Festival de Chame en La Segua

9.11.10

Today is the Festival de Chame. Chame is a type of fish, I honestly don't know what the comparison would be to fish in the States, but supposedly it's an international festival in honor o this world-known fish! So I went to the festival with Alba, Adriana, Milena, and Armando. It was pretty basic, felt like a County Fair setting with dancers and singers, clowns, food, booze, and souvenirs, but on a smaller scale. For the most part we sat around and talked, drank beer, and ate tongas. I explained what this is in an earlier blog post, but they're big tamales or burrito-type things, with fish, rise, peanut butter sauce, and banana wrapped up in a big tree leaf. Obviously for the festival there was Chame in the tonga, not a big fan to be honest. It was pretty hot outside so it was nice to be in the shade. Usually there's a lot of dancing but we stayed for the afternoon and left before things really got going I think.

Above is a picture of us at the festival, from left it's Adriana, Milena, me, Armando, and you can see the tonga open on the table. Doesn't look the greatest but they are usually pretty good, I just didn't like the Chame. Sorry festival!

Life of Camaroneras/Pescadores

9.9.10

So the title means the Life of Fishermen and the people who raise Shrimp, not sure if "raise" is the correct term, but you get it. They help the little guys grow and then sell 'em! The picture above is the shrimp pool behind my host families house. The guy in the boat in the background is Aurelio, my host dad's son, who works for his dad feeding the shrimp and basically doing everything to raise them.

Ok their life=NOT EASY. It’s actually very dangerous. Salinas is a big fishing town and also big for shrimp production, or seafood in general. One day while I was on the bus, I saw a fishing boat on the water and there were tons of birds swarming, waiting for fish to steal from the fishermen, obviously they need the fish too so there’s some competition. And risk of being bit by the birds. Also, Adriana told me that a lot of times people are killed because they try to rob the fisherman or shrimp pools to make money. So the Camaroneras are very protective, and if you cross their land at night it’s risky because they will most likely assume you’re trying to rob them. On the other hand, there are others who have their fisherman’s license and are still killed as being assumed as theives. She told me a story of a couple men who were fishing and some camaroneras killed them. First they tied them up, and then stuffed live fish down their throats, and then tied rocks to their legs and arms, and dumped them into the water. Intense, and they were innocent men who had their licenses and had a right to be fishing at the time.

Other risks again are the birds; in most camaron (shrimp) pools, there are nets that will trap birds who fly down and try to eat the shrimp. Birds may eat 15-20 shrimp per day, and over a period of 3 months which is the harvesting period, that’s a lot of shrimp and a lot of money that can be lost. Also, not every harvest turns out 100% perfect of course. Some months a family could make $1500 if all the shrimp are healthy and a good size; other times they may lose that amount of money because all the shrimp die for some reason.

According to Chinese medicine I have a loooot of problems!

9.7.10

Today after Alba and I finished doing the census for the day, we went to her cousin Milena's house because she wanted to do this health test on me. Ummmm ok what does that mean!?! Milena works for Tiens, a Chinese herbal store or something. She hooked me up to this machine and then someone else uses a pencil-looking thing to poke different areas of your left hand which correspond to different illnesses. It sends out an electric wave or something, and if the shock hurts there’s something wrong, but if not then you’re healthy. There's a corresponding sheet of paper with numbers on it, and the numbers signify a different illness or ailment. I was pretty jumpy throughout the test, the shock did not feel good!! Supposedly I have gastritis, collitis, high blood pressure!, leg pain, bad lungs (cuz i’m currently sick), and some other stuff. I said my stomach problems must be from the food, and I’ve never had high blood pressure so if that’s true I also attribute it to the food!

Impressions of American Girls

9.2.10

Today we ran again, got a little farther than the days before, and after had breakfast at Adriana’s house and we talked about some cultural things, like how I say I don’t know a lot. I've said it a lot all my life! But, I will admit it's more frequent here because sometimes I just don’t understand what’s going on and I’m embarrassed, or I really don’t know, or I don’t know how to say NO. They told me it’s better to say NO with somewhat of a reason, and if you don’t want to give a reason for not going somewhere or accepting an invitation, you can say you have another commitment.

We were also talking about Ecuadorians views of American girls, and both Alba and Adriana told me that in Canoa (a tourist beachy town about an hour away) there are always a lot of girls who are drunk and hanging out with terrible and ugly men, and ruin the reputation of American girls. Basically they get the impression that American girls are into drugs and are promiscuous. I explained that it's difficult to generalize the whole culture based on what they've seen on a few occasions, but I understand what they were saying. However, it also confuses me because in Salinas alone there are a lot of girls who are young, single moms, and not married. Ecuadorian parents become very upset if their daughters have a boyfriend and have relations before they’re married or “rejuntadas”, like in a committed relationship.

Ruuuuunnn Forest, ooorrrr not

8.31.10

Today was the first “running” day with Alba and Adriana, Alba's cousin. We woke up early to run before it would get to hot. We walked to the highway, I was wearing shorts and they were wearing pants, maybe should opt for pants from now on. We started running but they didn’t last long, so we walked after a while, then ran again and walked back after we turned around. At least it’s something, I hope I would work up to feeling comfortable/safe running alone in the mornings or something, we’ll see. Afterwards I wanted to hurry up and get to San Vicente but we stopped to talk to a few people of course and then Alba invited us for breakfast at her house, I don’t know why I thought I could work out “fast”. Then Alba drove all of us to SV which was nice and I was stressed about getting a lot done. In the end I did accomplish a lot of my list and it turned out ok.

After dinner I played “bolley” with Maikol (12), Daniel or "Gordo" (6), and Gaston (Mirtha’s brother who is about 22) inside the house. It was fun, actually somewhat of a workout, it's like volleyball. After that they came into my room with Jerry (14, Maikol and Daniel's sister) to hang out. They made me read some stuff from a book in English and also sing a song in English. Then Maikol sang a few songs. They told me that it’s “normal” for boys to be taken to a Chongo (brothel) at the age of 12 or 13 to have their first sexual experience. They asked me if Jon, my boyfriend, goes to brothels and thought it was normal that he would, but when I said no they thought it was a little odd that he doesn't. It was a very random conversation topic, but a big part of the culture that men usually cheat on their wives or girlfriends, but it is expected that the girls are virgins until they get married. The picture is of Gaston (left), Jerry, Maikol and I in my room with my beautiful mosquito net (toldo) behind us!

Monthly Incomes

8.30.10

This morning I went to the Elementary School with Alba and met with the directora/principal Haydee; I gave her a letter that I wrote to explain my role and to talk about what I could offer to the classes like self-esteem, communication, values, etc. She talked about teaching English once a week and then I can also incorporate those things. She expressed interest in having seminars or charlas for the parents, as the children seem to have lost their values and also some things are evident that are not being taught at home. We will talk more in a few weeks when I have materials to teach English and also have supplies for other activities.

After lunch Alba and I did more of the census from 2-6:30 ish, it was so tiring! It’s interesting to hear people’s answers to the question about how much they make per month. Many say they don’t know, because the flow of work, or the success of fishermen and those who catch shrimp is pretty inconsistent. However, it was also interesting that the people don’t know how much they make but somehow are still surviving. Some of the results were as little as $10 a month, or people receive money from family who live abroad, or receive government assistance which is called the Bono. It's basically equivalent to welfare, but unlike the States, it's a set amount each month of $35. It doesn't matter if the family has 1 child or 5, if the people applying are disabled or retired. I thought that was interesting.

We are going to start running tomorrow morning because Alba wants to lose weight and so do I because I’ve gained about 5 pounds since I got here. Everyone laughs about the weight thing because normally the people here don’t work out, so I’m glad to have Alba with me so I don’t look completely ridiculous. I mean most men play soccer, some women do too, but it’s not like “workout” is on people’s list of things to do during the day. But who knows, maybe it will catch on. A lot of people have diabetes here as well as high/low blood pressure; Ecuadorian cuisine tends to carry a lot of salt, in addition to sugar and oil. People don’t generally drink a lot of water, just juice or coffee/tea.

Sunday on the farm

8.29.10

We spent the day in San Antonio (near Chone) at one of Pastorita’s daughter’s house, I think her name is Mariana. It's about 45 minutes away from the house, more inland, and the house is pretty isolated and at a higher altitude, it's a big farm. There are tons of flies, and you can smell the pigs, they have soooo many! There are lots of cows and chickens, pretty typical farm. We went for lunch, and I tried to be part of the cooking clan of women in the kitchen, but at first they wouldn’t let me do anything really, just told me to eat the papaya they had cut. Then I was allowed to help make tongas, like tomales where you use these big tree leaves and put some rice, chicken, peanut butter sauce, and a platano maduro in the middle and then wrap it all up.

Parts of the day were frustrating because everyone talks really fast and asks me questions that I don’t always follow, so I feel stupid. Then they say stuff like “She doesn’t understand some words”, I’m thinking that I would understand better if I could make out what they’re saying, and OF COURSE I don’t understand everything because I’m still learning! Then people continued to ask if I cook, what I cook, if I wash clothes, etc, always surprised that I know how to do certain things. It just gets me irritated sometimes even though I know they just want to talk and have good intentions. I have to look at it as my chance to correct misunderstandings or stereotypes of American girls. One of the teenage girls in the family asked if I had servants in my house, because I had told her I could wash my plate when she was trying to do it for me. I told her that might be true in some households but the majority of families teach children to help out and they have to do chores to do their part to keep the house clean, and to learn the value of hard work and responsibilities.

Funny thing: I told my host mom that I love platano maduro, it tastes the best, kinda sweet, and I just like it. It looks like a banana, but you can't eat it raw. It has to be fried or boiled I think. Of course now I eat maduro pretty much daily, and I think if she doesn’t have anything to give me or doesn’t know what to feed me, she just picks maduro as a safe option. It’s also easy to make and cheap, but hopefully I still like it after a few weeks!