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Published: March 28th 2005
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Poncho Plaza Market, Otovalo
This is the view from Buena Vista (fave bar), looking out across the daily market to the volcano, Imbabura, which is mostly shorouded in cloud. End of week three - already?! I´ve now successfully booked my Galapagos trip for eight days from the 10th April. That gives me another week here in Otovalo, so I´ll be able to spend an extra few days up at the community, which I´m grateful for, because what with Spanish lessons, Easter, and various other unforeseen situations, the four weeks that I allocated to the project has rapidly shrunk to just a few days of actually teaching my own English lessons, which is a little disappointing after studying so hard for the TEFL before coming out here. Hey ho, all good experience though, and a lot of fun too!
So what’s Otovalo like? Well, right now, just sat here in the internet café I’m at twice the height of Ben Nevis (highest mountain in UK), i.e 2,600m above sea level (about 8,000ft). Which means that if lung capacity is a measure of fitness then I must be getting fitter just sitting here typing to you! Cool!
While we’re talking geography; another (I think!) interesting fact about Ecuador - given that the Earth is squished (mathematical word escapes me, sorry, answers in the comments section please!) the climate at the
Indigenous Men
These guys are wearing the traditional dress of the indigenous men in this region - reversible poncho, short white trousers, white shoes (a little like espadrilles) with long hair plaited down their backs. equator is apparently very susceptible to the phases of the moon. The weather here in the Andean highlands is extremely predictable; a week either side of the full moon (which was last night I think) we have extremely hot sunny weather, maybe a few clouds early morning and a spot of warm rain late afternoon, but other than that it’s beautiful (dig out the factor 40 sun cream)! The other two weeks of the month, around the new moon it’s cold, grey and drizzly, think Britain in November.
Moving from Geography to Sociology… Otovalo is a fabulous place to people watch! Most of the people in the surrounding communities are indigenous Indians (as in Urquisiqui, where the school is) and I´d guess around 40% of the people you see in the town are too, they wear the distinctive traditional dress. All across Ecaudor, the indigenous people can be distinguished by their individual dress, particularly their headwear, which is specific to a given region, or even community. The women hear wear folded blankets in their heads (check out pic of old girls and pig, below). It´s not just for tourists and special occasions either, this is everyday wear. For example,
Local girls
The girls in this photo are also wearing typical dress. This isn´t just for put on for the tourists, this is everyday wear, many of the schoolkids in Otovalo are indigenous and wear the embroidered blouses, gold beads and long skirts under a school tank top. Note the shoes are a black version of the mens espadrilles. right now, there´s a guy on my right with long hair tied in a plait down his back, and the girl that´s just sat down opposite is in gold beads, embroidered blouse and long woollen skirt. The town is hailed as an example of successful racial integration and diversity, particularly in the schools, although sadly the indigenous do still face racism from the local mestizo (Spanish descent) population.
I like the fact that the men have also retained a cutltural identity, often it´s only the women (as in India), although the next generation of boys seem unlikely to follow suit, other than the long hair. Kind of sad to think that the men depicted in the accompanying pics may no longer be such a common sight in 10 or 15 years time.
Otovalo is a market town, the most celebrated in Ecuador, if not South America (i.e. shopping galore)! Its fortune was built on textile weaving, allegedly developed from copying Scottish tweed patterns. Everyday there is a huge outdoor market in the town square selling mostly souvenirs for tourists - ceramics, textiles, ponchos, jewellery, bags, paintings, clothing - a pretty good range, generally good quality and usually cheap.
Market day
One of many, many market shots. See the old girl with the bundle on her back - this is how the women carry loads - including their babies, which as they grow emerge like little hatchlings from an egg! But for most of the week the town is pretty quiet, just locals (which I like to think includes us volunteers!) pottering about. But by Friday you can sense a change in the air, traffic increases, hotels fill up, and gringos are everywhere! Because Saturday is when Otovalo really comes alive! Every street is crammed with market stalls, there are thousands of people, dozens of different smells from street food and ´El Condor Pasa´ plays from every doorway. It´s cool though, and the traders are really friendly, not at all pushy, and happy to bargain.
Other than the tourist markets, there´s also a great daily local market selling everything from fruit and veg to the latest pirate DVDs ($1.50 each - bargain!) And, my personal favourite, the animal market which takes place at an obscenely early time on Saturday mornings. It´s a brilliant place to sit and watch the locals trade squealing piglets, lambs, horses, anything really!
The other big event I should probably mention here is, of course, Easter. Ecuador is a catholic country and ´La Semana Santa´ is pretty exciting stuff. Our celebrations started on Wednesday at the school where we had ´La Fenesca´ a hearty
Market day 2
A family display the products from their fields. soup made from seven different grains, with eggs, fish, cheese, avocado, banana and various other bits floating on top, it´s really good! All the mums in the community were in the tiny school kitchen, cooking their hearts out all morning, while the kids watched DVDs in the classroom.
Much to the horror of the volunteers, the director of the school (rather aptly named ´Jesus´) wanted to show ´The Passion of the Christ´ to the kids, as a nice Easter film. We bought ´Jesus - his life in cartoons´ or something to try to dissuade him, it seemed to work, he showed that and Moses to the the kids... and THEN showed the Passion of the Christ! (FYI this is rated 18 and has horrificly realistic scenes of Jesus being whipped, nailed to the cross, etc). I found it pretty disturbing, the kids were gasping in horror, a couple of them cried. I had to leave. When we protested, the director looked confused and said ´but that´s what really happened!´ My Spanish isn´t sensitive enough to be able to discuss that civilly (come to think of it I´m not sure my English is either).
Thursday and Friday were national
To market, to market...
...to sell a fat pig! Poor piggy was worn out, bless him! Pigs are important commodities here, every family in the community has their ´chancho´ in a pen outside the house. holidays. More fenesca was served at home and much visiting of churches ensued. The family are catholic and took me under their wing, which was really nice. There was a procession through the town, thousands of people followed Jesus with a cross, pausing at various stations where actors re-enacted the scenes of Jesus´ route to the cross. Very moving actually, and a good way to tell a story. Until we got to the final station and I noticed they were projecting ´The Passion of the Christ´onto the big screen! Nice family viewing. The family and I wove our way arm-in-arm back home through the crowds. We got in, put the kettle on, turned on the telly... and yep, you guessed it! Mel Gibson is certainly onto a good thing with the Latin American catholics!
More updates soon. The kids have an English test tomorrow, frankly I don´t hold out much hope, bless ´em! Few more volunteers arriving this weekend, got a big volcano to climb on Sunday and then sadly next week I leave Otovalo.
Be in touch soon, keep in touch, thanks for all the feedback, nice to know everyone´s reading this, sorry my emailing has been
so poor!
Ciao,
Ali
xx
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The earth
It's an oblate sphereoid if I remember right. ps. nice blog, Al pointed me at it. - Murray