Fiesta! Déjà vu??

I know what you are thinking… “Didn’t I JUST read about a town fiesta in Galera?  Yes, I’m quite sure… it lasted several days, there was music, child queens, dancing all night…”  Well, that was just a warm-up, let me tell you.  Back in July, we celebrated the Virgen Carmen in a weekend –long tribute as described above.  But September 13 was where the party was really at.  This day commemorates the founding of the parroquia (celebrating 68 years now!) and the town celebrated accordingly.  Well, accordingly for them.  I still found it to be a little much.  Here’s a quick breakdown of events:

1.  Wednesday, September 13:  The discomovil shows up, music starts at 6pm.  A small stage is set up on the cancha .  In case you don’t remember, the cancha is directly in front of my house.  No escape from the music.  People start to gather at 8.  Sarah and I wander down at 9, buy some salchipapas.  The election of the niña reina commences at 10pm.  4 girls, ages 10-12, strut their stuff on stage- first in a risqué little outfit while dancing to a choreographed J.Lo number.  Next in their trajes tipicos to represent different aspects of life in Esmeraldas.. one in seashells, one with cacao on her sleeves, etc.  Also super risqué.  And if we hadn’t already seen enough of these girls… Next was the swimsuit competition.  I wish I could post pictures, but a) I didn’t take any and b) I don’t want my blog to get flagged as a kiddie-porn site.  Then there was evening wear and the questions from the hosts (it was obvious the girls knew the questions ahead of time).  A winner was elected, she won a bike and of course the highly-coveted niña de 13 de septiembre sash, and the thing ended at midnight.  I mean, most people (including me) left at that time.   The music was still going strong when I was walking up to the bus stop at 6:30 the next morning.

2.  Thursday, September 14:  Bingo baile.  This is exactly what it sounds like.  There is bingo, with prizes, and dancing.  I opted out, as I was still recovering from the night before and knew I had to save my strengths for Saturday.

3.  Friday, September 15:  Some kind of party going on with the school and colegio kids that required them to be dressed up as clowns and other things on the cancha.  Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t learning, but I didn’t complain because there was an ice cream truck.  25-cent soft-serve? Sign me up!

3.  Saturday, September 16:  I was up early making bolones with my host mom (see Bolones! blog) and there were two fútbol games going on: the two mens’ teams of Galera- Deportivo Galera and Calle 13 (named for … you guessed it! The 13^th of September! It actually is the name of a street here in town); afterwards the women of Galera also played the women of Galerita.  I grabbed a power nap, and soon an even larger, extremely legitimate stage with lights and everything was installed on the cancha in preparation for the REAL reina competition, which commenced at 10pm.  After a filling dinner of bolones and Pilsener, we took our seats in anticipation of seeing which girl from the parroquia would be crowned reina and hold the title all year.  The competition went about like how the niña competition did, but was a little less creepy since these girls were 16-17.  It was just creepy like a regular beauty pageant is.  During each “costume change” there was a little entertainment for the (very large) crowd- a blind man who sang (decent), a tone-deaf girl that sang (horrible), and my personal favorite-a group of break dancers from Esmeraldas city.  They were really good!  Back to the girls- there were 2 girls from Galera, 1 from Galerita, and 1 from Estero de Plátano.  A girl from Galera won (prize was a big screen TV!) and although the entertainment was over, the fun was just beginning.  Practically before the girls had left the stage, the dancing started.  I mean, I think it was just torture for the community to sit there listening to music for two hours and not be able to get up and dance!  A situation which was soon remedied.  I did my fair share of dancing as well, although people watching with my friends was definitely more fun.  My host brother (who usually pretends I don’t exist) and his friends kept sending beer over to us, so we were set for the night.  The music shut off at 6am, but someone was kind enough to plug their mp3 player into the speakers to keep the party going.  I gave up at 9am, made some pancakes, and took a good nap.

Sunday, September 16:  More music, more dancing, more libations.  I went to bed early, but I think the music shut off around 1-2am.

Monday, September 17:  Defile (parade). The kids from the colegio marched through town beating drums and playing one-note horns, the girls did a little dancing, the escuela kids just marched, and there were speeches by members of the Junta Parroquial.  (This is the only thing I have pictures of, courtesy of Sarah’s camera.)  Obviously school was cancelled for the rest of the day, and the music started early- at 11 am.  This was the last night of the fiesta, so we made an effort to be social and headed out to the cancha one last time for a few beers and dancing.  I didn’t dance with anyone except Kevin, my 14 year old host nephew, but he definitely showed me up.  I was talking to some of the guys in town and they were saying how not many people came out the night before.  I said “yeah, I was so tired.. I just went to sleep.”  They said “We know. We saw you.”  Busted! I knew you could see into my window from the top bleachers from the cancha, but apparently people were wondering where I was that night, only to climb the top step and see Sarah, Mary, and myself all curled up and passed out in my bed like three sleepy kittens recovering from the night before.

Tuesday, September 18: SILENCE.  So nice.  And the countdown begins until the Fiesta de Navidad…

Some reinas and members of the Junta Parroquial marching

Colegio girls

Escuela kids

Kevin leading the drumming decimos

All are assembled.. check out the tiny kid with the sign in front!

Exactly how we all felt on Tuesday.  This is my neighbor's son, recovering.

¡Bolones, bolones, cincuenta centavos!

WARNING: this is a success story.  It’s true, they don’t happen often, at least not on the first try, but this is a good one.  It’s about the time that Sarah and I helped my host mom start a successful bolón and empanada business, and it started like this:

One night, the night of my town’s niña reina competition, Sarah and I sat eating salchipapas (French fries with hot dog on top… yum!) waiting for the competition to begin (sidenote: it  started at 10pm. On a school night.  The contestants were 10-12 years old.  What is wrong with people???).  Ok so we are sitting eating totally delicious and deep-fried cheap street food, thinking how great it would be if someone was selling empanadas.  So the next day, we hatched a plan to get my host mom to be that someone.  We told her she should sell food at the town fiesta and soccer games that weekend, and we would help.  So she agreed to make bolones, made a list, Sarah and I did some shopping, and the fun began! In case you are unfamiliar with the snack, a bolón is a deep fried ball of verde (one of the many types of bananas you can find here) filled with queso or chanco (pork), served with a salad of lettuce and carrots with mayo on top.   On Friday, we did a trial run and made about 20 bolones  de queso. We walked out of the house, up the street by the cancha, and back home yelling “Bolones, bolones! Cincuenta centavos!”  Our bolones sold out in less than 15 min! And at $0.50 each, what a steal!  Ok, so we might be onto something here… Saturday we made 30 more bolones de queso and walked down to where soccer games were being played on the big cancha.  Again, we sold out.  That evening before the fiesta even started, we made about 15 bolones de chancho, which were HUGE and we sold them for a dollar.  Also sold out in like 10 minutes.  What can I say, people like our bolones!  From bolón sales we made about $15 after deducting the price of ingredients, but that’s still kind of a lot of money for this neighborhood.

Our original plan, of course, had been to sell empanadas.  (Assuming everyone knows what an empanada is, but just in case.. it’s basically a deep-fried tortilla folded in half, sealed around the edges, usually with cheese inside.  Do you notice all the deep-frying going on here??) Mostly because, well, we love empanadas, and we wanted to perfect making them so we could make them whenever we wanted.  So we were delighted when, the following week, my host sister Monica shows up in the kitchen and says “Let’s make some empanadas to sell!” (Actually, she said “Hacemos empanadas para vender!”, because she only speaks Spanish.)  So we made a bunch of empanadas and sold them in the same manner, this time yelling “Empanadas, empanadas! Treinta centavos! Cuatro por un dolar!” and we sold out even FASTER!  Making empanadas is actually more economical than the bolones, so we made more money off of these.  The next day, I came home from a paseo with the colegio kids (see blog: Paseo) to see Monica and two friends at the table rolling out and folding up empanadas- this time even more.  They had also made morocho, which is a hot drink that is basically like rice pudding but with corn and is equal parts sugar with a touch of cinnamon too.  We did our traveling sales gig again, sold out quick, and made a good amount of money.

The key to good sales was that the product was hot and delicious, reasonably priced, and sold right around dinner time- spoil those kids’ appetites, they don’t need to eat more rice! And of course it helps to have a couple of gringas selling them, because who can resist the gringa charm? Especially when I single people out by name.. “Come on Daniel, only 2 empanadas? Buy 4.. I teach your daughter in school, you know..”

So, to sum up:

PROS- we learned how to make Ecuadorian food, bonded with my host family, made some cash for my host mom, provided the people of Galera with greasy deliciousness on multiple occasions, got some free samples of aforementioned greasy deliciousness.

CONS- I ate WAY more empanadas and bolones than a person should probably consume in a one week period… But you can’t sell a product you haven’t taste-tested! It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it.  Galera, I am here for you.

Boiling up some verdes

Mashing verdes with a machacador

Sarah's hands on fire after kneading the hot masa

Filling the bolones with queso

Bolones frying

Finished product, complete with ensalada! YUM!

Switching gears.. Making empandas with Monica!

Various life stages of an empanada

Some empanadas ready for sale

Our pets' heads are falling off!

Remember in Dumb and Dumber, when everything seems to be going wrong and their pet parakeet loses its cabeza,  Jim Carrey exclaims to Jeff Daniels: “We got no food, no jobs...  our PETS' HEADS ARE FALLING OFF!"?  Yeah, that’s sometimes how I feel about my Peace Corps experience.

For example, a few weeks ago, our water went out.  This isn’t unusual, in fact it goes out almost every day for a few hours.  But this time it went out for over a week.  We have a few back up tanks in the side yard that we keep full for such occasions, but within 48 hours those were also completely dry and we are NOT in the rainy season.  And hey, I enjoy a good bucket bath as much as the next PCV, but when there is nothing to put in your bucket… I start to get grumpy when I can’t shower every few days.  And then our power went out.  Sometimes I like it when the power goes out, because the town is quiet- nobody is blaring reggatone at full volume.  It just sucks that the fridge stops working.. If you could only buy groceries once a week and had to go an hour each way, you would feel my pain!  Ok, so power is off, water is off.. and I’m sick.  Fever, aches, chills, sore throat, throbbing headache..  I was just praying I didn’t have Dengue.  But what can you do except lay in the dark, ration your filtered water, and wait it out?  The power came back first, the then water several days later.  I know I shouldn’t complain since some of my friends here in country bathe in a river with dirty diapers floating past, or use a hose on the side of the road and have to shower fully clothed.. but sometimes you just hit the trifecta of power, lights, and sickness and then yeah, your pets’ heads might as well be falling off.  Most days are not like this (although I am currently 4 days into a different water outage), but then again some days are.  And then what can you do? Like I said, lay in bed with a book and a headlamp (or in my case, your kindle with a light in the case!) and wait it out.  As I wrote this, no joke, a worm fell from the rafters onto my arm… A very slimy one. Yep, it’s gonna be one of those days.  Book #27, here I come!

There's a chicken in my kitchen!

Here are a few ways I feel that I am integrating to Ecuadorian culture:

1. When I hear music, I get the urge to dance.

2. I don’t move for people on the ranchera.  I make them climb over me with their bags and kids and whatever else so that I can maintain my highly coveted outside seat.

3. After a hard day’s work at a minga, I want to roll up my shirt and walk around with my belly exposed like every coastal man (and some women) you will meet.

4.  The presence of chickens no longer surprises me… Anywhere.

The idea for this blog came to me one day when I was at a local soccer tournament with my friend Sarah, and a handful of hens and chicks wandered through the field.  It didn’t really register to either of us, and of course the teams just continued to play around them, at which point I realized that in the last 5 months, it has become completely normal to see chickens running wild and unattended.

I admit I was a little alarmed when I first arrived at site to see the number of chickens in and around our house.  My host mom has about 22 (mas o menos) chickens and roosters, but new chicks are constantly appearing.  The first time a fellow PCV (one of the city-folk) came to visit, after stumbling down to the bathroom in the dark one night, he mentioned over breakfast that he thinks he may have stepped on a chicken on his way to the sink.  Affirmative, I said, there is always at least one chicken that sneaks into the kitchen overnight.  In fact, there is one that always lives in a box next to our washing machine and just lays and warms eggs ‘round the clock.

My favorite chicky-anecdote is from the night that I was making some huevos duros to grab the next morning before a long and early bus ride.  After they had boiled, I walked them over to the fridge when I noticed there was a large rooster tied up by his foot in the corner.  He was definitely giving me the stink eye, and I realized that I may have just hard-boiled some of his kin.  I thought to myself “Oh, well this is a little awkward..” and the next morning I had every intention of avoiding eye contact when I went to retrieve them.  To my surprise, when I flipped the light on in the kitchen, a different chicken started squawking and revealed herself from her sleeping place behind the refrigerator and subsequently scared the mierda out of me.   I thought to myself “Well, well… looks like this rooster snuck in a little chick for a conjugal visit..” and then I realized that I need to stop personifying animals that may be dinner tomorrow (or whose offspring may be breakfast today).*

*Note: when I returned from this trip, there was no longer a rooster tied up in the corner… I will leave it to your imagination what might have become of him.

Exchanging Tech, Part 2

One of the few things I actually have been able to do here in Galera since I arrived is to help with English classes.  Unfortunately, the English teacher thinks that because I am a native English speaker, I must know how to teach foreign language acquisition at the high school level… Nope.  Luckily, PC Ecuador has a TEFL program with people equipped to do just that.  So, I asked a TEFL volunteer, Peter, to come help me out for a week.  We tried to coordinate with the English teacher about how she can plan and do some co-teaching with me in the future, but she is still somewhat resistant to put in the extra work to become a more effective teacher.  So Peter took over the class.  He worked on personal presentations (my name is…, I live in…, I am… years old, etc.), then reviewed colors in English using a tic-tac-toe game, and played hangman with the kids to review the alphabet.   Because listening is not emphasized in the classroom, Peter used songs to work on the kids’ listening skills.   For example, he provided the kids with the lyrics with some words omitted from Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star with an accompanying wordbank then had them fill in the blanks to the best of their abilities.  We did a similar activity with Miley Cyrus’ Party in the USA, followed by teaching them a little dance for the chorus that we stole from a TEFL activity done by some other PCVs during training.  After they listened to the song a few times and attempted to fill in the blanks, they all got up and danced it out.  This is where Ecua kids and American kids differ:  Ask a group of 9^th grade Americans- 8 girls and 15 boys- to dance, in front of their peers, to a Miley Cyrus song.. They probably won’t.  Ask a group of 9^th grade Ecuas to do the same thing…  They absolutely will.  A number of the boys really seemed to enjoy “moving their hips like, yeah;” they could show Ms. Mi-Cy a thing or two.

The 9vo class being unusually attentive

"Profe Peter" in action

The tech exchange was a success, or at least the kids had fun and learned some new words.  I saw a few of the octavo girls at the town fiesta the following weekend, and when I quizzed them on their colors in English, they seemed to remember a lot.  Peter was a hit with the kids too, since he was actually able to show them that there are fun ways to learn a language besides repeating phrases from a book that is beyond their skill level.  I joked that the kids would have preferred for him to stay and me to leave.  Sure enough, when I returned to the colegio alone the following week, all the kids were asking where “Profe Peter” was and if he was coming back.  Following the tech exchange, the kids had exams and now vacation, but hopefully when their schedule is back to normal I can start going again regularly to plan activities and who knows, maybe have a follow-up Miley Cyrus dance party.

7 month superblog!

Ok, so I realize it’s been awhile since my last update.. Deep apologies to the 5 people who aren't related to me that are following my blog.. This isn’t necessarily because nothing blogworthy has been happening, but more because I have been under the illusion that time is moving slower than it really is.  And then I realize that I have been in Ecuador for over 7 months, and at site for almost 5.  I feel like I have been living here such a long time, but at the same time, feel like I don’t have many accomplishments to show.  Here are a few things I have been up to:

 

Mompiche, Esmeraldas

1.  Beach bumming.  Well, not really bumming. But I have checked out several local beaches here in Esmeraldas- Mompiche, Súa, Same, and of course those I am already familiar with- Galera, Atacames, Tonchigue, Caimito, and Estero de Plátano.  All are unique- rocks or sand, big waves or calm, surfers or fishermen, and the tourists/backpackers that they attract.  According to Ecuadorians, Esmeraldas province has the best beaches in the country (just in case this helps sway any potential visitors).  I think I’ll come up with a rating system (scientific and objective of course!) and publish in a future blog.  I’ll have to see if this can fall under the “secondary project: tourism” umbrella…

2.  Tech exchange!  I lured a TEFL volunteer with the promise of beautiful beaches (see above) to come help me with English classes for a week.  For details, see “exchanging tech, part 2”.

Feliz cumple a mi!

3.  I turned 25!  I can now rent a car.. too bad I likely won’t be driving a car for another year and a half or so…   I celebrated with my host family, who made me a cake on the stove (we don’t have an oven) and sang to me.  I also got to celebrate with friends from training, which brings me to #4…



Celebrating July Birthdays!



 4.  Seeing friends!  A few friends got to come up to Esmeraldas to celebrate the July birthdays of myself and three other volunteers.  We stayed in Súa right on the beach, did a fair amount of beach bumming and hanging out in hammocks, and got up close and personal with a pod of whales and a colony of blue-footed boobies.  The majority of the group hadn’t seen the coast yet, so it was nice to show off our beach and the coastal food.

 

 

Blue-footed boobies!



Humpback whale of the coast of Súa







 


5.  Celebrated the Virgen Carmen with the town of Galera.  Carmen’s a pretty big deal around here, as she is the protector of fisherman and I live in a fishing village.  Her feast day is July 16^th, so just after celebrating my own big day, I continued celebrating the Virgin in typical Ecua-style: All-night music, dancing, libations, and fireworks followed the next day by the election of a new Niña de 16 de Julio, the child queen of the festival (think “toddlers in tiaras: Ecuador).  Then games, more music, dancing, and libations.  

Fireworks in Galera



  

The little reinas





Some tough Tefleros



6.  Saw more friends!  I am the alternative representative from my program to the Volunteer Advisory Council, or VAC which is kind of like student council for Peace Corps Ecuador.  Our actual rep, Sarah, is a fellow esmeraldeña and when she was invited to participate in a panel for the newest training group in Tumbaco, I latched on for a weekend in Quito and a chance to see old PCV friends and meet new ones too.  We were there for mañana deportiva for the new group, and one the teams from our training group was invited back to play soccer, so I got to see a handful of people I haven’t seen since we swore in 4 months ago.  While in Quito, I got to eat good food and drink good coffee, almost got to see Batman (alas, it was sold out), and even caught some of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics from a Scottish pub.  Even though I am really not used to Sierra weather anymore, it was still a definite morale boost to get out of site for a few days and see everyone. 

7.  I explored one of South America’s largest open-air markets.  While in Quito, we made a quick detour up to Otavalo (province of Imbabura).  Although we missed the market’s biggest day, Saturday, we went to the crafts market and bargained for scarves, jewelry, alpaca blankets, and other recuerdos of Ecuador.  There were plenty of Gringos there, including some fellow PCVs we ran into, which is why the local vendors ask ridiculous prices for some of their goods.  Not to say I am an excellent bargainer, but I am proud of a few deals I got.  After our wallets had been exhausted, we ate pie at a local pie shop and went to nearby Peguche to see some waterfalls and get a good spray.



Eating pie in Otavalo



Visiting cascadas at Peguche

8.  I continued work with the brigada del medioambiente at a local high school.  Sarah and I are trying to help out with different projects and activities, and I think we might be on a roll.  We are starting a recycling program and talked to a guy about buying plastic bottles from the school.  The kids built wire receptacles to collect bottles and next week we are making a little presentation to the school about using the new bins.  Hopefully, we can use some of the recycling money to buy seeds for a garden and/or reusuable dishes for the school so they don’t use (and subsequently, discard) thousands of plastic cups and Styrofoam plates.  We also built a compostera, or a place to make a compost pile and we’re hoping the kids will start to discard their organic waste from the kitchen here and reduce what they throw into landfills, or on the ground, or at each other, or wherever.  ¡Poco a poco!



The Brigada



Our recylcing can

Our newly built compostera