Machetes, yoda, and a friendly robbery.

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The trip stated off normal enough. Disorientation in a new city. Learning the public transit system. Seeing the sites. Making plans for this coming week. I landed in Qutio with my friend Kristen, from Eagle Rock. Kristen is here in Ecuador for two months as well, but we are not travelling together. We spent the first two days in a nice hostel and explored the city together. Kristen left last Monday, and I've spent the last week taking classes at a place called Yanapuma Foundation. Here is the link if you are interested:
http://www.yanapuma.org/en/index.php

The foundation does great sustainable development work in Ecuador and the class was one on one. My teacher was Marco. He strongly resembled Yoda in both appearance and mannerisms. Throughout the week we discussed such interesting and easy to process topics as "What is you favorite sport in the USA?" and "What will you do this weekend?" and "What is the institution of marriage like in your home country?" I am relearning slowly, but my responses did not do the US justice. In some ways, I felt like an ambassador and spitting off such sentences as "My favorite sport is one where I try to challenge myself on rocks" and "In the USA, the institution of marriage is not valued very much. 50 percent of marriages end in divorce" felt slightly awkward. I have been working on the past tense of verbs this week and Marco has had some great fictional readings in Spanish about shrunken heads, guys who got drunk and slept with their brother's girlfriends, and the like. We also watched some great Youtube videos about the president, Rafael Correa, who cut benefits to all public workers two years ago. The police of Ecuador were pissed, so they tried to kidnap Correa from his home. THE POLICE AND THE ARMY HAD A SHOOT OUT. 5 policemen died in the battle, and Correa went on the news and shouted "IF YOU WANT TO KILL ME, COME AND KILL ME!!!" I tried to imagine Obama doing the same thing, but couldn't quite pictue it.
Here's a link to the video. It gets intense around 1:11:

I was robbed four days ago, while hanging out in a park. After class, i went to read in a park (english book, though) to pass some time. While in the park, three young men approached me and asked for my change. In turn, i gave them two fifty cent pieces and wished them luck. They continued to ask if i had any more money, so I reached in my pocket to pull out a five dollar bill, the last of my money. Hand in pocket, they said (in spanish) that they had a knife and would use it if necessary. One of the boys felt my pockets (Jesus! Buy me a beer first at least!) for other change or cash. While in the process of departing said groper gave me a "pounds" (think "right on!") before making a slow get away with my 6 dollars.

In lieu of this robbery and future plans to explore lesser used trails of Ecuador, i went to the hardware store and bought a machete. This will be both a security system and tool to clear brush. Honestly, who fucks with someone with a machete? Will i actually use it on someone? Doubtful.
The robbery is also the reason why there are no photos in this blog. I was paranoid of getting my camera stolen. Photos to come soon!

Other events this week include:
1) Seeing the Cultural and art Museum of Quito which has a lot of rad pottery and artifacts from indigenous peoples all the way up to the Spanish invasion. You can imagine the two sections of the museum are quite different. The Spanish invasion section has a lot more bloody Jesus and somber Mary works. Not my bag.

2) A day long search to find Denatured Alcohol of a certain type. I went to about 5 Ferreterias (No they don't sell Ferrets. They are Hardware stores) before finding any. They looked at me like i was crazy (rightfully so) when i told them it was for "a stove made out of a cat food can."

I'm leaving for small beach town called Canoa tomorrow to see my good friend Ryan Plantz. I plan on spending two weeks there and learning some more spanish, and maybe trying to stand up on a surf board. After the stay in Canoa, i want to come back to the mountains and poke around and do some trekking.

Thanks for the great emails. Keep them coming! I miss y'all and hope you're well. Be in touch!

Much Love,
Matt

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Comments

[kathy]

whoops!
Rats, Matt - must've looked like a man of means. Well, guess they were disappointed. Does make you think, though. BE CAREFUL!!! Hope you are living the life of a nomad!