Prejuicios means prejudices

I only really love history when I get to look at it. It adds a powerful sense of reality, obviously.

It´s not so much that I´m wandering around where Incas used to wander around, or before them an indigenous group called the Cañari, that interests me. It´s doesn´t do much for me to see bits remaining clay pottery on the ground from thousands of years ago. I can´t help it, but I don´t really care! I know that information, and it is very interesting information indeed, but it makes no difference to me whether I touch what they touched or not. What makes this so cool to me is that it simply looks like nothing I have ever seen. It doesn´t have to be a humongous, magnificent, epic monument where you can feel the spirits of the long lost and dead with the slightest whisp of a breeze for me to appreciate it; it just has to be different. And you must admit, unless you have been to Ingapirca, Ecuador, you have never seen anything like it either. The ruins here are small and modest, but they still hold a majesty to them not found anywhere else. Like many other things, the simplicity of it makes it even more rich.

But the ruins are not the only things that make Ingapirca a notable location. After rumbling down through the mountains and passing numerous houses (or maybe the more appropriate word is "shelters"**) that look like this...

We arrived at the one thing I am beginning to appreciate more and more during my time in Ecuador and that is yet another market.

Here I experienced three things: what guinea pig tastes like (bad, in case you are wondering), how desperately I love puppies, and the emotions of being the recipient of prejudices. Going in order, what you see cooking in the picture above is guinea pig, or "cuy." Yes, those squeaky things we call pets are a delicacy here and all I can say is that I don´t really understand why. The puppy comment has to do with the puppies that were being sold at the market but puppies like I have never seen: hands down the most calm, docile, loving, adorable little mutt puppies I have ever seen in my life and they were being sold for $16. You read that right: $16...I truly, honestly almost bought one to bring home. If it weren´t for the fact that I think that´s completely against the law, I would have. Now for my final lesson...

 I understand getting strange looks from people because I am a foreigner, I understand confusion for why we would be in a market in an indigenous town in the mountains, I even understand when people are a little apprehensive towards people who look very different from them. But what I don´t understand is the pure hatred I felt in the looks of nearly everyone I saw. The foul names we were called directed at our heritage(which I don´t care to repeat) and the horrible, purposeful mis-communications that were made are things I will never understand. One woman in our group asked if she could pay to take a photo of some of the women and was not only turned down but turned down without any compassion. It´s one thing to say no and it´s an entirely different thing to disrespectfully growl "no" without even looking at the person asking. I think one of the ugliest things humans can do is not attempt to understand others and for me this is a prime example. Going back and reading these examples may not seem bad but we all know actions speak louder than words and the negative energy we all felt was practically tangible. Why can´t people respect the fact that they have visitors in their country? That people outside their world want to know what it is like? I am a fortunate, young, smart, white girl living in the United States and this prejudice is something I have never experienced. I do have a gained sense of empathy for all those who have felt this in the past, and I only wonder where this hate comes from. Curiosity, apprehension, wonder are all things that are natural to humans when we are confronted with something different, but hate, hate is too powerful to be natural.

The point of this is not to make indigenous Ecuadorians seem like bad people. There are bad people and good people everywhere, this was just a particular experience I shared with the people in my group. Unfortunately, when you travel to many different types of places prejudice is something that is experienced, but it does not by any means represent Ecuadorians as prejudiced as a whole. Just wanted to clear that up.


**Just as an interesting thing I learned: Inca´s only used "houses" as "shelters" so they were incredibly small and everyone in the family would share a bed together on one side and a little cooking area would be on the other side (only a few feet apart). If the parents wanted to be "intimate" they would go into the field and raise a red warning flag so people would know to stay away. The word "shelter" seems to be a much better fit to describe the indigenous, or rural homes