Let It Be

What was it I said a month ago about expectations? That it is better not to have them, really, and things will go better. You will appreciate more, you will be open and genuine, you will learn more. Though I didn't expect much that's tangible when coming to Ecuador, it was not what I did expect, which was something close to falling head over heels with everything intangible about it. Sort of a ridiculous expectation, if you ask me. But because I didn't expect much else, I was able to be in Ecuador what I was: homesick, afraid, but learning. And there is one lesson in particular that had a hell of a time getting through to me, but through much scratching at my head, ruler-slapping at my wrists, and loudspeaker shouting at my heart, I have learned about love.

You may say that I'm a dreamer...and I would completely agree with you. I often set ambitious goals so that I can truly experience raw personal growth, and many of these goals I have accomplished. But that feeds into the whole thing, you see, and I have recently found myself to be almost living in this future I have planned for myself. Before I justified it all, saying that “I only have the next 5 years planned out but I don't know what I'll do after that, so I'm not being too crazy!” Well, dear little self, you were being crazy and it's time to come back from the future and start living in the present.

Why has this suddenly occurred to me? And why on Earth did it occur to me in Ecuador? Let me answer both questions by simply saying this: because I am in love. Yes, I am. And you all know who you are.

I have come to the realization that individual growth does not have to happen individually. Any sort of growth is personal, individual growth, and I don't need to go running around to every corner of the Earth by myself to fulfill this untapped individual growth, like I thought I did. I can grow with people, I do not have to do it alone! Why, if I am at a point in my life where I have companionship, should I take that for granted and flee for a month at a time so I can grow and learn on my own. (By the way, in case you are thinking this is just me being homesick, which I am, it is not entirely that because I have done this month abroad thing before-it is not a new experience and thus my argument is justified, hehe).  So long as my companionship does not bind me to my apartment floor, then why must I do these things alone? Maybe there will be a point in my life where I will be alone...then traveling alone for personal growth and exploration makes sense! Won't I begin to detach myself from these people that I love, thinking I'm better off this way, but in reality I have begun to draw a line of separation between us due to non-shared experiences? Maybe I'm being a little dramatic, but to prevent an addiction, don't we have to be?

It's good to have goals and dreams and desires, especially ones that you seriously want to achieve. But do yourself a favor and if you cannot begin achieving that goal now don't set a deadline. Stay connected to where you are, what you are doing, and who you are with. Because those things can change and there will be a time for those goals. Have them, love them, but keep them on the top shelf until it is present.

Ecuador has taught me flexibility. And not just because it can take around an hour to get your lunch at an empty restaurant. More of a mental flexibility, providing the knowledge to be present, allow growth with companionship, to stay open to opportunity, and to dream.

In so many words, Ecuador has taught me to Let It Be.

Vacation on Vacation

Visiting Puerto Lopez during my final days in Ecuador was truly a well needed (and well deserved, if I might add) rest. Usually I find beaches to be pretty similar no matter where you go; they sort of have the same recipe: first plant palm trees, then add sand, and top it off with ocean. Then, if you'd like, add a couple cute little cabana buildings complete with beach themed bathrooms and mosquito nets and you end up with the little beach hostel we stayed at. Which was beautiful, I cannot deny that, but I  especially enjoyed being on the port part of the beach a few minutes away from our quaint little one because it was, yet again, like nothing I've ever seen before...

The sand here smelled like rotten fish but it made the place that much more rich. The amount of boats that looked like old children's toys that have withered away in the bathtub for years was astounding and it was even more astounding how in use they all still are. And we got to use one too, on our way to Isla de la Plata, a little island so named because of the myth of buried treasure that supposedly still hides somewhere among the rocky cliffs. This island was cool and haunting, with its naked trees, cloudy haze and rough cliffs, but the best part was I got to see these:

Blue Footed Boobies! Yay! Single expectation of Ecuador: fulfilled. Though I have yet to eat any black clams. Oh well.

I decided to skip out on the hike because of the lovely parasite in my body that took away a lot of my energy, so instead I picked a lone spot on the beach to look at the waves and all the boobies and pelicans hunt for food by diving into the ocean. I truly was astonished by this and would sit so still for so long that these little guys would get rather close:

and with the slightest flinch of my body hundreds of them would scuffle away much faster than they needed to. I seriously enjoyed playing with these things...letting them get close, then I blink, then they sprint away like they are thinking “shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT RUN AWAY!” I really had fun with this.

There is not very much I can say about these final two days...how much can you talk about sitting by the ocean and suntanning? So, I shall sum up my time at the beach like this: closure. A restful time to put a definitive end to the whole month away from home. And this felt very good.

Clinic Duty

I find it stupidly ironic that after my heart, mind, and spirit were treated to a weekend at the spa I got fantastically sick and had to spend the night in the clinic due to a parasite.

It was awful. If anyone has ever experienced spending a night in a hospital due to an illness I am so terribly sorry, but I am even more sorry and empathetic if that night was also spent in a foreign country. Because this is where I learned how shitty loneliness can be. Enough said.

But I suppose it wasn't all bad...after a morning spent in a tiny little room I was moved to a room in which I believe is normally reserved for new mothers, seeing as it has a lounge area, a couch, a television, a closet, and a personal bathroom including a shower. But material things cannot replace the joy company can provide, and I was lucky to have the number of visitors that I had (complete with bouquet of sunflowers). I am wondering, about my penthouse suite, whether or not it was given to me due to my nationality. I would understand hospitals wanting to provide the best kind of care to foreigners in order to develop international recognition, so it wouldn't surprise me if that was the reasoning behind my room. I'm not trying to be arrogant, it is just a thought.

Who knows, maybe they put me in that room because I was just too beautiful to be kept anywhere else! Or maybe because they didn't have any other rooms available and I just plain got lucky. Any of these ideas could be the real cause, but all I can say is the room was unusually nice.

Another thing that made the...experience, I'll call it, not completely miserable and agonizing was that my main nurse (who was by no means unattractive) came in to check on me a number of times to carry on long conversations about each of our lives. And, in all my sweaty and stinky and parasite glory, he asked me for my number. And to go out dancing with him as soon as I felt better. Gotta love Latinos.

Saraguro

Saraguro is a little town up in the Andes mountains that sings spirituality. We went there as a group to experience some more of the incredibly well preserved indigenous cultures that exists here in Ecuador, but for me this weekend was less of an educational mind-opening and more of an inner rebirth.

Here was my view on Saturday...

This valley is now home to a couple negative aspects of my personality I have wanted to get rid of for a while now. All I had to do was close my eyes, take a breath, think about what I wanted gone and the mountains simply sucked all the bad right out through the top of my head. I could breathe here, I could feel here, and the time I spent on this cliff on Saturday marked the beginning of a heavy emotional transformation for me. There is something about remote valleys that completely remove you from your original perspective on life and provide for you a perspective of appreciation, gratitude, and suddenly you become overwhelmed with love: love for nature, for people, and especially for the wild chickens clucking around in the bushes next to you. This day was special for me and difficult to articulate, but Sunday was even more magical. Yes...magical.

To get where we were going on Sunday we unfortunately had to walk past this adorable little village:

Then continued to follow a long path through the woods...

Until we arrived in a very sacred spot to find this:

This is called la mesa; the table set out by the Shaman to begin the ritual of thanks to our Pachamama. To our mother Earth. The three sticks and the feather represent the four directions (N, S, E, W) as well as Mother Earth (N), the wind (S), the moon (W) and the sun (E). After making a circle, the ritual began with the Shaman taking a sip of an alcoholic beverage I simply can't describe and spitting it out onto the ground. Then we all faced North and the Shaman took another sip and spit it back out toward North. This was repeated for each of the directions and then we began our cleansing. I don't want to go into too much of this kind of detail, but briefly it went like this: we were given a handful of plants to rub on our bodies to be rid of bad energy, then we were each given a sip of the alcoholic beverage and gave thanks to something individually, then we took a sip of a lighter beverage, then we were each spit on while smoke from a fire of plants and flowers was blown around us. This description gives no justice to the beauty in which is was conducted, but that is because you would just have to see it being done. What I really want to talk about is how it made me feel...

A certain amount of the spirituality that was bursting from every one of my pores I cannot explain and that is simply because I don't understand what happened. Throughout this process, listening to the Shaman's prayers to mother Earth, I felt so connected to my surroundings my feet felt rooted into the ground. And you can't blame me when these were my surroundings...

Maybe it was the wind, but my person felt light, and the weight I felt I had lost came in the form of energy that was nearly tangible as it escaped my body and blew away. When I gave thanks I did so to those (including you) that support and provide for me to have experiences that open my mind as well as my heart and I meant it to the fullest. My heart felt so open it could have split in half, and my only human reaction to such mysticism was to cry. I found myself sending out genuine prayers to each and every person that I love, which is something I have never really done before. My mind underwent a drastic evolution, my heart opened itself up to anyone and everything, and my soul emptied itself of everything bad. If I can learn to remember this feeling and keep the knowledge I gained that didn't even really come to me in words, I know I will never have regrets.

So let me conclude this post by saying thank you, Andes mountains, for embodying such an abundance of strength and wisdom it flowed right into the hearts of your people.

Let´s Take It Outside

This country is beautiful. From the mountains to the palm trees to the colorful buildings, Cuenca as a city looks like a fantasy many people would dream up for their ideal place to live. Just look at a regular street here:

Now, I'm a little nervous about writing on this topic, but here goes anyway...despite the physical beauty of this city, I am having trouble, let's say, connecting with it. And, unfortunately, I know that has to do with the encounters I have had with some of the people. Because nothing is perfect, and because I have written about a lot of positive experiences I have had (well let's be honest, it's important to see any experience as a positive one because you can always get something out of everything) I'd like to share some of the negative experiences I have had, beginning with the strangest:

I was walking down the street recently on a Sunday afternoon where I passed by a man who was rather dirty looking (and I mean literally as he had blood all over his face and mud on his clothes) who told me Banate, banate (take a bath, take a bath!) and proceeded to throw the contents of some drink he was carrying all over me. Covered my face, my hair, drenched my clothes, and so on. I stood there appalled and all I could do was keep walking home. It did not help , though, that nearly everyone I passed pointed and laughed. Personally, I did not think this was funny. And what's worse is that, after this happened, I have been scared to walk to and from school and so I have been taking taxi cabs two or three times a day. The reason this scared me so much is not that he dumped juice or whatever all over me, it's that I know he would have harrassed me one way or another no matter what he had in his hand. I firmly believe that if he had a knife, I would have gotten stabbed. It is the sheer possibility of what could have been that scared me so much and is thus the reason I ride in cabs now.

I know this is a strange circumstance and has nothing to do really at all with Ecuador or Ecuadorians in general, but it was my experience and it scared me and that is something I cannot help.

Taking taxis have saved me the trouble of walking over an hour a day and running into who knows who, however, they aren't much better. Almost every cab driver has had to pull out a map during my three minute ride and this is very unnerving to me. I have had quite a few cab drivers get frustrated with me for not being entirely sure how to get home from someplace, though it really should be the other way around. One got very mad at me when I had to tell him he had to turn “a la izquierda” not “a la derecha” because I had not told him ahead of time. Excuse me for not knowing you didn't know your way around, oh TAXI driver. My advice: remember the landmarks around where you are staying-this will be a much greater help.

One time I was walking with my “sister” here in the afternoon when a young boy came running up next to us and tried to grab my sister's phone from her hands. He missed, fortunately, and had to keep sprinting ahead. This was terrifying, mostly because it was broad daylight. If that happens during the day, what happens when it's dark? Another reason to take taxi cabs. As in any city where a diverse population of people live.

Yet another thing that causes severe discomfort for me walking around is the staring. I've been stared at before, I am a 21 year old girl, but this is different. This is overt, direct, dirty staring that makes me feel both like I am naked and have purple spotted alien skin. This, I'm sure, comes from the unfortunate fact that “machismo,” or chauvinism is horrifyingly present here, not unlike many other places I'm sure. But it is no fun to walk down the street when you either get penetrating stares wondering what on Earth you are doing there or knocked over (literally) like you aren't even there at all. This certainly makes me appreciate how women are generally treated in the United States (though there are plenty of places still where it is dangerous to be a woman). I have never felt threatened by a stare where I have lived.

One final comment I will make is that at a restaurant last night some friends and I went to we experienced what we can call segregation. We were placed, with a couple other tables of foreigners, in a separate room from the locals, purposefully. I understand this might be common practice at some restaurants, but all it says to me is, “We find you annoying and would like to keep you in a different place so we can enjoy our meals without you around.”

I would like to say that my family I am living with has been very kind to me, and I especially don´t want this to reflect poorly on them. This was a difficult post to write because the point is not to provide any negative judgements about Ecaudorians for people reading. I have had a number of positive encounters as well during my stay here, these were just a few circumstances I felt were important to point out.

What´s Your Status? And No, I´m Not Talking About Facebook...

It´s weird to start something with a side note, but side note: Panama Hats are not from Panama. They are from Ecuador. And Ecuadorians are very confused and annoyed about this mix-up.

When I talked about how wealth distribution is very poorly done here, I didn´t yet realize another effect this has on the culture and that is class struggle. Class and status is HUGELY important here and this makes for interesting conversation. Keeping the right image is a constant effort by Cuencanos, even in their own house. Here are some simple guidelines to maintaining a good image here in Cuenca:

1. One should never shut the door, especially if they bring a friend over. This would send a very bad message to mom and dad.

2. One should never leave the house as a women without being completely made up, which actually looks much like how women do in the states when we go out for New Years.

3. One should never admit to listening to hip-hop. This is trashy.

4. One should never admit to listening (and enjoying) reggaeton. This is also trashy.

5. One should never kiss anyone they aren´t dating while in a bar. This will circulate throughout the city before you even leave said bar.

6. One must never neglect to greet (with a kiss on the cheek) anyone when they are around other people. Even if you are complete strangers. This will cause severe tension and will make you very much regret not saying hello.

7. One must eat pizza with a fork and knife.

8. One must always respond to a compliment by giving one in return.

9. One must be successful but not too successful or else people will think you are too good for them.

10. One must enjoy kareoke.

Granted, most of these are all guidelines if you are in your 20´s, but that is what I have been exposed to, so that is what I have learned. But follow these rules and at least you won´t offend anyone.

Maybe one day with better distribution Ecuador will experience less discrimination and thus less of a divide between classes and thus less stress on status. It makes me very sad to hear people in the 21st century say "Don´t spend time with that person. They are low class." It´s understandable that people naturally want to associate with people they feel are "good people" but this really should come from people´s actions and not their last name.

Hollywood Gets It Right

You know those adventure movies where the main character ends up lost in some jungle only to encounter a person with feathers sticking out of their nose, body paint as clothing, a poison dart poised to shoot, and a collection of shrunken heads?? Well...THEY EXIST. And I had no idea.

 These people are called Shuar and they live in the Amazon region in Ecuador. And I´m serious, they really do shrink heads. But, because of the attention they have gotten in the modern and connected world, the idea of "head hunting" has now become more of an opportunity to make money and so it has become an illegal practice. But still, it´s really cool. And these Shuar people are not the only Hollywood-inspiring indigenous groups in Ecuador, as it turns out, about 30% of Ecuador´s entire population is indigenous. How many Native Americans do we have left in the States? Less than 1% I believe. Yesterday my group and I went to a museum showcasing all the different types of indigenous groups here in Ecuador and I certainly learned a lot. Besides gawking at the number of shrunken heads they had in the museum, I couldn´t believe the artwork. Everything is beautiful, from the clothes they dress themselves in (if any at all) down to the utensils they use (if any at all). And what was especially unique about this museum was that the land it was built on is sort of a museum itself...

These Inca ruins extend around the entire museum, including this part called the Temple of the Sun...

It´s interesting to learn about indigenous cultures in general, but the fact that the ones here are still so alive and prevalent is fascinating. Many times each day, in the modern and fashionable city of Cuenca, I see women dressed in skirts they made themselves with the long braids and Panama hats that put together we all know from the National Geographic magazines. I still haven´t gotten used to it, but if anything, it is a constant reminder that new and different things are always lurking around the corner. And that I´m in fact the minority here...which is a strange feeling too.