The good, the bad and the ugly

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After a week of luxurious traveling with my brother, Sunday night I cringed at the thought of my plank bed in the community, and the looming week for which I had no lesson plans (entirely my fault due to old fashioned laziness/procrastination) along with the fact that I was limping by on my ¨cleanest dirty shirt¨ gave Monday morning a certain sense of gloom.

However, Monday yielded a pleasant suprise in that we spent the morning making Frensca, a traditional Ecuadorean soup made only for Good Friday. This was a very fresh Frensca in that first we picked the corn and beans from the school´s field before starting the cooking. So, I found myself spending an hour or two shelling beans with the students. However, for entertainment, I quickly sneaked a look around before launching an aerial assault of bean shells at one of my students. Of course she (and everybody else) quickly retaliated and I found myself the victim of a barrage of beans shells and corn cobs. The next day, while folding my white (well, whitish) undershirt I noticed stains on the outside of the back collar, needless to say I was mite puzzled at first, until I remembered a number of dirty little hands pulling my collar back to pour beans down my shirt.

Also, in general I have had a couple of nice things happen. Living and traveling down here, I´m always a little more careful than at home: I keep a close watch on my money, always keep a hand or foot on my bag, always check taxi fares prior toe going anywhere, however things still happen . . . but, today, I when checked to see if my clothes on the line were dry, I noticed several items missing. I immediately assumed that some things were stolen, but upon closer inspection realized that some kind soul had moved my dry items into the building so that in case the threatening storm hit, I would still have dry clothes. Also, severak weeks ago a volunteer left his MP3 player on the roof, unsuprsingly it quickly disappeared, however, about an hour later a neighbor came by and asked if we had forgotten anything on the roof, and returned the missing item.

Ironically, the day after I wrote the above paragraph (it may be hard to believe, but I do usually proofread my work) the aformentioned ¨bad and the ugly¨happened. On Friday, with some friends I took a bus to Quito to witness a massive procession. The procession was very interesting because all several hundred participants wore costumes that reminded this American of nothing more than a KKK outfit, except that they were all purple. Also, many were carrying enormous crosses, tied in barbed wire, dragging chains or whipping themselves with nettles. Needless to say, slightly different than The Stations of the Cross I witnessed in my days attending a Catcholic school.

Unsuprisingly, this well known event draws quite a few tourists, my guide book even lists it as the third most interesting festival/event in Ecuador. As the three of us were wandering to the procession, I found myself being roughly jostled in a crowd, then I looked down and noticed that somebody had spit on me. At first I was puzzled, a split second after I remembered this is a commonly used trick to distract a gringo while he/she is lightened of valuables. Upon this realization I immediately slapped a hand on the pocket where my money was, fortunately this happens to be right above the pocket where my camera, the realy target, usually resides. While I usually get snickered at about this, I almost always safety pin the pocket containing my camera shut, fortunately so, for when I reached down the safety pin was gone, but the camera was there. It had bought me the couple of seconds needed to keep my camera. So, in the end, I lost nothing, just was lucky and had a healthy reminder to keep my guard up.

However, having related this, one bad apple in a crowd doesn´t diminish the fact that virtually all the Ecuadorians I´ve had encounters with have been unfailingly friendly and helpful.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Help?
Hi, I'll be trekking down to Quito in a bit to volunteer there (staying at Urcu Puyujunda in the Cloud Forest) and was wondering if you had any suggestions on what to bring and what I should definitely not take with me....or just any suggestions in general.

[pjwyant v2 0]

Hello I´d be happy to help, but a little more information would helpful. How long will you be here? What will you be doing for volunteering (teaching, construction, etc.)? What do you know about the organzition? Will you travel afterwards, if so what do you plan on doing? Where are you coming from? Etc. Just let me know. If you send a message instead of a comment, it won´t post your informatin where everybody can see it.

[Dad]

Pedro, Pedo. You have a camera. What are the pictures.