (nothing like the freezing nights of Quito), the people are incredibly friendly and have a sing song way of talking, there are beautiful parks and plazas, a considerable part of the city consist of Spanish colonial constructions and, best of all, there isn’t a ridiculous amount of traffic congestion. Branko, the other volunteers and I all agreed that we could easily live in Cuenca. It would appear that there are many foreigners that agree with that sentiment. Cuenca is one of the number one spots for expat retirees, especially from the U.S. It’s easy to understand why, life is tranquil, the cost of living is low, the people are amazing and the landscapes are beautiful. I’ll put it on my list of potential future places to stay for an extended period.

            When we got to Cuenca, we went in search of a specific hostel, but it was all booked. We were guided around the corner and, per chance, we just happened upon a great place, $8 a night, with an amazing ceiling. The hostel was originally a mansion from Spanish colonial times. These constructions are great, the center of them is open (kind of like the plaza of a city), the ceiling is glass so all of the light comes in and you feel like you’re outside and all of the rooms surround the home’s open center (interior patio).

           

            The first day we were in the hostel, I went down to the kitchen to heat water for maté and happened upon a group of Argentines doing exactly the same! Branko and I became quick friends of these fellow Argentines and discovered that they were porteños. These people were great, it just goes to show you that not all porteños are mala onda (bad vibes) and you can’t generalize. It would be like saying that all Parisians are jerks, although I’ve heard many are! We spent a few days drinking A LOT of maté¸ lazing around, walking slow, cooking, hanging out and downing Cuba Libres with our new found friends. They were a very Argentine couple of days. We came to the conclusion, together, that in Cuba the Cuba Libre probably isn’t known as such. We speculated that there it may be known as the Bloqueo Económico or the Guantánamo Preso (Economic Blockade or Imprisoned Guantanamo). Just a little political humor, for those of you who get it J.

            The Argentines told us that they had only a week left in Ecuador and, therefore, were going to head down to Vilcabamba (a town known for the longevity of its inhabitants, many of which live to see 100 years of age or more). Branko, also having limited time in Ecuador, decided to head down with the group to check it out. Once again, my brother from another mother and I were to part ways. The goodbye was not so tough this time because I knew, at that point, that the two of us are simply destined by chance to be friends and we will certainly meet up again in the future. Buenos Aires is not far off!

Alone Again. Naturally.

I have it from credible, native Ecuadorian, sources that I'm still allowed to wish a Feliz Año Nuevo, Happy New Year, to you up until the 6th of January. So, ¡Feliz año! Right, now that that's out of the way, prepare to be shocked:

Now, if you're not Ecuadorian or you haven't visited Ecuador during New Year's Eve, you are now forming for yourself a series of questions and revelations, which may include the following: "Are those men?, Are they wearing dresses?, Those ARE men!, Wait, those are street-walking transvestites!, Why are there a bunch of street walking trannies?, Why am I looking at a picture of street walking-trannies? and, finally, What the hell was Chris doing and where the hell was he to have taken a picture of these finely dressed gentlemen?" Don't worry, there is a completely "logical" and "normal" explanation to all of these inquiries. 

Firstly, although I might have a hard case to prove, these gentlemen are in fact NOT street-walking transvestites, but rather viudas, or widows. Wait for it, it will all come together I promise. I´m actually even asking myself how, but one way or another I will explain this so it makes perfectly good sense, just wait and see! I already introduced you to the term año nuevo, right? Well, here is an año viejo, "old year":

Surely, at this point, you are getting more than just a little annoyed with me. I can just imagine you saying, "Those weren't widows, they were trannies, and this isn't an old year, it's a smurf that someone has tied to the front of there car!" "Lucy, you've got some explainin' to do!" 

Deep breath, and here we go! Well,the Año Viejo, has to go somewhere, right? I mean the old year can't simply just disappear. It kind of dies, doesn't it? Well, what happens if we decide to help the good ol' old year on its way out? How about, while Mr. Old Year is on his death bed, in his final hour, we stomp on him, fill him full of combustibles or douse him with flammables and set him on fire! That's exactly the fate that awaited Mr. Smurf above. 

This tradition is common throughout Ecuador and many other Latin American countries. The idea is to create a large doll or effigy, which tends to represent something or someone from the old year. In the case of the photo above, this "old year" is designed after the Smurfs movie; words can´t describe the pleasure they must have felt from burning something from that awful movie! Many of the dolls are made with the faces of politicians, famous people or even family members. This doesn't mean that they want to burn their family member, but rather incinerate and send packing any bad energy or luck that that person may have had during the past year. If the año viejo is an effigy of a politician, you can bet they weren't happy with something that politician did that year. In other words, were saying "CHAU" to the old year and any bad things that happened during it by burning the hell out of it!  In the case of the dolls designed like smurfs, the Simpsons or other cartoon or commercial characters, those are just for fun or examples of how commercialism infiltrates even the most unique of cultural practices.  In the end, it really doesn't matter who or what the old year is designed after, just as long as it's understood that it represents the past and it will be turned to ashes with the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve. Part of the "old year" floats away and the other half gets swept up off the street the next morning, and that's how they invite the Año Nuevo in!

I know what you're thinking, "That's all good and fine, you have to burn off the old year, but what do the cross dressers have to do with anything?" Like I said, the año viejo dies, well it's strictly "logic", the old year leaves behind his wife when he dies. As a result, the lovely viudas, widows, go out into the streets, dressed to the nines, to stop cars in the streets and ask for money to support their children now that there husband is dead. It's all for fun and it's really quite hilarious. Those men who wish to participate, borrow their mothers' or sisters' clothes, and sometimes makeup, get dressed and make for the streets of Ecuador. The parties are the biggest and best in the small neighborhoods where large groups of friends get together to practice the tradition. 

Apart from stopping the cars, the viudas put on quite a show; they usually dance suggestively ("suggestively" is saying the least) to earn the 5 cents that every car is expected to pay for the orphaned children of the año viejo. Any Ecuadorian knows that, if you go out late on New Year's Eve in your car, you will be stopped frequently and be provoked to pay up the offering. If you're not interested in this, you don't go out driving or you stick to the major highways, but you may also get stopped on those! 

Okay, so maybe dressing up like a lady and asking for money isn't your thing, no worries, there are other traditions that you might enjoy. In fact, there are a whole lot more traditions, but I'll just talk about two more that I really like. One involves uvas, or grapes, and the other requires a maleta, suitcase. Let's talk grapes first.

At the stroke of midnight, if you want to have a good New Year, filled with lots of luck, you better have 12 uvas in your hand or pocket, ready to eat. When the clock hits midnight, with each bell strike after, 12 in total, you must eat a grape. Now, if you have large grapes with seeds, this is quite a feat. No worries, the traditions, as I'm sure you've gathered from the men's dresses, have flexible rules. You can eat your grapes at your own pace at midnight and MOST people won't judge you. No need to start the New Year off with a nasty stomach ache. Where does this tradition come from? If you asked an Ecuadorian or other Latino, they may not really know, but Wikipedia does have the answer! It happens that this tradition dates back the end of the 19th century in Spain, where vineyard farmers began the tradition in Alicante and Murcia. They said that eating the 12 grapes would bring good luck with a plentiful harvest in the coming year; they also, conveniently, sold, and continue to sell, more grapes at the end of the year. Don't underestimate the power of the grapes! I know someone who didn't have her grapes last December 31st and she had a terrible start to 2011. 

Another favorite New Year tradition of mine is "The Running of the Suitcase," as I call it. What this tradition consists of is blowing the dust off of whatever suitcase your storing in the closest or attic and taking it down to the street to roll it around the block. Running around the neighborhood with your empty suitcase is a perfect way to ensure that you will have a year full of fun and exciting travels, plus it's the only time you can test your luggage out in the street without the neighbors looking at you funny! 

Now, for your viewing pleasure, a few more images of men in dresses: 

And here are some pics of the general festivities:

There it is, my expertly crafted blog rationalizing the practice of Ecuadorian men dressing up like their mothers and sisters, the burning of life sized smurfs, the gorging of twelve grapes and the sprinting around with your carry-on. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, but I can assure you that you didn’t get as much as a kick out of it as I did live and in person. Nothing more funny than watching a grown man try to dance Salsa and Cumbia in his sister’s high heels. As I wrap up this blog entry, I want to sincerely wish you a Happy New Year once again. I hope your year is full of éxitos, successes, and alegría, happiness. At the same time, I hope mine goes well again because, at the moment, I´m unfortunately feeling a bit resentful with the aftermath of the holidays. The festivities give you vacations, bring you friends and loved ones, and let you have fun and enjoy life to its fullest, just in time to send the friends and loved ones away on planes and in cars and cut the vacation off after the first week of January. Well, I plan to continue to have fun and enjoy life to its fullest, but I’ll have to do so a few friends and loved ones short. In the meantime, I’m feeling, “Alone again (naturally).”

¡A la miércoles los pastores, se acabó la Navidad!

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.

¡Feliz Navidad! Happy Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like...humidity, more bugs and more humidity

 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..."

Uff...1, 2 y 3...Respirá, encontrá tu serenidad y escribí (Breath, find your serenity and write)

            "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...