tu voz es mi guia...

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Last night was tough for me. I found myself crying, as I have a lot lately, and not really knowing why. It all just felt a bit crazy... me sitting in this hammock looking out at the beautiful ocean, hearing the crashing of the waves, but craving familiarity... wanting to be sitting in a movie theatre and be taken away somewhere fantastical, or drinking tea surrounded by people who know me. Being known, knowing yourself... things that come up constantly for me on this road that I´m on, finding a context for your existence in a world that at times can feel so strange and different from your instincts.

The past while has been a mix of a lot of things, a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. Zoe and I left Canoa and headed for Puerto Lopez, a small beach town where we thought we´d be spending all of two days... 4 days later we found ourselves in the same hotel confused and really feeling the need to settle down. Travelling can definitely take it´s toll on you, like life at times it is wonderful beyond explanation, but it´s also often really challenging, boring, insane, bland. Also in ways, Puerto Lopez is kind of an intense place, just very different from a typical environment I could see myself feeling really comfortable in. It´s known for the whales that come in the summer, huge groups of humpbacks that congregate around the Isla de Plata which is known as the poor man´s galapagos. Zoe and I have spent a lot of our time in a Colombian restaurant, our haven of comfort that we´ve found. They serve amazing coffee and Patacon´s, which are plaintain tortillas with fresh shrimp and tomatoey stuff on top. We´ve passed many mornings and afternoons playing cards and watching the street... people walking by at there slowened pace, surprised by the alarm that goes off at 12 that makes you think for a moment that you´re in some kind of war zone. The beach is crowded with brightly colored fishing boats, and on Saturday everyone brings there boats onto the sand, to clean the gunnk off the bottom, untangle nets, unearth any fish that have slipped between the cracks. It was a pretty cool scene, all these guys joking and laughing with each other, drinking beer and coke in the hot sun all smelling fishy like the sea.

That has been one thing that´s been really hard to deal with here, the men. It´s definitely the most culture shock I´ve experienced, feeling like an object before a person. We´ve come into contact with this young group of guys here, and in ways I find it really challenging to interact with them. At times they are fun and carefree, a gang of surfers who jump in there wagon every day to hit the waves... but with some of them at least there is always an undertone... wait what am I saying undertone, many of them comment constantly... calling you beautiful, asking for kisses, feeling arms on the small of your back. Sometimes my instincts tell me that I´m being disrespected, but everyone around me is acting normal which makes for a lot of second guessing. I´m learning lately though not to compromise my feelings in any situation and that my comfort in a situation is the most important. The cultural differences are just really evident at times. The way girls and guys interact is so infused with pop culture stereo types, the girls timid and giggly, the guys big and loud and jokey. The girls don´t go out at night, many don´t really talk in social situations, cheating seems to be pretty socially acceptable... and in ways this comes from a culture that is more open, warmer, closer, all up in everybody´s business. There are things about this that I love, the way it never feels awkward to go up to someone and start a conversation, a lack of fear in being direct, the music in the street, easyness between freinds lovers kids grandmas... however with romanitc interactions its easy to feel like someone´s invading your space... this is hard to articulate, but when a guy comes up to you and starts being really suggestive when you know full well that he has 2 kids and a wife it just feels... weird and wrong. There are of course acceptions, cool guys who are respectful and kind, but lately I´ve really been really feeling the machismo.

Zoe and I are now in Las Tunas, a little pueblito about 20 minutes from the internet cafe I´m sitting in now. When we got there, the amazing family that is renting us our bech side cabanas walked us up to the fiesta they were having for mothers day. The whole town was there, drinking apple cider in little plastic glasses and dancing dancing dancing. I was grabbed by a group of ladies who started hooting and dancing around me in a circle... they grabbed my hands and we danced with our arms up screaming at random intervals. The Grandmas sat in rows of plastic chairs, a little to old for the dancing with there missing teeth and crooked smiles. This was a new experience for me, a whole town partying together... teenagers awkardly touching, kids running around and playing, families eating, old people sitting, drunk men tripping... all happening in the same place, everyone a part of one big crazy party. Zoe and I left early as we were tired from having stayed up late the night before, but we heard in the morning that the fiesta went on until 5 in the morning. The next day none of the little kids showed up at school because their mothers were all chuchaki... hungover. An amazing angel family has welcomed us into Las Tunas... Sonia the mother, is the warmest lady, she´s always holding your hand or stroking your shoulder and is soooo generous. We´ve been eating lunch at there house everyday, which is a concrete box with stars carved into the walls. The lunches are always to big and Sonia always tries to serve us more more more... we keep joking with them that by the time we leave we will be gorditas (chubby, it´s different though because in spanish being called chubby is not a bad thing, a lot of the time people just address things by what they see... if you´re black they call you negrita, if you have slanted eyes you´re a chino, and if you´re chubby you´re gordo... it´s incredibly politically incorrect, but refreshing in some ways to). Owaldo, Sonia´s husband is often around painting the cabanas or making plans for us to go on walks into the mountains or through some random brush. They have three kids, Kevin, Dania, and Dayana... they´re all awesome, and I´ll probably be able to write more about them when I know them a bit more. There are many things I really like about Las Tunas...the way people just come to stare at the ocean, play cards in the street, ride bikes around the same route, smile warmly with no effort, lay in hammocks all afternoon. I went on a walk with Sonia and I loved how she would just pick up stones from the beach (there´s tons of really amazing looking rocks), she´d just caress them in her hand and then throw them down, I asked her if she had a collection of rocks at her house and she sort of laughed and said no, she just likes the way they feel. Kevin´s face lights up so easily, he jumps on crabs and shows them to you gallantly letting them go and laughing at the way they scuttle back into the water... quick and furtive. Things are simple, life is simple.

The thing is, is lately I´ve been feeling far from simple... so for me being in a town of 600 people in the middle of coastal Ecuador can at times feel a little overwhelming. I find, with not having my family and friends around at times it can be easy to lose perspective and feel isolated and alone. However the town has a lot to offer and I think Zo and I are going to try and make it our home for the next little while. Our room is really cute, with a big blue bug net over my bed that makes me think of sleeping in an arabian desert. We´re also thinking of doing a bit of volunteering, helping out at the school a bit which will be an experience. The education system in Ecuador is pretty bad, I just heard that this year the country gave a nation wide proficiency test to all the teachers and only 4% of them passed the exam... I repeat 4%. Especially in the small towns where the people are poorer and the schooling is provided by the government it can get pretty sketchy. Kids running around with the teacher sitting back and sleeping in a chair is apparently common practice and the teaching style involves a lot of copying from the board. This information is coming mostly from stuff I´ve heard, so it will be interesting to actually experience it.

We went to a circus the other day which was one of the craziest experiences I´ve had on my travels. Zo and I felt like we were in the 1950´s walking up to this eerie circus tent in the night surrounded by all these couples holding hands and buying snow cones. This was an actual travelling circus with the cooped up animals and everything. The first act was 4 girls really badly dancing and shaking their bums in thongs for about 5 minutes. The actual circus acts seemed a lot more dangerous becuase you coul actually see everything that was going on. When someone would get hoisted into the air you could see the 5 guys at the side of the stage heaving on the rope to pull them up. One girl, Santiago, dressed in a silver bathing suit thing did this crazy hoop act where she balanced and spun from her neck... of course though when she finishes this pretty amazing feat of strength and skill a guy comes onto the stage and helps her into her her high heels, and she waddles of the stage like a dainty duck. There was this one puppet act that was this eerie bride and groom thing shuffling around and humping each other to reggaeton music, and the clown jokes were either extremely racist or about genitalia. The whole thing was a actually pretty fun until the monkeys came on at the end wearing human clothes and walking like people. They had collars around their necks and a man that looked like a serial killer was commanding them to do wierd things like run around with fake guns or pull down their pants. At that point the smiles left me and Zoe´s faces and we left feeling slightly disturbed.

The moon looks different in the sky every night because we´re closer to the equator. Looking at it gives me comfort because I know everyone can see it and it makes the world feel smaller. LOVE galore.

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Comments

[Micky]

I had lost the url to your blog, claire. Never had I visited it before today. I miss you. This talk of Ecuador and surfers and creepy men, it's overwhelming. I didn't know where you were, if you were even still alive, because I've kind of drifted off as well. I try to take your words at face value; like I'm reading a book. Otherwise... it's hard. To keep up, to miss you. I love you! Sounds like you're having an unbelievable time.