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Published: September 18th 2011
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In Quito I spent most of my time as I was going to school there every day to learn Spanish. I really enjoyed my lessons. Every 2 weeks I changed teachers, so that I learned more and more about life and people in Quito. Coming from a first world country it is sometimes difficult to digest from what circumstances some people can come from. But my teachers being employed in a language school meant that they have made it. I am very grateful for having been taught by some of the toughest and yet most jolly teachers I had in my life.
On weekends I did plenty of trips around Quito. Otavalo for example is a community of which I bet everyone of you have seen already. Usually they are panpipe players that you can see in the streets. Otavalo boasts that is has one of it´s people in every corner of the world. The lake close by is situated in the crater of an active volcano (most of the volcanos in Ecuador are active). You can see bubbles coming up from the deep. But that doesn´t concern the people here much for they organize one of the biggest swimming competitions
in that lake.I also did a few excursions into the mountains of the Andean mountains. Soft green giants I called them as they are covered in green, except for the snow peaks of the highest volcanoes like Cotopaxi. On one of these mountain trips I could observe how modern cowboys work nowadays and I even saw some of the bulls they use for bullfights (unfortunately a hobby that the Spaniards brought with them). On decembre 6th Quito celebrates its foundation and for that occasion many popular Spanish matadors come over to fight the southamerican bulls. On another trip I went up the teleferico again to climb up the Pichincha. And I also visited Papallacta, a place were you can simmer in hot thermal pools.
One day I experienced something funny. I was coming back from school as a woman nearly caused an accident with her car. She saw me, jerked her car around to park on the sidewalk and came running after me. “I need you!” she said “do you know how difficult it is to find a model with your kind of hair in Quito???” And so one of my adventures was a foto shoot at the biggest cathedrale
of the historical centre. Well, anything can happen to Gringos in Quito 😉
My last weekend I spent in Mindo. A small village in the rainforest with beautiful nature and waterfalls. That weekend I was also very lucky in seeing a festival of one of the smaller towns close to Quito, in the valley. There we saw plenty of “tiendas” selling traditional costumes, leather items and food, food, food. A wodden arena was built for bullfights. But here the aim was not to kill the bull but merely catch it and to show your cowboy skills.
A very funny custom I experienced in Quito was “morder el pastel”. It is a tradition applied on one´s birthday. The birthday person has to take the first bite of his birthday cake while a mean person stands behind to force the face into the creamy topping. Another custom is the rule of “mañana”. Extremely frustrating when ones comes from an over organized country such as Germany. Don´t expect things to work out straight away. Maybe it´ll work tomorrow 😉 “Mañana” will be the most common excuse you will hear on many occasions. What presides here too is a macho society. I am just
glad that I don´t need to experience it in a work setting. So in the end it was just pleasant. Men here pay for all drinks and the food when they take you out, that I liked. Another thing is that men are less reluctant to come up to you and talk to you or in asking you to dance.
What I liked very much was the food. You can have a full lunch: soup, main dish, desert and fresh fruit juice for just 2 dollars. Of course you get a lot of rice, beans and bananas every day, but people here are very creative about it. You can get delicious sweet bread steamed in a banana leaf or my favorite: “gato encerrado” – locked-in-cat, which is a grilled banana slit in the middle with creamy mayonese sauce and lots of cheese, hmmmmm yummy!
What impressed me a lot too was what I learned about pre-Columbian culture. Especially the fact that women were regarded as equal and that they were very much respected for their ability to get children. Also their views on religion comes close to what I believe in as opposed to all believes of the modern world.
The proximity to nature and the respect for it was the foundation of any religious believe of the ancient time. People back then knew that we live in a very delicate balance with our environment, which needs to be protected in order to ensure our survival as well. Now, where did this knowledge go down the road??? Why have we forgotten about that??? People in ancient times seemed to be much more intelligent than we are today…
A visualization of Ecuadorian culture I saw in Oswaldo Guayasamin´s pictures, in “la capilla del hombre” his last work. He created many pictures depicting the horrors of war. He also dealt with the topic of mixed blood between the indigenous people and the Spanish. 80% of all people here are mestizos. One picture I liked very much showed the fight between a Condor and a bull. The bull symbolizes Spain and suppression. The condor is the symbol for Southamerica and freedom. Some communities used to organize such a fight in order to find out the course of the coming year: victory of the bull = bad year and harvest, victory of the condor = good year and harvest. These fights are prohibited now
as the Condor is an endangered species. Another picture that I liked showed a female body with a birds head symbolizing fertility. Guayasamin wished to remind people of their rich heritage from the past, before the Spanish imposed strange ideas and beliefs. He also wanted to appeal to his people that diversity should be embraced and not discriminated, because after all, this is Southamerica!
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