Today I went to the fancy cheese shop and asked for 3 dollars' worth of Pecorino Tartufo because I have no money. I carried my tiny wedge of cheese back to the car in the rain, wearing my polka dot skirt, and turned up the Cat Power on the stereo a little louder, because some things never change more than a little bit.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Buying Time
I am home safe and adjusting. I have so much to say, but I'm still catching up on sleep, pesto, being a social creature, and getting ready to go back to school. I have not worn a pair of pants since I got home. I feel a pang of guilt when I drink water from the tap, or throw toilet paper in the toilet. I catch myself before telling the cashiers that their prices are outrageous and offering them 3/4 of the cost. Sometimes I think of words in Spanish before I remember them in English. Sometimes I feel sad because I don't know what I'm doing here but I don't even want to go back.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Intag!
Yes!
Running on 26 hours of awake! Delerious! Peñeherrera, a nearby town, had its birthday party last night. I did not sleep.
I am in Apuela! Emailing! And buying green veggies! Chard garlic which is not green but also essential broccoli and onions which I am not lacking but I would feel guilty using so many onions of the families!
What am I doing?
Going back to the family to go watch the bullfight in Cuallaje and then make the family Chinese food for dinner while they are at church!!!!! With the sauces and straw mushrooms from my care pacakge!
The exclamation points are to keep me awake!
I have 13 host siblings. Only one of them, Katie, lives at home. She is the youngest and is 13. Also living in the house is Andrea, my host parents´daughter in law and her son Leo who is 1.5 years old. Andrea is 19, but since she´s a mom I feel like she is way older than I am. My host parents are nice but they treat me like I am ten years old. Recently they have started repeating themselves more. Lunch time! Ok! Lunch! Yes lets go! Yes lets go have lunch! I know the word for lunch, guys. They are very nice but since it´s the dry season there is nothing to do but occasionally harvest yucca or beans for a few minutes. And then there were the two days we spent the whole day harvesting coffee from coffee trees. They come in little cherries and you have to pull the branches toward you with a little hooked pole and it is really fun and really tedious at the same time. So I wander around awkwardly, read a lot but feel rude reading a lot, do yoga occasionally, and simply cannot convince myself to meditate even though I have nothing else to do.
They have a horse but so far I have not met her because she lives in the other pasture and they just keep neglecting to introduce us even though I have expressed all the interest possible just short of being rude and pushy.
I have running water! A shower! Even though it is cold water, it´s ok. The weather is a tad bit warmer than Tabacundo, although I am still living in the mountains. It is more lush landscape though. So beautiful.
My host mom cooks us food. She only makes us beige food. My little brother and my ex boyfriend would be in heaven, although the latter´s appreciation for red wine and chocolate are a little exotic and colorful for the cuisine here. A list of foods we eat- fried dough, bread, white rice, beans, chicken, chicken broth, yucca (which is like a really dense, chewy, yummy potatoe), potatoe, egg, noodles, onions, carrots (trace amounts), green peppers (trace amounts), plantain, coffee, milk, corn, sugar cane, various yellow and light orange fruits, and a cloying amount of sugar in all beverages, and salt in all savories. Occasionally we have tomatoes or purple cabbage and vinegar salads- about a quarter cup each.
For the first few days I was FREAKING out. Those of you who know me may be aware that I have some control and anxiety issues about my diet. I am fanatically opposed to simple carbohydrates, and fanatically dedicated to always getting enough protein with every meal. I try to eat primarily legumes and non-starchy vegetables. So the universe decided that it had had enough of my neuroticism, and now I eat only starchy vegetables with simple carbs and tons of sugar and hardly any protein. I have assuaged my fears by observing that Lucinda has raised 13 children, herself, and her husband on this diet, and they are healthy, non-obsese people. I can survive like this for 3 weeks. However, in Apuela I am now buying broccoli, chard, garlic, and onions so I can make sitr fry. My family will probably not like it but will also be too polite to tell me so, so I can make it again next weekend! Hooray!
I am doing just fine, but also ready to come home although I am sad that I will not be able to practice any more spanish when I get home. Ok, until next week. Over and out!
Running on 26 hours of awake! Delerious! Peñeherrera, a nearby town, had its birthday party last night. I did not sleep.
I am in Apuela! Emailing! And buying green veggies! Chard garlic which is not green but also essential broccoli and onions which I am not lacking but I would feel guilty using so many onions of the families!
What am I doing?
Going back to the family to go watch the bullfight in Cuallaje and then make the family Chinese food for dinner while they are at church!!!!! With the sauces and straw mushrooms from my care pacakge!
The exclamation points are to keep me awake!
I have 13 host siblings. Only one of them, Katie, lives at home. She is the youngest and is 13. Also living in the house is Andrea, my host parents´daughter in law and her son Leo who is 1.5 years old. Andrea is 19, but since she´s a mom I feel like she is way older than I am. My host parents are nice but they treat me like I am ten years old. Recently they have started repeating themselves more. Lunch time! Ok! Lunch! Yes lets go! Yes lets go have lunch! I know the word for lunch, guys. They are very nice but since it´s the dry season there is nothing to do but occasionally harvest yucca or beans for a few minutes. And then there were the two days we spent the whole day harvesting coffee from coffee trees. They come in little cherries and you have to pull the branches toward you with a little hooked pole and it is really fun and really tedious at the same time. So I wander around awkwardly, read a lot but feel rude reading a lot, do yoga occasionally, and simply cannot convince myself to meditate even though I have nothing else to do.
They have a horse but so far I have not met her because she lives in the other pasture and they just keep neglecting to introduce us even though I have expressed all the interest possible just short of being rude and pushy.
I have running water! A shower! Even though it is cold water, it´s ok. The weather is a tad bit warmer than Tabacundo, although I am still living in the mountains. It is more lush landscape though. So beautiful.
My host mom cooks us food. She only makes us beige food. My little brother and my ex boyfriend would be in heaven, although the latter´s appreciation for red wine and chocolate are a little exotic and colorful for the cuisine here. A list of foods we eat- fried dough, bread, white rice, beans, chicken, chicken broth, yucca (which is like a really dense, chewy, yummy potatoe), potatoe, egg, noodles, onions, carrots (trace amounts), green peppers (trace amounts), plantain, coffee, milk, corn, sugar cane, various yellow and light orange fruits, and a cloying amount of sugar in all beverages, and salt in all savories. Occasionally we have tomatoes or purple cabbage and vinegar salads- about a quarter cup each.
For the first few days I was FREAKING out. Those of you who know me may be aware that I have some control and anxiety issues about my diet. I am fanatically opposed to simple carbohydrates, and fanatically dedicated to always getting enough protein with every meal. I try to eat primarily legumes and non-starchy vegetables. So the universe decided that it had had enough of my neuroticism, and now I eat only starchy vegetables with simple carbs and tons of sugar and hardly any protein. I have assuaged my fears by observing that Lucinda has raised 13 children, herself, and her husband on this diet, and they are healthy, non-obsese people. I can survive like this for 3 weeks. However, in Apuela I am now buying broccoli, chard, garlic, and onions so I can make sitr fry. My family will probably not like it but will also be too polite to tell me so, so I can make it again next weekend! Hooray!
I am doing just fine, but also ready to come home although I am sad that I will not be able to practice any more spanish when I get home. Ok, until next week. Over and out!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Mail Story
First of all, tomorrow I leave for Intag for my homestay. I will be living on a remote dairy farm, and will have email access only on Sunday when we go to market. How quaint. Also, my family does not speak a word of English, so it´s full steam ahead. New words on my vocabulary list include- clumsy, flirt, tax, afford, to be fed up, to pull oneself together, sweet, aftertaste, hint, to move away from, to move toward, hoarse, and leak, to name a few. I´m really exited to go, to tell you the truth, although also of course nervous about the unknown. Also I am worried about having to be -on- all the time, socially, and feeling like a guest the whole time. I mean, I can only keep my resteraunt manners on for probably a day and a half and then I´m just going to have to be myself. Poor host family...
Now for the story.
My mother, being the kind, generous, wonderful mother she is, and wanting to take care of me from far away, decided to send me a care package. Excellent! So she got an address from the volunteer coordinator and sent it.
Then she emailed me when it got here. I said, great, I´ll go pick it up on the way home from the rainforest.
So when I get into Quito after an all-night bus trip, (during which they played a Jean Claude Van Dam film called, I kid you not, ¨Sudden Death) I got on the trolley and went to the post office. Upon arriving at the post office, I quickly learn that I have no idea how to say the words post office, pick up a package, or mail. They send me from window to window. Finally I explain that the package has been sent to the foundation´s p.o. box. What´s the number, they ask. I don´t know.
So I walk down the street to an internet cafe and look up Stuart the volunteer coordinator´s number so I can ask him the box number. The internet cost amounts to ten cents. I hand the attendent a 20, the only cash I have on me. He can´t change it, it´s too big. I explain to him that if I go to the bank, they will give me more 20 dollar bills. He tells me to just leave.
So I go next door to the phone cafe and call Stuart and get the box number. The call is 45 cents. I give the attendent a 20. She also cannot change it. I explain it´s all I´ve got. She makes me wait till she can get change. I wait and wait. Finally a very nice man pays for my phonecall so I can leave, which was even nicer than usual because it was a situation where a strange Ecuadorian man was nice to me and was not hitting on me and this is unusual.
So I get back to the post office and they try to give me Stuart´s mail in the box, which he is late for paying for. They want me to give them money and take his mail. I explain I cannot do this, and only want my package. The package is not in the box. They direct me to another window, where a man tells me he cannot find my number, but if I give him the tracking number he can try to find it in the computer.
Back to the internet cafe. But a different one this time because I still only have a 20. I get the tracking number AND change my 20. I´m golden.
I go back and give the man my tracking number. He says, oh this is a UPS number sorry. You have to go to a different post office. I feel a little exasperated but it´s ok. So I ask for the name and address of the new post office I need to go to. He says he does not know the exact name or address but gives me a trolley stop, a few cross streets, and says, ask anyone and they´ll know where it is.
I asked 6 policemen or security guards where this post office was. No one knew. I walked around the block 3 times. This took at least an hour. Finally in desperation I call Stuart. He says the post office has called, they have my package. Wonderful! And they are going to charge 120 dollars for me to pick it up. And then the call drops.
I call my mother and she tells me she wants me to have the package and will pay the fee. She feels really bad about what a fiasco this has become, even though it is by no means her fault. I take the trolley back to the first post office. Keep in mind I slept on a bus and have not showered in almost 48 hours.
I get back to the post office and the attendent assures me the package is not there. I go and call Stuart again. He explains that the package will be at the UPS office, and that I should find it online. I try to, but can´t, so I go home dejected.
That was Monday.
On Wednesday I try again. Stuart has gotten information from the foundation´s office, to whom the package is addressed with attn to me. The UPS guys contacted the FBU office and now Stuart knows where my package is. So I get back on a bus to Quito, and take a 1 dollar taxi to the UPS office.
Hello I am here to pick up my package. The lady get the number, gets a form. That´ll be 120 dollars. I did my homework that morning and looked up several potentially helpful vocabulary words- robbery, tax, package, nightmare, pick up, fee, and afford. I asked her why the package cost so much. She replied, Spanish spanish spanish tax spanish spanish look here spanish spanish spanish package spanish spanish. I said fine and gave her the money. She went to get my package.
She comes back and explains to me that it´s actually going to be 150 dollars. Why? Because the ultimatum for picking it up was two days ago. It´s in the pre-liquidation stage now and so you have to pay extra.
The pre-liquidation stage.
Fuck.
You.
What I actually say is, hey, I didn´t even know the package was here, no one emailed me, no one called me, I didn´t know where to go, I got lost, this isn´t fair, I can´t afford this, it´s not my fault that I´m late picking it up you guys didn´t tell me, I am a volunteer and a student I´m not rich. She says they notified the foundation. Please I say. She goes into the back room to talk to her boss.
And then I pull out the big guns. I focus very hard on how unfair and upsetting this entire situation is. I focus really really hard.
And by the time she comes back into the lobby I am sobbing into my hands. I am weeping shamelessly, loudly, and all the workers in the back poke their heads out to see what´s wrong. People are obviously very embarassed. Maybe they´ll give me my package so that I will leave.
When I pull myself together, the lady says, I´m sorry but that´s how it is.
NO MERCY.
So I take a walk down the street and go to the bank, come back walking up an enourmous hill. As I am walking I think of strategies for getting my package. I consider that since I have now lost all human dignity, I can really do anything. Ideas include refusing to pay and refusing to leave until I get my package. Turning refusal into a hunger strike. Taking off all my clothes and chasing people around the office yelling and jumping around stark naked. Pooping on the couches and the rug in the reception office. All these things strike me as very real possiblities right now. But in reality I decide that it´s not quite worth it. I don´t speak enough Spanish to deal with the police.
So I go and pay the lady 30 more dollars. Thank you she says, you may come back and pick up your package in 5 business days.
Excuse me? I say. Yes she says, 5 days. They have to release it. No, I say. No, I want it now. I want my package now. My voice is officially raised. I can´t come back and get it in 5 days because I´m moving to Intag, I´m going to live there. There is no bus system. It´s far away I can´t just come back to Quito because I AM LEAVING. Well, she says, we don´t have your package here. Well, I tell her, tell me where it is and I´ll go get it right now. You can´t do that. Why not? Spanish spanish spanish paperwork spanish spanish spanish. We have a problem, I tell her. Yes she says. She tells me to give her the address of where I´m staying and they´ll drop it off for free. Fine.
I take a cab back to the bus station. The cabbie tries to charge me 2 dollars. I tell him 1.50 which is more than I payed to get here anyway. No, he says, 2. Fine I say, go. I will only pay 1.5o. Ok, ok, get in, he says. God I am SO sick of people trying to fuck me here! I am so sick of people trying to take advantage of me! I am so sick of arguing and having to be scrappy and cynical and distrusting! I used to be graceful. I used to feel inherant respect for people. I used to go out of my way to be pleasant. And now I´m standing on a curb in industrial Quito telling this cabbie that he can just drive away and find some other customer if hes not going to give me EXACTLY WHAT I WANT.
I get to the bus station and buy some plantain chips and get on the bus. I feel like I´m in that scene in the Big Lebowski after John Goodman smashes the wrong guy´s car, and the Dude, Walter, and Donnie are driving in the Dude´s destroyed car, eating In-And-Out burgers, not having gotten anything out of the kid they think stole their money. I am living that scene.
It occurs to me that there must have been some point along the way where I should have given up. There was some point at which I should have just said, liquidate it, assholes. But I passed that point without seeing it. Yes, I passed it like ships in the night, or rather, like busses on cliffside roads in the night, almost touching but never quite making contact. And after that point there was only the point where I had done too much, worked too hard, to give up. My friend Alex tells me, no Rachel, that´s just your ego. You could have given up at any time. I know, Alex. I know.
Today I got word that my package was already to be picked up, because Stuart was wonderful and pulled some major strings. I have some great books, an incredible sweater Alley felted for me, and lots of chocolate and curry mix. Joy.
So, over and out, going to Intag. Love you guys!
Now for the story.
My mother, being the kind, generous, wonderful mother she is, and wanting to take care of me from far away, decided to send me a care package. Excellent! So she got an address from the volunteer coordinator and sent it.
Then she emailed me when it got here. I said, great, I´ll go pick it up on the way home from the rainforest.
So when I get into Quito after an all-night bus trip, (during which they played a Jean Claude Van Dam film called, I kid you not, ¨Sudden Death) I got on the trolley and went to the post office. Upon arriving at the post office, I quickly learn that I have no idea how to say the words post office, pick up a package, or mail. They send me from window to window. Finally I explain that the package has been sent to the foundation´s p.o. box. What´s the number, they ask. I don´t know.
So I walk down the street to an internet cafe and look up Stuart the volunteer coordinator´s number so I can ask him the box number. The internet cost amounts to ten cents. I hand the attendent a 20, the only cash I have on me. He can´t change it, it´s too big. I explain to him that if I go to the bank, they will give me more 20 dollar bills. He tells me to just leave.
So I go next door to the phone cafe and call Stuart and get the box number. The call is 45 cents. I give the attendent a 20. She also cannot change it. I explain it´s all I´ve got. She makes me wait till she can get change. I wait and wait. Finally a very nice man pays for my phonecall so I can leave, which was even nicer than usual because it was a situation where a strange Ecuadorian man was nice to me and was not hitting on me and this is unusual.
So I get back to the post office and they try to give me Stuart´s mail in the box, which he is late for paying for. They want me to give them money and take his mail. I explain I cannot do this, and only want my package. The package is not in the box. They direct me to another window, where a man tells me he cannot find my number, but if I give him the tracking number he can try to find it in the computer.
Back to the internet cafe. But a different one this time because I still only have a 20. I get the tracking number AND change my 20. I´m golden.
I go back and give the man my tracking number. He says, oh this is a UPS number sorry. You have to go to a different post office. I feel a little exasperated but it´s ok. So I ask for the name and address of the new post office I need to go to. He says he does not know the exact name or address but gives me a trolley stop, a few cross streets, and says, ask anyone and they´ll know where it is.
I asked 6 policemen or security guards where this post office was. No one knew. I walked around the block 3 times. This took at least an hour. Finally in desperation I call Stuart. He says the post office has called, they have my package. Wonderful! And they are going to charge 120 dollars for me to pick it up. And then the call drops.
I call my mother and she tells me she wants me to have the package and will pay the fee. She feels really bad about what a fiasco this has become, even though it is by no means her fault. I take the trolley back to the first post office. Keep in mind I slept on a bus and have not showered in almost 48 hours.
I get back to the post office and the attendent assures me the package is not there. I go and call Stuart again. He explains that the package will be at the UPS office, and that I should find it online. I try to, but can´t, so I go home dejected.
That was Monday.
On Wednesday I try again. Stuart has gotten information from the foundation´s office, to whom the package is addressed with attn to me. The UPS guys contacted the FBU office and now Stuart knows where my package is. So I get back on a bus to Quito, and take a 1 dollar taxi to the UPS office.
Hello I am here to pick up my package. The lady get the number, gets a form. That´ll be 120 dollars. I did my homework that morning and looked up several potentially helpful vocabulary words- robbery, tax, package, nightmare, pick up, fee, and afford. I asked her why the package cost so much. She replied, Spanish spanish spanish tax spanish spanish look here spanish spanish spanish package spanish spanish. I said fine and gave her the money. She went to get my package.
She comes back and explains to me that it´s actually going to be 150 dollars. Why? Because the ultimatum for picking it up was two days ago. It´s in the pre-liquidation stage now and so you have to pay extra.
The pre-liquidation stage.
Fuck.
You.
What I actually say is, hey, I didn´t even know the package was here, no one emailed me, no one called me, I didn´t know where to go, I got lost, this isn´t fair, I can´t afford this, it´s not my fault that I´m late picking it up you guys didn´t tell me, I am a volunteer and a student I´m not rich. She says they notified the foundation. Please I say. She goes into the back room to talk to her boss.
And then I pull out the big guns. I focus very hard on how unfair and upsetting this entire situation is. I focus really really hard.
And by the time she comes back into the lobby I am sobbing into my hands. I am weeping shamelessly, loudly, and all the workers in the back poke their heads out to see what´s wrong. People are obviously very embarassed. Maybe they´ll give me my package so that I will leave.
When I pull myself together, the lady says, I´m sorry but that´s how it is.
NO MERCY.
So I take a walk down the street and go to the bank, come back walking up an enourmous hill. As I am walking I think of strategies for getting my package. I consider that since I have now lost all human dignity, I can really do anything. Ideas include refusing to pay and refusing to leave until I get my package. Turning refusal into a hunger strike. Taking off all my clothes and chasing people around the office yelling and jumping around stark naked. Pooping on the couches and the rug in the reception office. All these things strike me as very real possiblities right now. But in reality I decide that it´s not quite worth it. I don´t speak enough Spanish to deal with the police.
So I go and pay the lady 30 more dollars. Thank you she says, you may come back and pick up your package in 5 business days.
Excuse me? I say. Yes she says, 5 days. They have to release it. No, I say. No, I want it now. I want my package now. My voice is officially raised. I can´t come back and get it in 5 days because I´m moving to Intag, I´m going to live there. There is no bus system. It´s far away I can´t just come back to Quito because I AM LEAVING. Well, she says, we don´t have your package here. Well, I tell her, tell me where it is and I´ll go get it right now. You can´t do that. Why not? Spanish spanish spanish paperwork spanish spanish spanish. We have a problem, I tell her. Yes she says. She tells me to give her the address of where I´m staying and they´ll drop it off for free. Fine.
I take a cab back to the bus station. The cabbie tries to charge me 2 dollars. I tell him 1.50 which is more than I payed to get here anyway. No, he says, 2. Fine I say, go. I will only pay 1.5o. Ok, ok, get in, he says. God I am SO sick of people trying to fuck me here! I am so sick of people trying to take advantage of me! I am so sick of arguing and having to be scrappy and cynical and distrusting! I used to be graceful. I used to feel inherant respect for people. I used to go out of my way to be pleasant. And now I´m standing on a curb in industrial Quito telling this cabbie that he can just drive away and find some other customer if hes not going to give me EXACTLY WHAT I WANT.
I get to the bus station and buy some plantain chips and get on the bus. I feel like I´m in that scene in the Big Lebowski after John Goodman smashes the wrong guy´s car, and the Dude, Walter, and Donnie are driving in the Dude´s destroyed car, eating In-And-Out burgers, not having gotten anything out of the kid they think stole their money. I am living that scene.
It occurs to me that there must have been some point along the way where I should have given up. There was some point at which I should have just said, liquidate it, assholes. But I passed that point without seeing it. Yes, I passed it like ships in the night, or rather, like busses on cliffside roads in the night, almost touching but never quite making contact. And after that point there was only the point where I had done too much, worked too hard, to give up. My friend Alex tells me, no Rachel, that´s just your ego. You could have given up at any time. I know, Alex. I know.
Today I got word that my package was already to be picked up, because Stuart was wonderful and pulled some major strings. I have some great books, an incredible sweater Alley felted for me, and lots of chocolate and curry mix. Joy.
So, over and out, going to Intag. Love you guys!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Rainforest!
I am back from the rainforest, and it was just the most incredible experience. I don´t really think there´s anything to say about it, except that the food, accomodations, company, flora, fauna, air, guides, and water were all incredible. I swam in a lagoon in the Amazon watching the sunset. But words don´t really do it justice.
I am unfortunatley stuck in this shithole of a town, Lago Agrio, until 11 pm today when the night bus leaves. Because I don´t want to get into Quito at night, and also, I´ve heard that the Quito-Lago Agrio route is full of particularly groutesque peril, and I don´t think I can maintain constant vigillance for 8 hours.
I am going to stop blogging now and actually look for month-long homestay opportunities in the Cuyabeno reserve, where I was. If I find one with families that speak Spanish and not the indigenous language, I might change my homestay location. I love it there that much.
Ok, wish me luck! Over and out.
I am unfortunatley stuck in this shithole of a town, Lago Agrio, until 11 pm today when the night bus leaves. Because I don´t want to get into Quito at night, and also, I´ve heard that the Quito-Lago Agrio route is full of particularly groutesque peril, and I don´t think I can maintain constant vigillance for 8 hours.
I am going to stop blogging now and actually look for month-long homestay opportunities in the Cuyabeno reserve, where I was. If I find one with families that speak Spanish and not the indigenous language, I might change my homestay location. I love it there that much.
Ok, wish me luck! Over and out.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
New Post 3
A week later, this morning I am trying the rainforest a second time. I was convinced the Malarone had made me terribly ill last time. So how was I going to go to the rainforest and not get malaria? Paul, Stuart, and Alex all told me they know tons of people who have gone, including themselves, and not gotten malaria. But it is a malaria zone. Well, they say, if you get it you go to the hospital and they cure it. I'm still not convinced. I don't want to get malaria and die. But I also want to go to the rainforest. And I don't want to get sick from Malarone, because I can't go if I'm that sick.
Finally when I'm feeling better I take another pill. Then the next day I take another. I maybe feel a little lightheaded sometimes, but it's ok. I'm not sick like I was. I take another. Still fine. Then we come to today. Still fine. I am heading back to the rainforest!
I get back on the Quito bus. It's a beautiful day, you can see the entire snowy irridescent peak of mount Cayambe from my backyard. Y'know. Just my yard. And there is fog hanging low around the foothills. I had intened to read on the bus to avoid the constant vigilence of the groutesque peril. Oh yeah, that's what I call the bus rides here. Terrifying cliffside rides. But the world is so beautiful this morning that I'm brave enough to look. I watch my mountain for as long as I can before it dissapears behind new mountains we're driving through. Then I daydream about all the dinner parties I´m going to have this fall.
Quito has redone its bus system. So I get out at Carcelen, and get on a new trolley. I ask the lady next to me if we're near the new station I need to go to. Not yet she says, and I know you, you're from Picalqui too. I sold you the honey a few weeks ago. I hadn't recognized her, but her honey was delicious. Weird that we run into each other in Quito. She helps me get off this trolley and onto another. I need to go into the old town to pay for my tour. I need to take this trolley one stop past my stop, switch lines, and then get off, because the line splits and there are stops you can only get to from one direction or another. I get lost. Then I find the tour office.
I am here a day early, the tour coordinator informs me. This is mortifying. I thought it was the 22nd. Luckily we work it out, and I can take a tour starting tomorrow. My plan had been to continue on from Quito to Lago Agrio, from where the tour departs, stay at a hostel for the night, and start the tour in the morning. Paul convinces me to take a night bus, so I have the whole days in Quito to explore. I leave my backbpack in his office and start off.
The first stop is to buy a bus ticket from this bus place the tour guy gives me directions to. I get lost, then find it. Don't have enough money for a ticket. Have to go to the bank and go back. Buy a ticket.
It's lunch time, so I find the Indian food place Mike and I ate at last time in Quito, and I get food. The server asks me where I´m from. The United States. I love the United States! I have never been there but I want to go! He speaks English, is Pakistani and has moved to help his friend, the resteraunt owner, as a server, because, he explains, Ecuadorians just don´t understand the importance of his business and sometimes just would not come to work. We talk about America, how his brother was a successful businessman there in NYC until he was arrested and deported for being an illegal alien. About how after 9-11 it is very difficult to get a visa. I try to explain to him that I am frustrated with many of my country´s policies about war, oil, agriculture, the environment, but he doesn´t really understand. America is great because it controls the world. Anyway, he is going to go to America someday and prove that country wrong, prove that he can be a successful Pakistani business man.
The conversation moves onto food, how good Indian food is, and I say yes, I am actually trying to learn how to cook Indian food. He invites me to have a cooking lesson in the resteraunt. I make a deal, say, if I come back, can I cook my own dinner as a lesson? Of course I can, he says. So I leave with some time on my hands before dinner. I go to the website for tourism in Quito, and pick out the museam of contemporary art. I get lost on the way there. When I get there, it turns out that the museam is dedicating its first year and a half to the Quiteño revolution, how Ecuador gained its colonial independence. That´s great, very cool parallels between America, France, and Latin America, which I can read in Spanish, but not the art I was looking for. It is nice to do some reading in Spanish, because I´m so much more advanced on paper. Reassuring, because I never read in Spanish, I just talk. I´m starting to feel sick, so I head out for my second choice museum, which has an archaeology exhibit and a gold room that is supposed to be phenomenal.
I head to the museam, get lost on the way. Are you noticing a theme? When I get there, there is an hour until closing. Now, I have never been a huge fan of indigenous art, I´m more of a modern kind of girl. But let me just say I fell completely in love. I don´t know what it is, but it´s so expressive and mystical and just amazing. I plan on going back to the museam, a second time when I have more time and am not feeling so yucky.
So now it´s time for dinner, and raining very lightly. I walk back to the resteraunt, and the owner comes out and greets me. I ask him if I can have my cooking lesson now. He explains to me, as politely as possible, that of course the kitchen is busy and they are cooking for the guests. When he turns away, I walk out. I feel absolutely humiliated. Was the server just hitting on me, hoping I´d come back? Even if he wasn´t, did I seriously and naively believe that some resteraunt chef would let me into his kitchen and give me a cooking lesson? I mean, Ecuador is a friendly place with laxer rules, but I feel really stupid. I go to try and find another resteraunt for dinner. I turn down one because it´s menu is too ridiculously complex and lushly gourmet even for me. The dishes are called things like ¨Your blue suede shoes¨ and other names that have nothing to do with what food is in them. I finally settle on this cafe that is probably the equivilent of Panera in the states, but it has those cool heater things on the sidewalk so you can eat outside even though it´s rather chilly. I had hoped, of course, that I might get a meal wherein I am eating alone and the waiter walks up to me and says, excuse me, that gentleman over there would like to buy you a drink, and I look over and see this incredibly deboniar twenty-four-year-old and you know, the whole shebang. But no, I just feel really crappy and have a mediocre dinner which somehow comes to 12 dollars.
It´s dark, so I plan to take a taxi back to the tour office, where I can wait at the hostel upstairs´s bar until the guy gets back to take me to the bus station for the eleven thirty night bus. I flag a taxi, ask how much it costs. 12 dollars. Now, if I walk, there is a significant chance I might get robbed, but honestly, if a 12 dollar 7 minute taxi ride isn´t robbery, I don´t know what is. So I take the walk. I put on my mean face, which either makes me look really really mean or really really terrified. On my way, I pass by a nice looking tourist looking man studying a map. I stop and ask him in English what he´s looking for. Not that I´m familiar with Quito besides having been lost in it all day. We bend over his map together, tracing where we are, where he needs to go. I give him some advice, he thanks me, we wish each other luck, and we part. I feel a lot better now. It was a lot less exiting than sharing a romantic dinner with a handsome stranger, but it was exactly what I needed.
On the last of the three trolleys I need to take, I realize I have made a mistake in the directions I give him. I feel terrible about that.
I get to the hostel just fine, and end up chatting for a few hours with some other travellers who are very cool. I feel a little sad I´m missing out on the whole traveling thing- people ask me where I´ve been so far and I say oh, Quito and Otavalo. I´m a volunteer. But then this one kid reassures me I´m not missing much. And he´s right- this hostel seems really fun because it seems like college, but I´m not here for more of what I´ve got at home.
When the time to go rolls around, I almost don´t go. I feel sick, but I decide to push through, because it´s now or never. And I know if I was at home, sitting in front of the fireplace with some tea, I wouldn´t feel so bad because I wouldn´t be overanalyzing it. So I get on the bus and I go.
Finally when I'm feeling better I take another pill. Then the next day I take another. I maybe feel a little lightheaded sometimes, but it's ok. I'm not sick like I was. I take another. Still fine. Then we come to today. Still fine. I am heading back to the rainforest!
I get back on the Quito bus. It's a beautiful day, you can see the entire snowy irridescent peak of mount Cayambe from my backyard. Y'know. Just my yard. And there is fog hanging low around the foothills. I had intened to read on the bus to avoid the constant vigilence of the groutesque peril. Oh yeah, that's what I call the bus rides here. Terrifying cliffside rides. But the world is so beautiful this morning that I'm brave enough to look. I watch my mountain for as long as I can before it dissapears behind new mountains we're driving through. Then I daydream about all the dinner parties I´m going to have this fall.
Quito has redone its bus system. So I get out at Carcelen, and get on a new trolley. I ask the lady next to me if we're near the new station I need to go to. Not yet she says, and I know you, you're from Picalqui too. I sold you the honey a few weeks ago. I hadn't recognized her, but her honey was delicious. Weird that we run into each other in Quito. She helps me get off this trolley and onto another. I need to go into the old town to pay for my tour. I need to take this trolley one stop past my stop, switch lines, and then get off, because the line splits and there are stops you can only get to from one direction or another. I get lost. Then I find the tour office.
I am here a day early, the tour coordinator informs me. This is mortifying. I thought it was the 22nd. Luckily we work it out, and I can take a tour starting tomorrow. My plan had been to continue on from Quito to Lago Agrio, from where the tour departs, stay at a hostel for the night, and start the tour in the morning. Paul convinces me to take a night bus, so I have the whole days in Quito to explore. I leave my backbpack in his office and start off.
The first stop is to buy a bus ticket from this bus place the tour guy gives me directions to. I get lost, then find it. Don't have enough money for a ticket. Have to go to the bank and go back. Buy a ticket.
It's lunch time, so I find the Indian food place Mike and I ate at last time in Quito, and I get food. The server asks me where I´m from. The United States. I love the United States! I have never been there but I want to go! He speaks English, is Pakistani and has moved to help his friend, the resteraunt owner, as a server, because, he explains, Ecuadorians just don´t understand the importance of his business and sometimes just would not come to work. We talk about America, how his brother was a successful businessman there in NYC until he was arrested and deported for being an illegal alien. About how after 9-11 it is very difficult to get a visa. I try to explain to him that I am frustrated with many of my country´s policies about war, oil, agriculture, the environment, but he doesn´t really understand. America is great because it controls the world. Anyway, he is going to go to America someday and prove that country wrong, prove that he can be a successful Pakistani business man.
The conversation moves onto food, how good Indian food is, and I say yes, I am actually trying to learn how to cook Indian food. He invites me to have a cooking lesson in the resteraunt. I make a deal, say, if I come back, can I cook my own dinner as a lesson? Of course I can, he says. So I leave with some time on my hands before dinner. I go to the website for tourism in Quito, and pick out the museam of contemporary art. I get lost on the way there. When I get there, it turns out that the museam is dedicating its first year and a half to the Quiteño revolution, how Ecuador gained its colonial independence. That´s great, very cool parallels between America, France, and Latin America, which I can read in Spanish, but not the art I was looking for. It is nice to do some reading in Spanish, because I´m so much more advanced on paper. Reassuring, because I never read in Spanish, I just talk. I´m starting to feel sick, so I head out for my second choice museum, which has an archaeology exhibit and a gold room that is supposed to be phenomenal.
I head to the museam, get lost on the way. Are you noticing a theme? When I get there, there is an hour until closing. Now, I have never been a huge fan of indigenous art, I´m more of a modern kind of girl. But let me just say I fell completely in love. I don´t know what it is, but it´s so expressive and mystical and just amazing. I plan on going back to the museam, a second time when I have more time and am not feeling so yucky.
So now it´s time for dinner, and raining very lightly. I walk back to the resteraunt, and the owner comes out and greets me. I ask him if I can have my cooking lesson now. He explains to me, as politely as possible, that of course the kitchen is busy and they are cooking for the guests. When he turns away, I walk out. I feel absolutely humiliated. Was the server just hitting on me, hoping I´d come back? Even if he wasn´t, did I seriously and naively believe that some resteraunt chef would let me into his kitchen and give me a cooking lesson? I mean, Ecuador is a friendly place with laxer rules, but I feel really stupid. I go to try and find another resteraunt for dinner. I turn down one because it´s menu is too ridiculously complex and lushly gourmet even for me. The dishes are called things like ¨Your blue suede shoes¨ and other names that have nothing to do with what food is in them. I finally settle on this cafe that is probably the equivilent of Panera in the states, but it has those cool heater things on the sidewalk so you can eat outside even though it´s rather chilly. I had hoped, of course, that I might get a meal wherein I am eating alone and the waiter walks up to me and says, excuse me, that gentleman over there would like to buy you a drink, and I look over and see this incredibly deboniar twenty-four-year-old and you know, the whole shebang. But no, I just feel really crappy and have a mediocre dinner which somehow comes to 12 dollars.
It´s dark, so I plan to take a taxi back to the tour office, where I can wait at the hostel upstairs´s bar until the guy gets back to take me to the bus station for the eleven thirty night bus. I flag a taxi, ask how much it costs. 12 dollars. Now, if I walk, there is a significant chance I might get robbed, but honestly, if a 12 dollar 7 minute taxi ride isn´t robbery, I don´t know what is. So I take the walk. I put on my mean face, which either makes me look really really mean or really really terrified. On my way, I pass by a nice looking tourist looking man studying a map. I stop and ask him in English what he´s looking for. Not that I´m familiar with Quito besides having been lost in it all day. We bend over his map together, tracing where we are, where he needs to go. I give him some advice, he thanks me, we wish each other luck, and we part. I feel a lot better now. It was a lot less exiting than sharing a romantic dinner with a handsome stranger, but it was exactly what I needed.
On the last of the three trolleys I need to take, I realize I have made a mistake in the directions I give him. I feel terrible about that.
I get to the hostel just fine, and end up chatting for a few hours with some other travellers who are very cool. I feel a little sad I´m missing out on the whole traveling thing- people ask me where I´ve been so far and I say oh, Quito and Otavalo. I´m a volunteer. But then this one kid reassures me I´m not missing much. And he´s right- this hostel seems really fun because it seems like college, but I´m not here for more of what I´ve got at home.
When the time to go rolls around, I almost don´t go. I feel sick, but I decide to push through, because it´s now or never. And I know if I was at home, sitting in front of the fireplace with some tea, I wouldn´t feel so bad because I wouldn´t be overanalyzing it. So I get on the bus and I go.
New Post 2
So I headed off to the rainforest. I took a Malarone, my anti-malaria tablet, with breakfast. May cause dizziness. I feel a little dizzy, but it's probably psychosimatic I tell myself. Ok.
I get to Quito and transfer buses. Two hours later I get off at Papallacta, a tiny hot springs town nestled in foggy mountains, on the way to the rainforest. My plan is to stop here and spend the night, then continue on to Lago Agrio from there, spend the night, and meet up for the tour in the morning. I get fresh trout- the local specialty- at the hostel resteraunt, and head to the springs. I book a massage at the spa for later, then head to the springs. These are thermal springs, a really nice complex of them, at lots of different depths and temperatures, and cold pools to cool you down. I am delighted, lounging in the most consistently temperatured water I have experienced in Ecuador. Glorious.
The massage was very nice, very relaxing. But I never like massages as much as I think I will. Except for once when I recieved a tandem massage at Kripalu from two massage students. One of the top ten experiences ever.
After the massage I decided to keep pampering myself on my little vacation and eat out at the fancy hotel resteraunts that takes credit card, as did the massage place. I'm tight on cash, but where I can pay with credit card I'm golden, especially as I start work almost as soon as I get back to the states. I order trout carpaccio, a moccachino, fillet mingon, and fried ice cream in an orange glaze and another moccachino for dessert. Glorious.
And then around dessert time I begin to feel extremely ill. Very dizzy, queasy, having trouble focusing. I go back to my hotel, where I pass one of the worst nights of my life. Not only am I sick, I'm scared, because it's a very heady illness. It feels like it's messing with my consciousness, not my body. And I'm alone in the middle of nowhere. And in Ecuador the middle of nowhere means the roads are made of dirt and the hostel's phone is broken. I keep trying to read to calm myself down, and end up throwing up which helps a little. I finally get to sleep really late.
In the morning, I decide to take a shower and find a phone. I need to call someone and have them help me figure out if I should tough this out or if I should reschedule the rainforest. I'm already about 4 hours out, out of 10. But I still feel like shit.
Ok, so shower time before I leave the hostel. I turn on the hot water knob. No water comes out. I put my clothes back on and find the management. Excuse me, the hot water isn't working. No, he says, you have to wait. I say to him, there are two knobs, right? And the one on the left is hot, right? Yes... Well, when I turn the knob on the right, no water falls. Let's take a look he says, but what he is really saying is, Oh my god the stupid gringa can't even make the shower work. Like when you take your computer to the computer store because you can't get it to turn on and the apple genius pushes the on button and your computer boots up. Well, this guy runs the cold water in my room for about 10 minutes. Finally I ask him if I can shower in an empty room. That's what I do. Then I leave the hostel, and go to a phone place. I call my mother's cell phone, because I don't know her home phone number. No answer. I call my dad's work number. No. His cell. No. His house. No. I call Alley's cell. No. I have only two more numbers memorized, thanks to cell phone phonebooks. This is getting desperate. I call Alley's house phone. She picks up and tells me to go back to the farm. I go back. I'll try again next week.
I get to Quito and transfer buses. Two hours later I get off at Papallacta, a tiny hot springs town nestled in foggy mountains, on the way to the rainforest. My plan is to stop here and spend the night, then continue on to Lago Agrio from there, spend the night, and meet up for the tour in the morning. I get fresh trout- the local specialty- at the hostel resteraunt, and head to the springs. I book a massage at the spa for later, then head to the springs. These are thermal springs, a really nice complex of them, at lots of different depths and temperatures, and cold pools to cool you down. I am delighted, lounging in the most consistently temperatured water I have experienced in Ecuador. Glorious.
The massage was very nice, very relaxing. But I never like massages as much as I think I will. Except for once when I recieved a tandem massage at Kripalu from two massage students. One of the top ten experiences ever.
After the massage I decided to keep pampering myself on my little vacation and eat out at the fancy hotel resteraunts that takes credit card, as did the massage place. I'm tight on cash, but where I can pay with credit card I'm golden, especially as I start work almost as soon as I get back to the states. I order trout carpaccio, a moccachino, fillet mingon, and fried ice cream in an orange glaze and another moccachino for dessert. Glorious.
And then around dessert time I begin to feel extremely ill. Very dizzy, queasy, having trouble focusing. I go back to my hotel, where I pass one of the worst nights of my life. Not only am I sick, I'm scared, because it's a very heady illness. It feels like it's messing with my consciousness, not my body. And I'm alone in the middle of nowhere. And in Ecuador the middle of nowhere means the roads are made of dirt and the hostel's phone is broken. I keep trying to read to calm myself down, and end up throwing up which helps a little. I finally get to sleep really late.
In the morning, I decide to take a shower and find a phone. I need to call someone and have them help me figure out if I should tough this out or if I should reschedule the rainforest. I'm already about 4 hours out, out of 10. But I still feel like shit.
Ok, so shower time before I leave the hostel. I turn on the hot water knob. No water comes out. I put my clothes back on and find the management. Excuse me, the hot water isn't working. No, he says, you have to wait. I say to him, there are two knobs, right? And the one on the left is hot, right? Yes... Well, when I turn the knob on the right, no water falls. Let's take a look he says, but what he is really saying is, Oh my god the stupid gringa can't even make the shower work. Like when you take your computer to the computer store because you can't get it to turn on and the apple genius pushes the on button and your computer boots up. Well, this guy runs the cold water in my room for about 10 minutes. Finally I ask him if I can shower in an empty room. That's what I do. Then I leave the hostel, and go to a phone place. I call my mother's cell phone, because I don't know her home phone number. No answer. I call my dad's work number. No. His cell. No. His house. No. I call Alley's cell. No. I have only two more numbers memorized, thanks to cell phone phonebooks. This is getting desperate. I call Alley's house phone. She picks up and tells me to go back to the farm. I go back. I'll try again next week.
New Post 1
I have a little bit of trouble fitting into the culture here, and sometimes I feel like I'm in 6th grade again with the "no one understands me" type of attitude. Paul had his going away party, a big fiesta. Everyone dances with everyone, and every time I tried to sit down, someone asked me to dance. This was fun for about an hour, and then I didn't want to dance anymore, particularly not with my smarmy most frequent partner. And I just got kicked back onto the dance floor. Also I kept refusing drinks after my first cup of puntas and orange juice- puntas being 50% alcohol in content. For those of you who know me, I don't drink, both because I don't like how it makes me feel and alcoholism runs strongly in my family.
Then Iladio asks me to dance. He works on the farm, and his kids are my absolute favorite. So of course I was relieved- here is someone I know, like, who is polite and friendly. We start to talk. By which I mean to say, he begins with this: "So, you don't like Ecuadorians, do you?" WHAT? By which I mean to say, I reply, "Why do you say that? That's not's true, Iladio." He shrugs, doesn't know why it just seems that way. Probably because I have been refusing drinks and dances. They just have no boundaries- I'm not allowed to be politely different and not want to dance or drink. Then he goes on to ask when I'm leaving. Next week. That's too bad, he tells me, because I am the prettiest volunteer that has been here and he miss me and never forget me. This is getting weird. He's 40 and his wife is yards away. Do you have a boyfriend he asks me? No. Why not? I decide to spare him- but mostly myself- my last two relationship stories. I don't know, Iladio, past relationships haven't worked out and I haven't met anyone new. Are you happy with Ruth? Oh yes. And we have kids. After a few more minutes he passes me off to dance with Alex. What's funny is that he wasn't hitting on me. We had a totally appropriate Ecuadorian conversation.
Then Iladio asks me to dance. He works on the farm, and his kids are my absolute favorite. So of course I was relieved- here is someone I know, like, who is polite and friendly. We start to talk. By which I mean to say, he begins with this: "So, you don't like Ecuadorians, do you?" WHAT? By which I mean to say, I reply, "Why do you say that? That's not's true, Iladio." He shrugs, doesn't know why it just seems that way. Probably because I have been refusing drinks and dances. They just have no boundaries- I'm not allowed to be politely different and not want to dance or drink. Then he goes on to ask when I'm leaving. Next week. That's too bad, he tells me, because I am the prettiest volunteer that has been here and he miss me and never forget me. This is getting weird. He's 40 and his wife is yards away. Do you have a boyfriend he asks me? No. Why not? I decide to spare him- but mostly myself- my last two relationship stories. I don't know, Iladio, past relationships haven't worked out and I haven't met anyone new. Are you happy with Ruth? Oh yes. And we have kids. After a few more minutes he passes me off to dance with Alex. What's funny is that he wasn't hitting on me. We had a totally appropriate Ecuadorian conversation.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Reality Checks
Yesterday was a seriously long day. Even though we rebelled and took the afternoon off. Lani, my roomate, and I put on our bikinis and sunbathed on the lawn until it got cloudy. In true lazy-day fashion, when Alex went into town, we had him bring us back two rotisserie chickens which we ate on the lawn. Then little kids and dogs climbed all over us and picked the chickens clean.
Then I went into my room and had some time feeling sensitive. It just occured to me how absolutely heartbreaking the world is sometimes, and everything just felt very painful, some things in my life and also the tradgedies of this generation, with natural disasters and the general anxiety young people have about the future. And I just let myself feel the suffering, like the books I have been reading have told me to do. And it felt very honest.
Just as I was drying my eyes, the Übermench calls out to me, Rachel, were you going to kill the chickens?
What chickens? Is today chicken day?
Yeah, hurry up.
So we go to the chicken coop. He points to one, and I run around like an idiot for about 3 minutes trying to catch it. And then I do. I pick him up, holding my hands over his wings, holding his body against my chest. We go over to the compost heap, because blood is full of nutrients. The chicken breathing perceptably against my body.
He hands me a kitchen knife.
So I just thwack down on the neck once and it´s all over, right?
No, Rachel, you have to saw it off. With strokes. Pull the feathers away so you don´t have to cut through them.
I am horrified. Sawing??? With a stupid kitchen knife? So much adrenaline.
You see, the reason I wanted to do this is because I am a meat-eater. I don´t want to be a vegetarian. But if I am going to be ok with eating meat, I want to be ok with what it means. It means that something alive, the way I am alive, is going to die. So that I can eat it. And if that process is too horrific for me, then I should not be supporting it. Because it´s so easy to be detached from the reality of meat when I walk into Stop & Shop and get a plastic-covered styrofome tray of chicken breasts.
Paul holds the chicken´s calm, really pretty trusting body. I pull the neck long, holding back feathers, the neck across a board. We shuffle around because I hold the knife in my left hand. I work out the contradiction that this chicken is definitely going to die, and that the kindest way to do it is to be aggressive with the knife, to cut hard and fast without hesitation.
And that is what I do. In two strokes it´s over, the severed head and the headless body both freaking out, the neck twitching in the compost, the wings flapping wildly in Paul´s hands. And then it´s still.
We let the blood drain and then carry it to the big kitchen where Lucia and Ruth show me how to clean it. We dip it in boiling water, and then pull all the feathers off, and the foot skin. Then we hold it over the burner so that any little hairs left on the skin burn off.
Then we slit below the neck and pull out the stomach, which is like one of those stress- ball things you can buy at museam giftshops with hard little balls inside. The balls being bits of undigested corn.
Then we cut it open a little above the tail end, and I stick my hands in and rip out all the guts. Careful not to break the dark green pouch the size of a horsepill, the spleen, with its bitter liquid. Iladio cuts open an organ people don´t have, shows me how the chicken decomposes the corn and grass inside this mother-of-pearl shelled box that lives in its belly.
Lucia asks me if I want to clean the ¨tripo¨, the large intestine, and I say no. Then she asks Paul. Now, Ecuadorians are huge jokesters. I am trying to learn. So I joke, no Paul doesn´t want to share the intestine cleaning job, he wants it all himself. And the ladies are laughing, and I´m thrilled. I made a successful joke!
Paul: Do you understand what they´re saying?
Me: Yeah, we´re laughing about how you want to clean shit out of chicken intestines.
Paul: No, Rachel, ¨tripo¨is another word for venereal disease.
Oh. There´s really nothing more humiliating than trying to fit in, especially in a new language, and no matter how hard you try, still being the laughing stock of the crowd. It´s really, really hard.
I excuse myself because I have to make pizza dough for dinner tonight. Everyone takes a job, cutting up and frying veggies, cleaning, picking things from the garden. Simon goes out to light a fire in the stove. And then from the window we see him get up and sprint across the yard to where the kids have lit a fire in a hole. They do this frequently, and unsupervised. Because in Ecuador safety is not a real consideration. Not the way it is in America. After living without a fridge for a month, for example, I eat unrefrigerated leftovers for breakfast. No problem.
Someone is on fire. Simon rips the kid´s burning pants off, brings him into the house, in the bathtub. Runs cold water on his body. Simon has completed 3 years of medical school. He has also just saved a child´s life. Alex and John go to get the parents. He needs to go to the hospital. Patches of his legs, and a huge swath of his back, are burned pink in relief to the brown skin of his body, layers upon layers of which have peeled away in the wounded parts. After the adrenaline wears off, he begins to scream. Where are his parents? I go to see what´s taking them so long. I find his mother in the kitchen. Alex told her, your kid is hurt, his pants were on fire. And she´s still cooking. I run in. He needs to go to the hospital! She looks confused. Hospital! Blank face. Why doesn´t she get it? Alex is better at Spanish than I am. Se quemo! I tell her. And then she gets it. She bolts with me to the volunteer house.
I cannot imagine discovering my child so hurt. She holds him, scolds him, asks God how this could happen. What a nightmare. I get them a glass of water. Someone has gone to get Stuart, whose friend Edwin happens to be visiting with his truck. Every time the kid shrieks I shudder. Alex asks me if I´m alright. I scream at him, No I´m not alright! And then burst into tears, apologize profusely for shouting at him. He´ll be alright, he´s just going to be in the hospital for a little while, he´ll be fine, everyone tells me. I´m not crying because I think he´s going to die, I´m crying because he and his mother are suffering and I can feel it and hear it.
They carry him to the hospital. He´ll be there for 3 weeks. At Ecuadorian hospitals, you have to pre-pay for all medication before it is given. There are not blankets or beds for family to stay in. He is taken from Cayambe to Quito, an hour and a half away. We all hope that at least this will encourage parents to take care of their children better. To watch them. Stuart bans fires made by children on the farm. (The children were playing with fire and a can of gasoline when the accident happened). Stuart has been chided by parents for disciplining their children, telling them not to do things. It´s culturally not done- you do not have authority over other people´s children. Everyone is shaken and grave. But he´ll be fine. He´s lucky.
Today we went to Otavalo, the biggest indigenous market in Ecuador. I got some jewelry and a scarf because I miss having pretty things here. In a few minutes I´m going back for the Ubermench´s going away party. We might go clubbing tonight. In a day or two I´m leaving for a mud bath in some hotsprings, and then to the rainforest for 5 days. Yesterday was really intense, but unlike usually, I haven´t really pondered it and turned it into some parable that signifies a life lesson. Maybe I´m not ready yet. Or maybe I´m becoming no-nonsense, not mulling over things. That´s the way people are here. I think it will stay with me, though. Really I think it will.
Then I went into my room and had some time feeling sensitive. It just occured to me how absolutely heartbreaking the world is sometimes, and everything just felt very painful, some things in my life and also the tradgedies of this generation, with natural disasters and the general anxiety young people have about the future. And I just let myself feel the suffering, like the books I have been reading have told me to do. And it felt very honest.
Just as I was drying my eyes, the Übermench calls out to me, Rachel, were you going to kill the chickens?
What chickens? Is today chicken day?
Yeah, hurry up.
So we go to the chicken coop. He points to one, and I run around like an idiot for about 3 minutes trying to catch it. And then I do. I pick him up, holding my hands over his wings, holding his body against my chest. We go over to the compost heap, because blood is full of nutrients. The chicken breathing perceptably against my body.
He hands me a kitchen knife.
So I just thwack down on the neck once and it´s all over, right?
No, Rachel, you have to saw it off. With strokes. Pull the feathers away so you don´t have to cut through them.
I am horrified. Sawing??? With a stupid kitchen knife? So much adrenaline.
You see, the reason I wanted to do this is because I am a meat-eater. I don´t want to be a vegetarian. But if I am going to be ok with eating meat, I want to be ok with what it means. It means that something alive, the way I am alive, is going to die. So that I can eat it. And if that process is too horrific for me, then I should not be supporting it. Because it´s so easy to be detached from the reality of meat when I walk into Stop & Shop and get a plastic-covered styrofome tray of chicken breasts.
Paul holds the chicken´s calm, really pretty trusting body. I pull the neck long, holding back feathers, the neck across a board. We shuffle around because I hold the knife in my left hand. I work out the contradiction that this chicken is definitely going to die, and that the kindest way to do it is to be aggressive with the knife, to cut hard and fast without hesitation.
And that is what I do. In two strokes it´s over, the severed head and the headless body both freaking out, the neck twitching in the compost, the wings flapping wildly in Paul´s hands. And then it´s still.
We let the blood drain and then carry it to the big kitchen where Lucia and Ruth show me how to clean it. We dip it in boiling water, and then pull all the feathers off, and the foot skin. Then we hold it over the burner so that any little hairs left on the skin burn off.
Then we slit below the neck and pull out the stomach, which is like one of those stress- ball things you can buy at museam giftshops with hard little balls inside. The balls being bits of undigested corn.
Then we cut it open a little above the tail end, and I stick my hands in and rip out all the guts. Careful not to break the dark green pouch the size of a horsepill, the spleen, with its bitter liquid. Iladio cuts open an organ people don´t have, shows me how the chicken decomposes the corn and grass inside this mother-of-pearl shelled box that lives in its belly.
Lucia asks me if I want to clean the ¨tripo¨, the large intestine, and I say no. Then she asks Paul. Now, Ecuadorians are huge jokesters. I am trying to learn. So I joke, no Paul doesn´t want to share the intestine cleaning job, he wants it all himself. And the ladies are laughing, and I´m thrilled. I made a successful joke!
Paul: Do you understand what they´re saying?
Me: Yeah, we´re laughing about how you want to clean shit out of chicken intestines.
Paul: No, Rachel, ¨tripo¨is another word for venereal disease.
Oh. There´s really nothing more humiliating than trying to fit in, especially in a new language, and no matter how hard you try, still being the laughing stock of the crowd. It´s really, really hard.
I excuse myself because I have to make pizza dough for dinner tonight. Everyone takes a job, cutting up and frying veggies, cleaning, picking things from the garden. Simon goes out to light a fire in the stove. And then from the window we see him get up and sprint across the yard to where the kids have lit a fire in a hole. They do this frequently, and unsupervised. Because in Ecuador safety is not a real consideration. Not the way it is in America. After living without a fridge for a month, for example, I eat unrefrigerated leftovers for breakfast. No problem.
Someone is on fire. Simon rips the kid´s burning pants off, brings him into the house, in the bathtub. Runs cold water on his body. Simon has completed 3 years of medical school. He has also just saved a child´s life. Alex and John go to get the parents. He needs to go to the hospital. Patches of his legs, and a huge swath of his back, are burned pink in relief to the brown skin of his body, layers upon layers of which have peeled away in the wounded parts. After the adrenaline wears off, he begins to scream. Where are his parents? I go to see what´s taking them so long. I find his mother in the kitchen. Alex told her, your kid is hurt, his pants were on fire. And she´s still cooking. I run in. He needs to go to the hospital! She looks confused. Hospital! Blank face. Why doesn´t she get it? Alex is better at Spanish than I am. Se quemo! I tell her. And then she gets it. She bolts with me to the volunteer house.
I cannot imagine discovering my child so hurt. She holds him, scolds him, asks God how this could happen. What a nightmare. I get them a glass of water. Someone has gone to get Stuart, whose friend Edwin happens to be visiting with his truck. Every time the kid shrieks I shudder. Alex asks me if I´m alright. I scream at him, No I´m not alright! And then burst into tears, apologize profusely for shouting at him. He´ll be alright, he´s just going to be in the hospital for a little while, he´ll be fine, everyone tells me. I´m not crying because I think he´s going to die, I´m crying because he and his mother are suffering and I can feel it and hear it.
They carry him to the hospital. He´ll be there for 3 weeks. At Ecuadorian hospitals, you have to pre-pay for all medication before it is given. There are not blankets or beds for family to stay in. He is taken from Cayambe to Quito, an hour and a half away. We all hope that at least this will encourage parents to take care of their children better. To watch them. Stuart bans fires made by children on the farm. (The children were playing with fire and a can of gasoline when the accident happened). Stuart has been chided by parents for disciplining their children, telling them not to do things. It´s culturally not done- you do not have authority over other people´s children. Everyone is shaken and grave. But he´ll be fine. He´s lucky.
Today we went to Otavalo, the biggest indigenous market in Ecuador. I got some jewelry and a scarf because I miss having pretty things here. In a few minutes I´m going back for the Ubermench´s going away party. We might go clubbing tonight. In a day or two I´m leaving for a mud bath in some hotsprings, and then to the rainforest for 5 days. Yesterday was really intense, but unlike usually, I haven´t really pondered it and turned it into some parable that signifies a life lesson. Maybe I´m not ready yet. Or maybe I´m becoming no-nonsense, not mulling over things. That´s the way people are here. I think it will stay with me, though. Really I think it will.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
2 things
1. The kids are, as I have mentioned, very friendly here. They go around saying hi to everyone. They have a really hard time pronouncing the name ¨Jack¨. Once, when asking Jack what his name was, another volunteer told the kids, ¨Cocksucker¨. So now the kids run around saying, ¨Hola, Cocksucker¨in their cute little kid Spanish accents. We practically shit ourselves laughing every time.
2. We fired up the oven today! Roasted brocolli for lunch, and banana bread for dessert!
2. We fired up the oven today! Roasted brocolli for lunch, and banana bread for dessert!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Granadilla
Granadilla are my new favorite thing to eat. It´s a type of passion fruit that simply doesn´t exist in the US. It´s a hard yellow shell that encases slimy seeds- as a friend of mine put it, it feels like a mouthful of semen. I think that is impolite and vastly underestimates and disrespects the spectacularity of the fruit. Ximena says that the seeds will collect in my appendix. However, that´s ok, because she has vitiated her medical credibility! This is how (dubbed into English):
We are all having lunch. Alex finds a worm on his lettuce leaf.
Rachel: You should eat that worm!
Everyone: Ewwwww!
Stuart: Alex, I´ll give you a beer if you eat that worm.
Alex: Ok! (Eats worm).
Later in the garden...
Ximena: I hope that that worm doesn´t lay eggs in Alex.
Rachel: Why would that happen?
Ximena: Well, worms like to live in the soil because it´s warm, and it´s warm inside of people, so it´s a perfect environment for worms.
Rachel: No, I am sure that it will be digested by stomach acid.
Ximena: I hope so...
Rachel: No, the stomach acid will kill the worm, Ximena. Everything´s going to be fine. (No Donnie, these men are nihilists, there´s nothing to be afraid of).
On another note, some words on my self-made vocabulary list: slip, toilet paper, fasten, stumble, by the way, grid, hang, lampshade, sage, turmeric, overripe, rotton, freeze, glue, stab, goad, perish, hover, slimy, itch, chin, gruff, free, slacken, loosen, untie, bud, trust, gossip, flirt, fuck up, fuck, gut, fail, faint, drip, drench, crave, pillow, lump, crush, scissors, trap, collapse, aftertaste, bony, sullen, numb. There are more words in the world than I ever could have imagined. And they have genders and conjugations.
Also, in case you wanted to know, I´m listening to Britney Spears on Youtube while writing this. With headphones, don´t worry.
We are all having lunch. Alex finds a worm on his lettuce leaf.
Rachel: You should eat that worm!
Everyone: Ewwwww!
Stuart: Alex, I´ll give you a beer if you eat that worm.
Alex: Ok! (Eats worm).
Later in the garden...
Ximena: I hope that that worm doesn´t lay eggs in Alex.
Rachel: Why would that happen?
Ximena: Well, worms like to live in the soil because it´s warm, and it´s warm inside of people, so it´s a perfect environment for worms.
Rachel: No, I am sure that it will be digested by stomach acid.
Ximena: I hope so...
Rachel: No, the stomach acid will kill the worm, Ximena. Everything´s going to be fine. (No Donnie, these men are nihilists, there´s nothing to be afraid of).
On another note, some words on my self-made vocabulary list: slip, toilet paper, fasten, stumble, by the way, grid, hang, lampshade, sage, turmeric, overripe, rotton, freeze, glue, stab, goad, perish, hover, slimy, itch, chin, gruff, free, slacken, loosen, untie, bud, trust, gossip, flirt, fuck up, fuck, gut, fail, faint, drip, drench, crave, pillow, lump, crush, scissors, trap, collapse, aftertaste, bony, sullen, numb. There are more words in the world than I ever could have imagined. And they have genders and conjugations.
Also, in case you wanted to know, I´m listening to Britney Spears on Youtube while writing this. With headphones, don´t worry.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Sorry it´s been so long
Things that have happened:
- Noche San Pedrino- The biggest street festival of the year. The same dancing as before, traditional dress. But this time it´s at night and everyone just keeps giving each other alcohol. I was still feeling sick during the day, just tired (getting over a head cold) and so I slept from 2pm to 9pm. I woke up, thinking I´d have a banana for dinner and go back to sleep, when the Ubermench says, hey you going to the party? Yeah, I´m going to the party. And so we get on a bus with some group who´s staying in the barracks housing on the farm, and who should I run into, but the guy I sat next to on the plane ride here. No joke. So weird. So we get there and there are fireworks and french fries and dancing and dancing. Of course we joined in, adopted by pueblo Rosario Lindo.
It is rude to refuse drinks in this country. I have never been so drunk in my entire life, not even when I was in a Manhattan dive bar making lascivious comments at an ex. Staggering through the streets at 2 am with the other volunteers. And I still didn´t get a hangover. Ha!
-Building the oven- We finally scavenged the metal to build the oven. Oh it is so beautiful. It needs to dry a week, and then we can bake in it. Oh I am in love. So happy. I´ll try to post a picture eventually. I only have shitty disposable film cameras, but my friends took pictures.
-The English Patient- The best book ever. Read it!
-Learning to make fried fish- Lucia, one of the women who lives on the foundation, taught me to make fried fish. You gut them and shave off the scales. Then you puree celery, garlic, onion, cilantro, a red pepper, salt, a little water, and cumin. Cut slashes in the fish´s sides, and cut each one in half. Cover it in the marinade, filling the slashes with the paste. Let sit if there´s time to marinate. When ready to cook, coat in flour and fry in oil in a frying pan. While they were cooking, Lucia and I talked a lot. She had all 5 kids by the time she was my age, hates her husband. I wondered why I deserved such confidence. She told me, don´t marry until you are 35 or 40. Keep your freedom. And all this in Spanish.
-Fainting!- I fainted for the first time last night. I woke up, ate rice pudding, fruit, later had more fruit, some popcorn, then more fruit, then chocolate, then more chocolate, then icecream cake. I took a nap that evening because I felt tired. When I got up, I went into the kitchen where Lani was making dinner. In the middle of a conversation, I felt super faint and dizzy, and the last thing I remember was putting my head on this guy´s shoulder. Then I was sitting on the floor, someone giving me a glass of water and trying to move me to the bed. No, I need to just sit here. No I can´t drink the water yet. I think I¨m going to throw up. And then I slowly began to feel better, ate some french fries, and was fine. Ate a delicious chicken strogenough dinner.
-Giant Spider in the bathroom!- Giant spider. I ran away.
-Freedom day- In honor of fourth of July, we are having Freedom Day at the volunteer house tonight. Everyone has to cook an American food. Which is hard, because there are about 10 of us and there are not that many American foods. I should have volunteered to make Gumbo, but I didn´t think of it until just now, so I´m making apple pie. That´s English, they say. Yeah, well, we´re mongrels, right? Other menu items are salsa, mac and cheese, peanut butter cookies, hush puppies, hamburgers, and coke. Oh boy.
I love you all!!!!
- Noche San Pedrino- The biggest street festival of the year. The same dancing as before, traditional dress. But this time it´s at night and everyone just keeps giving each other alcohol. I was still feeling sick during the day, just tired (getting over a head cold) and so I slept from 2pm to 9pm. I woke up, thinking I´d have a banana for dinner and go back to sleep, when the Ubermench says, hey you going to the party? Yeah, I´m going to the party. And so we get on a bus with some group who´s staying in the barracks housing on the farm, and who should I run into, but the guy I sat next to on the plane ride here. No joke. So weird. So we get there and there are fireworks and french fries and dancing and dancing. Of course we joined in, adopted by pueblo Rosario Lindo.
It is rude to refuse drinks in this country. I have never been so drunk in my entire life, not even when I was in a Manhattan dive bar making lascivious comments at an ex. Staggering through the streets at 2 am with the other volunteers. And I still didn´t get a hangover. Ha!
-Building the oven- We finally scavenged the metal to build the oven. Oh it is so beautiful. It needs to dry a week, and then we can bake in it. Oh I am in love. So happy. I´ll try to post a picture eventually. I only have shitty disposable film cameras, but my friends took pictures.
-The English Patient- The best book ever. Read it!
-Learning to make fried fish- Lucia, one of the women who lives on the foundation, taught me to make fried fish. You gut them and shave off the scales. Then you puree celery, garlic, onion, cilantro, a red pepper, salt, a little water, and cumin. Cut slashes in the fish´s sides, and cut each one in half. Cover it in the marinade, filling the slashes with the paste. Let sit if there´s time to marinate. When ready to cook, coat in flour and fry in oil in a frying pan. While they were cooking, Lucia and I talked a lot. She had all 5 kids by the time she was my age, hates her husband. I wondered why I deserved such confidence. She told me, don´t marry until you are 35 or 40. Keep your freedom. And all this in Spanish.
-Fainting!- I fainted for the first time last night. I woke up, ate rice pudding, fruit, later had more fruit, some popcorn, then more fruit, then chocolate, then more chocolate, then icecream cake. I took a nap that evening because I felt tired. When I got up, I went into the kitchen where Lani was making dinner. In the middle of a conversation, I felt super faint and dizzy, and the last thing I remember was putting my head on this guy´s shoulder. Then I was sitting on the floor, someone giving me a glass of water and trying to move me to the bed. No, I need to just sit here. No I can´t drink the water yet. I think I¨m going to throw up. And then I slowly began to feel better, ate some french fries, and was fine. Ate a delicious chicken strogenough dinner.
-Giant Spider in the bathroom!- Giant spider. I ran away.
-Freedom day- In honor of fourth of July, we are having Freedom Day at the volunteer house tonight. Everyone has to cook an American food. Which is hard, because there are about 10 of us and there are not that many American foods. I should have volunteered to make Gumbo, but I didn´t think of it until just now, so I´m making apple pie. That´s English, they say. Yeah, well, we´re mongrels, right? Other menu items are salsa, mac and cheese, peanut butter cookies, hush puppies, hamburgers, and coke. Oh boy.
I love you all!!!!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Quito
Last night, in anticipation for coming to Quito for the day, I looked in some guide books. And this may sound a little crazy, but I sort of just realized that I´m in Ecuador. And I´m no longer afraid of being a tourist- I am in a new place and want to disfrutarme as much as possible, to the extent that funds allow. So, in a few weeks, I´m going to meet a childhood friend who I grew up with in Quito, have a super nostaligc sleepover, and from there head out East to the rainforest for a guided exploration for 4 or 5 days. Then another weekend I´m going to go to Baños, which is a hot spring town where you can get mud massages. It´s 3.5 hours south of Quito. Just for an overnight. And I want to go clubbing in Cayambe. And I might go to the beach, but it´s a long long bus ride, and I live so close to the ocean at home and also I have been to tropical beaches a lot before, and thing it´s probably not worth the trouble. But yes, I am going to travel the gringo trail because I am not afraid of being a woman alone and I am not afraid of being American and I am not afraid of being a tourist. And then I will come home to my house where I can´t flush toilet paper and spiders sleep in my bed with me and little children come up to my window when I am napping and yell Estas dormiendo! Yes I´m fucking dormiendo, why do you think my eyes are closed and I´m in bed you little fucks? And I will be happy there.
Today Mike and I are in Quito. We went to the gringo bookstore and I bought The Diamond Age, Things Fall Apart, and Catch 22. This decision took an hour. We went out for INDIAN FOOD (Indian food!!), went to an open market (where I almost bough alpaca scarves in every color of the rainbow- write me if you want one and in what color), and then, my friends, we went to CREPES AND WAFFLES!
Crepes and Waffles is the best place in Quito. It is a very swanky dessert and lunch place. I got a chocolate mocha coffee delight with real whipped cream in a glass cornicopia and a chocolate ice cream ball rolled in chocolate sugar crumbs topped with real wipped cream on a plate with chocolate syrup swirls. For less than 6 dollars. It was a welcome respite from beans and rice. Very bougie, very cosmopolitan. Very very chocolatey.
Now I need to buy a knife for working in the garden (I lost mine) and maybe another coffee because there is no coffee in Tabacundo. Yes, I know I´m in the coffee continent of the world but it all gets exported.
On the bus someone slashed a gigantic hole in my bag because they wanted to rob me. But they got nothing! Why? Because I don´t keep valuables in my purse because I am surrounded by theives. I keep my money in my pocket and walk around with my hand in my pocket. And an extra 20 in my bra, just in case. And taser eyes.
You may have noticed that something has changed. What happened is that culture shock is over, and I have my personality back! I am no longer timid and blown away by everthing around me, I am interacting! I am judging! I am snarking! i AM BOLD! ( I didn´t mean to hit the caps lock key but I think I like that). Please don´t get the impression that I´m being a jerk, or a cultural imperialist. But I am feeling more involved in my life now. Less like I´ve forgotten myself and my memories and habits at home. Which was a great experience, very Buddhist etc, but my reality right now is that I am still Rachel. And I like that.
Quito has been a little like playing Myst, but unlike playing Myst, I have been winning. Mike and I have been walking around trying to find resteraunts and stores I found in the guidebooks, and we have found everything! We are totally winning Quito! Also we have not been robbed!
Let´s hope we also win the busride home from Quito along the mountainous cliffs. I will be constantly vigilant to make sure we are safe. It´s my job.
Today Mike and I are in Quito. We went to the gringo bookstore and I bought The Diamond Age, Things Fall Apart, and Catch 22. This decision took an hour. We went out for INDIAN FOOD (Indian food!!), went to an open market (where I almost bough alpaca scarves in every color of the rainbow- write me if you want one and in what color), and then, my friends, we went to CREPES AND WAFFLES!
Crepes and Waffles is the best place in Quito. It is a very swanky dessert and lunch place. I got a chocolate mocha coffee delight with real whipped cream in a glass cornicopia and a chocolate ice cream ball rolled in chocolate sugar crumbs topped with real wipped cream on a plate with chocolate syrup swirls. For less than 6 dollars. It was a welcome respite from beans and rice. Very bougie, very cosmopolitan. Very very chocolatey.
Now I need to buy a knife for working in the garden (I lost mine) and maybe another coffee because there is no coffee in Tabacundo. Yes, I know I´m in the coffee continent of the world but it all gets exported.
On the bus someone slashed a gigantic hole in my bag because they wanted to rob me. But they got nothing! Why? Because I don´t keep valuables in my purse because I am surrounded by theives. I keep my money in my pocket and walk around with my hand in my pocket. And an extra 20 in my bra, just in case. And taser eyes.
You may have noticed that something has changed. What happened is that culture shock is over, and I have my personality back! I am no longer timid and blown away by everthing around me, I am interacting! I am judging! I am snarking! i AM BOLD! ( I didn´t mean to hit the caps lock key but I think I like that). Please don´t get the impression that I´m being a jerk, or a cultural imperialist. But I am feeling more involved in my life now. Less like I´ve forgotten myself and my memories and habits at home. Which was a great experience, very Buddhist etc, but my reality right now is that I am still Rachel. And I like that.
Quito has been a little like playing Myst, but unlike playing Myst, I have been winning. Mike and I have been walking around trying to find resteraunts and stores I found in the guidebooks, and we have found everything! We are totally winning Quito! Also we have not been robbed!
Let´s hope we also win the busride home from Quito along the mountainous cliffs. I will be constantly vigilant to make sure we are safe. It´s my job.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Yesterday
5:30AM- Alarm to do yoga and meditation. I don´t think so.
6:20AM- Wake up and take shower
6:45 AM- Time I meant to leave for Gimena´s. Getting dressed.
7:45 AM- We made it to Gimena´s. I start making chocolate chip banan bread, first time I´ve gotten to use an oven since I got here. They do baking by weight, not cups, so I eyeball it.
9:45AM- Delicious.
12:00PM- We have cuy for lunch. Ginuea pig,the national delicacy. It is delicious, except its skin does not break down under teeth. Ever.
1:00 PM- Getting dressed for traditional indigenous dance. Purple pleated skirt. White embroidered blouse. Hair pulled back and wrapped tight in a ribbon. Slipper shoes with white flip-flop soles. Woven blue belt around the waist. If you couldn´t breathe with altitude before...
2:00 PM- Walk to Tabucundo with all the little girls dressed up, the 3 gringas, and Luis and two of Gimena´s brothers. The men are not dressed up.
2:30 PM- Waiting in the rain. Passing around chucha, corn meal alcohol. Smells like Kombucha, tastes like shit. And peach wine which tastes like cough syrup. The men play instruments, mostly guitar, and wear llama fur chaps over jeans.
3:30 PM- Dancing (which means shuffling our feet and twirling our skirts) and singing down the streets of Tabacundo. Each little community has its own group and own song. When I explain to Edison that I´m having trouble understanding the words, he explains to me that some of them are in Quichua, the indiginous language. Oh.
4:00 PM- Still dancing.
5:00PM- Still dancing.
6:00 PM- Still dancing.
7:00PM- We get into Louis´s car and drive to Quito with Katie, the volunteer who is living with them, and Milagros. I ask Louis how he and Gimena met, and tell him about my parent´s divorce. They met in high school. When did you know she was in love with you? When she offered to help me with my homework.
8:30 PM- We arrive at the part, get served big bowls of soup. People talk to me and ask me questions, occasionally trying to say things in English. I repeat what I think they said, which sounds to me like nonsense, and they nod, repeating it. I finally have to ask them in Spanish because their accent is so thick.
8:45PM: A plate of potatoes, rice, cuy, pork, and chicken.
9:00 PM- Dancing. Variations on salsa without partners.
9:30 PM- They are passing around a tray with glasses of whisky. Ok.
9:45 PM- Have more whisky! No thanks. More whisky! Really no thanks. God these people can drink.
10:30 PM- I look at the clock and realize I haven´t been up this late since my plane got into Quito.
11:30 PM- Cake and rum raisin ice cream. Gloriously artificial, like dimatap. 40 year old man obviously crushing on me, becomes the joke of the party when he calls me his cousin and I say no no you´re my grandfather. I have never had so many people pay so much attention to me at a party. Asking me all sorts of questions about myself. Make friends with the coolest 7 year old girl. Here name is Linda, which means pretty. I tell her Que nombre linda! My first pun in Spanish.
12:00 AM- More dancing. I keep trying to sit down and rest. I have never met a people so able to dance, so oblivous to tired feet.
1:00 AM- Gimena, Louis, Katie and I all sitting, tired. Gimena asks, are you tired? I say yes, thinking, oh good now we can go home. Instead she shows me a room where several people are resting on a bed. I fall asleep and wake up when people come in and out of the room.
4:30 AM- Gimena wakes me up to go home.
4:45 AM- Traveling along foggy cliffside roads. I do that stupid airplane thing, where I imagine that I have to be constantly vigilent to protect us from having an accident. Keeping nodding off and getting jerked awake by tight corners. Louis and Gimena keep waking me up by asking me if I´m awake.
5:30 AM- The yes game. I play the yes game when children speak to me in mumbly Spanish, or when I´m too tired to understand anyone. Mumble mumble Spanish mumble. What? Mumble mumble Spanish mumble. Si! It´s just easier. During the party with the loud music making things hard, I played the yes game with Linda and she brough me more cake.
6:00 AM- Home, go to sleep.
3:00 PM- Wake up.
6:20AM- Wake up and take shower
6:45 AM- Time I meant to leave for Gimena´s. Getting dressed.
7:45 AM- We made it to Gimena´s. I start making chocolate chip banan bread, first time I´ve gotten to use an oven since I got here. They do baking by weight, not cups, so I eyeball it.
9:45AM- Delicious.
12:00PM- We have cuy for lunch. Ginuea pig,the national delicacy. It is delicious, except its skin does not break down under teeth. Ever.
1:00 PM- Getting dressed for traditional indigenous dance. Purple pleated skirt. White embroidered blouse. Hair pulled back and wrapped tight in a ribbon. Slipper shoes with white flip-flop soles. Woven blue belt around the waist. If you couldn´t breathe with altitude before...
2:00 PM- Walk to Tabucundo with all the little girls dressed up, the 3 gringas, and Luis and two of Gimena´s brothers. The men are not dressed up.
2:30 PM- Waiting in the rain. Passing around chucha, corn meal alcohol. Smells like Kombucha, tastes like shit. And peach wine which tastes like cough syrup. The men play instruments, mostly guitar, and wear llama fur chaps over jeans.
3:30 PM- Dancing (which means shuffling our feet and twirling our skirts) and singing down the streets of Tabacundo. Each little community has its own group and own song. When I explain to Edison that I´m having trouble understanding the words, he explains to me that some of them are in Quichua, the indiginous language. Oh.
4:00 PM- Still dancing.
5:00PM- Still dancing.
6:00 PM- Still dancing.
7:00PM- We get into Louis´s car and drive to Quito with Katie, the volunteer who is living with them, and Milagros. I ask Louis how he and Gimena met, and tell him about my parent´s divorce. They met in high school. When did you know she was in love with you? When she offered to help me with my homework.
8:30 PM- We arrive at the part, get served big bowls of soup. People talk to me and ask me questions, occasionally trying to say things in English. I repeat what I think they said, which sounds to me like nonsense, and they nod, repeating it. I finally have to ask them in Spanish because their accent is so thick.
8:45PM: A plate of potatoes, rice, cuy, pork, and chicken.
9:00 PM- Dancing. Variations on salsa without partners.
9:30 PM- They are passing around a tray with glasses of whisky. Ok.
9:45 PM- Have more whisky! No thanks. More whisky! Really no thanks. God these people can drink.
10:30 PM- I look at the clock and realize I haven´t been up this late since my plane got into Quito.
11:30 PM- Cake and rum raisin ice cream. Gloriously artificial, like dimatap. 40 year old man obviously crushing on me, becomes the joke of the party when he calls me his cousin and I say no no you´re my grandfather. I have never had so many people pay so much attention to me at a party. Asking me all sorts of questions about myself. Make friends with the coolest 7 year old girl. Here name is Linda, which means pretty. I tell her Que nombre linda! My first pun in Spanish.
12:00 AM- More dancing. I keep trying to sit down and rest. I have never met a people so able to dance, so oblivous to tired feet.
1:00 AM- Gimena, Louis, Katie and I all sitting, tired. Gimena asks, are you tired? I say yes, thinking, oh good now we can go home. Instead she shows me a room where several people are resting on a bed. I fall asleep and wake up when people come in and out of the room.
4:30 AM- Gimena wakes me up to go home.
4:45 AM- Traveling along foggy cliffside roads. I do that stupid airplane thing, where I imagine that I have to be constantly vigilent to protect us from having an accident. Keeping nodding off and getting jerked awake by tight corners. Louis and Gimena keep waking me up by asking me if I´m awake.
5:30 AM- The yes game. I play the yes game when children speak to me in mumbly Spanish, or when I´m too tired to understand anyone. Mumble mumble Spanish mumble. What? Mumble mumble Spanish mumble. Si! It´s just easier. During the party with the loud music making things hard, I played the yes game with Linda and she brough me more cake.
6:00 AM- Home, go to sleep.
3:00 PM- Wake up.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Philistines!
My turn to cook lunch today. So what did I make? Potato leek soup, subltey flavored with garlic, fresh thyme, and salt, blended with farm-fresh milk, the cream still on top.. Also I made lentils and beets, which I boiled with fresh ginger. I made a glaze of peanut butter, honey, chili powder, and water to go on the beets and lentils. Finally, it was time to sit down and eat. All the other volunteers came in. And do you know what? Everyone (except, of course, the ubermench, bless his heart), served themselves soup, added the lentils and beets, and then poured the peanut sauce on top and mixed it all together! To my credit, as my horror-filled eyes bulged out of my head, I said nothing. But oh how my heart wept.
I guess we just can´t have nice things.
I guess we just can´t have nice things.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Dulce de Leche
Deserves its own post.
It is why I was born.
You can make it too!!! Boil cans of condensed milk for 3 hours. Make sure they are totally covered in water or they might explode.
It´s like caramel but better!
On a side note, because there are festivities every weekend till September, someone stole 15 of our chickens! To eat for the holidays! San Pedro may strike them down!
Am making great friends with new volunteers! Gimena compelemeted me on getting stronger! I´m making latkes tonight!
I still miss y´all like all hell, but I´ll see you soon.
It is why I was born.
You can make it too!!! Boil cans of condensed milk for 3 hours. Make sure they are totally covered in water or they might explode.
It´s like caramel but better!
On a side note, because there are festivities every weekend till September, someone stole 15 of our chickens! To eat for the holidays! San Pedro may strike them down!
Am making great friends with new volunteers! Gimena compelemeted me on getting stronger! I´m making latkes tonight!
I still miss y´all like all hell, but I´ll see you soon.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Email to my ex:
I am in Ecuador (you know this). Upon awaking this morning to roosters and donkey braying, I decided to check out the communal bookshelf in the volunteer house, because (for the first time in my life!) I packed fewer books than I have time to read. I tore through The Brief and Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao and Lolita in 2 weeks. While brousing through the very limited selection of reading materials on the shelf, what should I happen to come across but Ostranenie 2.2 (a Wesleyan literary magazine, for readers who don´t know), the one where you submitted work in order to get me to do the same (which I never did.)
Have I mentioned I am halfway across the world????
It´s one of those experiences where for a brief few seconds I question the reality of my existence, which is good spiritual work to be doing. And it ties in well with my realization that I can´t run away from myself by getting on a plane (a tough lesson to learn, especially when there is no one here to distract me from myself).
It´s funny too because I went to a supermarket for the first time here yesterday, and it was the first time I saw American things like Pyrex (be proud of me I didn´t buy one), Quaker oatmeal, Jello, Head and Shoulders shampoo. That would have been an appropriate time for me to feel like the world is small and homogenous, but to be honest, I was pretty wrapped up in discovering the dulce de leche section (it will be the death of me). But I gotta say, over world-wide mega-corporations, Ostrenenie magazine takes the cake.
Just thought you might like to know that ''your art'' has reached rural Ecuador. I wonder who it was who brought it?
Have I mentioned I am halfway across the world????
It´s one of those experiences where for a brief few seconds I question the reality of my existence, which is good spiritual work to be doing. And it ties in well with my realization that I can´t run away from myself by getting on a plane (a tough lesson to learn, especially when there is no one here to distract me from myself).
It´s funny too because I went to a supermarket for the first time here yesterday, and it was the first time I saw American things like Pyrex (be proud of me I didn´t buy one), Quaker oatmeal, Jello, Head and Shoulders shampoo. That would have been an appropriate time for me to feel like the world is small and homogenous, but to be honest, I was pretty wrapped up in discovering the dulce de leche section (it will be the death of me). But I gotta say, over world-wide mega-corporations, Ostrenenie magazine takes the cake.
Just thought you might like to know that ''your art'' has reached rural Ecuador. I wonder who it was who brought it?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Email to my Mom:
Hahah, great email. I of course have no idea what´s going on with NK or Sotomayer. I have fewer than 100 pages left of Lolita. I am terribly homesick and miserable with the realization that you can fly across the world and still not escape yourself. And there are fewer distractions in developing countries. I guess I´m lonely, irritable and bored. The diarreah stopped though! And I hung my hammock and tonight I might make another tissue paper lampshade for the house (ecuadorians don´t seem to comprehend pantallas, or lampshades.) Miss you, miss America. Reading a buddhist book that says this kind of unsettled loss of former self is brilliant but I feel like no one. No I´m not coming home. Paul and I are building an oven and then I will hopefully seduce some new volunteer with my fabulous banana bread. I bought an alarm clock with the plan to wake up at 530 for an hour and a half of yoga and meditation before breakfast. It ticks all the time and drives me nuts. Gimena told me though that I can put yogurt in a tub of water to refrigerate it though so now I don´t have to eat fucking oatmeal for breakfast. Granola making in a pan with quick oats leaves much to be desired. Last night I got lost in Cayambe after dark and I didn´t like that. It was however unthreatening so please dont worry! They don´t have nuts except for peanuts here. I tried last night to take a bath by boiling 4 pots of water on the stove but it was lukewarm and not worth the trouble. I am going to post this email on my blog if you don´t mind because I don´t want to rewrite the last week. I love you so much and I don´t want you to be sad that I am having a bad week of culture shock and no-friendness. The sheep escaped and they walk around the lawn with the cows now. Paul went to Quito for the weekend and i am going to feed the chickens. There is a sickly one with few feathers, who I tried to put in the ¨hospital¨ which is a chicken-wire coop but whenever I tried to grab him he would shriek and I would shriek and we ran away from each other. Ha. The poetry writing is going slowly and I need to do research. There are no books here. But a million videogame shops. I hate hate hate to admit it but I miss bourgiosie things. Like organic granola and yoga mats and aviator sunglasses and expensive chocolate. Also they don´t appear to eat mushrooms here.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
2 is company
Paul may be a blonde, baby-faced boy of 20, but he is fastidiously German and is by all means the head volunteer. This übermench is kind, clean, good natured, laid-back, attractive, organized, a fabulous chef, didn´t know a word of Spanish the day he arrived 10 months ago and is now totally proficient, better than I am. Also fluent in English. When he returns to Germany at the end of the summer, he´s going to school for mechanical engineering. After a hard day of farmwork, he likes to go to the gym in Cayambe. The übermench is, I think, better than I at everthing except for expressing his feelings with words. Needless to say, we have little to talk about. This week, it´s just him and me in the volunteer house, so it´s very quiet except for the übermench´s dance techno music, eminating gently from his spotless room.
Monday, June 8, 2009
List
Things That Rule in Ecuador
1) The value of the American dollar: I bought an unwrapped block of brown sugar and a little bottle of rum for 3.75, seven bananas for 35 cents total, from my friend Alonso, whose drunk friend asked me to marry him tonight and divorce him in the morning, and about a pound of butter, wrapped as a stick in a plastic bag, for 75 cents. I came home and made bananas foster for dinner.
2) Recogando las babosas: Collecting slugs. This is to be done in the morning by overturning wet planks among the beds in the garden and putting the slugs in a jar to feed to the chickens. There are these super awesome blck flat slugs that look like petroleum and move like it, too. I honestly don´t know why but it freaks m out when the slugs climb up and start coming out of the jar. Feels like an attack. Milagros helps me with slug duty.
3) Milagros: is 4. She yammers at me in completely incomprehensible 4-year-old Spanish. She also has the cutest damn outfits I´ve ever seen. And the cutest eyes. And the cutest smile. And the cutest hairdos. Today she told me she loved me and I almost cried I work with her mom in the garden.
4) All the fresh vegetables I can eat growing in my backyard: All the fresh vegetables I can eat growing in my backyard. Also fresh milk and eggs.
5) The climate: Dry, cool, cloudy.
6) The animals: There´s livestock everywhere just grazing. We have a burro who is white, takes dust baths in the road, and brays till he´s asthmatic. Also there are dogs everywhere. I mean, I went into a resteraunt and there was a dog lying under the table and no one cared.
7) Complete disregard for safety: The food vendors on the street. The people riding in the backs of pickup trucks barreling down the cliffside highway at 60mph. The dogs in resteraunts. The theifs who will rob you blind (I´ve been lucky knock wood). The five year olds walking around by themselves. Drinking on streetcorners. The men hanging out the doors of the buses yelling Quito or Otavalo to see if anyone wants to get on.
8) The buses: Super cheap, will pick you up at any point on the road, and drop you off anywhere. They also have ultra-violent movies in Spanish showing and they usually have little curtains on the windows and pictures of Che on the dash. Some play raggaeton instead of movies. At longer stops, venders get on to sell snacks and drinks.
9) The mountains: I cannot begin to say how breathtakingly unreal the Panamerican mountains are. I am in love.
10) No one is stressed: Ever.
11) Bromance: Really the only woman I have regular contact with is Gimena, whom I work with in the garden. She is the coolest ( her husband, Luis, who operates a bakery from the house, and her brothers, who come to stay with her in the weekends, are also unbelievably hospitable and kind and patient. We went to Otavalo yesterday, which has the biggest market of food, clothes, and jewelry in Ecuador. Amilca, this 21 year old guy, followed me around my shopping spree protecting the gringa so she didn´t get robbed blind). Other than Gimena and of course, Milagros, it´s me and the guys.
12) The fried chicken: rules.
13) Tabacundo: the local town, a 7-minute, 15 cent busride away, where I get internet, fruit, grains, beans, sugar, pan de coco (a doughnut sprinkled with coconut shavings. I buy it mainly for the gooey milk pudding in the center.) I am meeting shopkeepers and it is safe for me to walk around alone at night. Locals describe it as one big family (of 3,000).
Stay tuned for things that do not rule in Ecuador (preview: 1) the keyboards- my fingers are dying here!)
1) The value of the American dollar: I bought an unwrapped block of brown sugar and a little bottle of rum for 3.75, seven bananas for 35 cents total, from my friend Alonso, whose drunk friend asked me to marry him tonight and divorce him in the morning, and about a pound of butter, wrapped as a stick in a plastic bag, for 75 cents. I came home and made bananas foster for dinner.
2) Recogando las babosas: Collecting slugs. This is to be done in the morning by overturning wet planks among the beds in the garden and putting the slugs in a jar to feed to the chickens. There are these super awesome blck flat slugs that look like petroleum and move like it, too. I honestly don´t know why but it freaks m out when the slugs climb up and start coming out of the jar. Feels like an attack. Milagros helps me with slug duty.
3) Milagros: is 4. She yammers at me in completely incomprehensible 4-year-old Spanish. She also has the cutest damn outfits I´ve ever seen. And the cutest eyes. And the cutest smile. And the cutest hairdos. Today she told me she loved me and I almost cried I work with her mom in the garden.
4) All the fresh vegetables I can eat growing in my backyard: All the fresh vegetables I can eat growing in my backyard. Also fresh milk and eggs.
5) The climate: Dry, cool, cloudy.
6) The animals: There´s livestock everywhere just grazing. We have a burro who is white, takes dust baths in the road, and brays till he´s asthmatic. Also there are dogs everywhere. I mean, I went into a resteraunt and there was a dog lying under the table and no one cared.
7) Complete disregard for safety: The food vendors on the street. The people riding in the backs of pickup trucks barreling down the cliffside highway at 60mph. The dogs in resteraunts. The theifs who will rob you blind (I´ve been lucky knock wood). The five year olds walking around by themselves. Drinking on streetcorners. The men hanging out the doors of the buses yelling Quito or Otavalo to see if anyone wants to get on.
8) The buses: Super cheap, will pick you up at any point on the road, and drop you off anywhere. They also have ultra-violent movies in Spanish showing and they usually have little curtains on the windows and pictures of Che on the dash. Some play raggaeton instead of movies. At longer stops, venders get on to sell snacks and drinks.
9) The mountains: I cannot begin to say how breathtakingly unreal the Panamerican mountains are. I am in love.
10) No one is stressed: Ever.
11) Bromance: Really the only woman I have regular contact with is Gimena, whom I work with in the garden. She is the coolest ( her husband, Luis, who operates a bakery from the house, and her brothers, who come to stay with her in the weekends, are also unbelievably hospitable and kind and patient. We went to Otavalo yesterday, which has the biggest market of food, clothes, and jewelry in Ecuador. Amilca, this 21 year old guy, followed me around my shopping spree protecting the gringa so she didn´t get robbed blind). Other than Gimena and of course, Milagros, it´s me and the guys.
12) The fried chicken: rules.
13) Tabacundo: the local town, a 7-minute, 15 cent busride away, where I get internet, fruit, grains, beans, sugar, pan de coco (a doughnut sprinkled with coconut shavings. I buy it mainly for the gooey milk pudding in the center.) I am meeting shopkeepers and it is safe for me to walk around alone at night. Locals describe it as one big family (of 3,000).
Stay tuned for things that do not rule in Ecuador (preview: 1) the keyboards- my fingers are dying here!)
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
In Ecuador
There´s a lot to say but at the same time not much.
I took 4 hours of Spanish lessons today and got to this weird point where I had no word retrieval in English or in Spanish. Most of the volunteers only speak English but there are a lot of Ecuadorian families on the farm. And about a million kids who walk up to me and ask, Como te llamas, or que haces? What is your name or what are you doing. Little kid Spanish kills me every time.
The mountains are totally unreal, as are the sunsets.
I am in Tabacundo, the nearest city, right now, just had pan de piña as a pre-dinner snack. My little brother made me a tazer out of recycled materials for my birthday before I left- best present I have gotten in a long time- in case someone tries to rob me.
I am beginning to read Lolita. Damn good prose style, Nabokov.
I took 4 hours of Spanish lessons today and got to this weird point where I had no word retrieval in English or in Spanish. Most of the volunteers only speak English but there are a lot of Ecuadorian families on the farm. And about a million kids who walk up to me and ask, Como te llamas, or que haces? What is your name or what are you doing. Little kid Spanish kills me every time.
The mountains are totally unreal, as are the sunsets.
I am in Tabacundo, the nearest city, right now, just had pan de piña as a pre-dinner snack. My little brother made me a tazer out of recycled materials for my birthday before I left- best present I have gotten in a long time- in case someone tries to rob me.
I am beginning to read Lolita. Damn good prose style, Nabokov.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Using up my internet cafe time minimum
For my 21st birthday, I bought myself a package of 15 chocolate liqueurs at the airport. Didn't even get carded.
My flight is delayed an hour, and I'm hedging my bets on emailing my airport pickup because it's 13 dollars to call Ecuador. For 13 dollars I think I'd rather walk to the hostel.
Don't worry mom, just kidding about walking.
So I'm stuck in Atlanta, and I've already smelled almost every perfume they have in the duty free shop.
I realized something I have never seen is birds flying out of an airplane window. Not at any height. Where are all the birds, I ask you? Are they as frightened of airplanes as I am? Impossible. So for my birthday, I have decided that is what I want: birds flying next to my window.
My flight is delayed an hour, and I'm hedging my bets on emailing my airport pickup because it's 13 dollars to call Ecuador. For 13 dollars I think I'd rather walk to the hostel.
Don't worry mom, just kidding about walking.
So I'm stuck in Atlanta, and I've already smelled almost every perfume they have in the duty free shop.
I realized something I have never seen is birds flying out of an airplane window. Not at any height. Where are all the birds, I ask you? Are they as frightened of airplanes as I am? Impossible. So for my birthday, I have decided that is what I want: birds flying next to my window.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
counting down the minutes to my birthday
Sometimes when I'm in a mood I can feel- for a split second- everyone I've ever loved move inside of me.
Maybe like grass sinking under a foot.
Or like a pile of worms.
Or like water that is getting bigger and bigger.
Once, at yoga school, we did an exercise in Phoenix Rising yoga therapy, where our partner held us, supine, in an intense hip opener. At some point, I realized, maybe because of the overwhelming number of memories and emotions: my life has been infinite.
I am told most people never have that feeling, that it's usually the opposite. I don't feel done, or fully expanded. I have a lot of experiences on my list of things to do before I die that I've yet to check off.
But for a short moment, I felt all the lifetimes worth of living I've already done. It wasn't a connection with past lives or anything like that, either. I just felt how far I have traveled, and it seemed endless.
Maybe take a moment to remember your endlessness. There is someone you used to be.
It's a little funny writing this because Alex was telling me about the Buddhist concept of no self last night. How there is no core, only fluctuation and accrued patterns. But that's a copy of a copy of an explanation.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Armageddon
I just watched that movie again tonight. A few thoughts:
1) Re the space ship taking off: this is how I feel every time I get on a plane. Like it's the bounciest, most frightening and bad-ass event of my lifetime.
Since I have become a VBA (very brave adult), I no longer take Xanex for flights. I do, however, have a bittersweet strategy. I quickly befriend my single-serving seat-mate with inquiries of his/her corporate job and tales of my fecund, burgeoning young professional career to come. That way, during takeoff, I can direct my "what's that sound?", "is that normal?", and "this is fine, right?" questions at my new sympathetic friend. He or she, having flown a million times for business in the past, will assure me that everything is totally normal. Some have even offered me in-depth knowledge about how planes work and use the anatomically correct names of plane parts to explain what's going on. The problem with this strategy is that once we level off and I want to read or sleep, my new friend keeps on yammering, presumably because he or she is just so thrilled to be engaged in conversation at the intensity level of my life-fearing desperation. I feel a little bad leading them on, treating them like the most interesting and important person I've ever met for the first fifteen minutes, but after all, I'm not that interesting to talk to myself, and they probably have a great book waiting in their briefcase.
2) I almost cried only once, during a scene of thousands of people praying in front of some sort of Oriental temple. It was the most beautiful and poignant part of the movie. I generally don't have many experiences of huge masses of people coming together to commune with the divine, but I imagine it is an experience worth having.
3) I don't want this to come off the wrong way, so I'll keep my environmental alarmism as low as possible. We are not facing an enormous asteroid hurtling toward the earth that will, as Billy Bob assures us, destroy all life, even bacteria. However, we are currently experiencing the highest extinction rate since the dinosaurs, or actually ever, I'm pretty sure ever. We're definitely destroying the planet as it currently exists. It will recover after us, but still, what I'm saying is that we don't see movies about huge numbers of people mobilizing and praying to fix it. And if NASA spent billions of dollars, it would help, right? Maybe. The thing is, it's not a problem we can just blow up; the problem is an attitude that if we have enough machines and gas to power them, we're gonna pull through. What scares me most about the problems of my generation is that:
a)all the geniuses working on it can't find an easy fix
b)the fixes that have been found are being thwarted by corporations
c)the problem is too slow and subtle for the world to treat it like the emergency it is
Ok, in retrospect, the environmental alarmism of this post is about an 8.5 out of 10. Sorry.
4) Something that felt really nice about this movie was that it made me feel super proud to be an American, because in the movie we had all the best equipment and the best experts and we joined with other nations to cooperate and save the world. And we were space cowboys and our go-for-the-gold-come-hell-or-high-water attitude was what saved it. So for about 90 minutes, I could forget about imperialism and just feel really great about the US.
This is the joy and the danger of the movies.
I don't know I can say all that much more about America tonight, except that each of us is part of it. We each, by being a a citizen, are helping to define it. So in some way, by each becoming the best person we can be, we're improving it a little, right?
Sometimes in a democracy, it can be hard not to feel really bossy, which, in my case, then leads to feeling really stupid and really powerless. And like I don't know how to best effect the changes I think need to happen. And like I don't even know what needs to happen.
I'm going to go drink a cup of tea and read a book. After I put the uneaten cookie dough and jello jigglers in the fridge. Strawberry, in case you're asking. Duh.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
colgado
is the spanish word for suspension. so, I am colgado entre muchas vidas, hung between many lives.
I am living in two parents' houses right now, my mother's new house and the one I grew up in, which my father is living in until it sells.
I left school about two weeks ago, but it feels like forever already. I moved out of the housing coop I've lived in for two years. I will miss it very much (it's truly one of the best things that has ever happened to me), but next year I will be living with 3 magnificent friends, and will have many homes away from home on campus.
I recently returned from a week of living in a yurt with Alley at a spiritual spring gathering in the mountains. We were blessed with a lot of sun. I don't want to get very into it, but pretty much right from the start one thing bled into the next and steered me in some very good directions for my life. I felt a lot of frustration, but it led me to be in the right place at the right time with the right people and making choices to move my life forward toward where I want it.
I leave for Ecuador on Monday.
Alley just pulled in from returning the yurt to its owners; we're going on errands.
More later.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Spring
The natural state of the heart is to be bursting with love.
Paradoxically, all "negative" emotions are also our human responses to the world.
We are all trying to find more numerous and intrinsic ways of letting ourselves be who we are.
Friday, April 24, 2009
As if
My sisyphean task of the week: to get Steve Vai's kid to love bluegrass as much as I do.
Or even 1/10th as much.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
"I'm lost in your eyes..."
I think it's a good place to be in when I enthusiastically listen to cheesy love songs even though I'm about as single as you could imagine. Unless you count being practically married to my roommate. This morning, after she jumped on my bed to wake me up, we did laundry together. Now she's puttering around very worried that someone stole her flannel, which she pronounces, "flanel" (rhymes with Chanel).
I emphatically recommend "The Story" by Brandi Carlisle and "Crazier" by Taylor Swift. So inspirational. Great for dancing to with lots of spins, or braiding hair in pigtails. Or painting fingernails pink.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Spring Holidays
In this week of holidays, I am thinking that the sun is a god that rises *every single day*
My feelings on Passover are more myriad and complicated, but ultimately, everyone needs a place to live where they are free. What does it mean for one people's freedom to impinge on another's?
The day is an ocean that parts *every single day* to let us through. And like going through the sea, we rush ahead, the day washes closed behind us, and not everything is resolved because we still don't know how to glean milk and honey from the sand. Because that's as good an act of finding god as any.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Chess and Poop
So I've been babysitting these great kids lately and it's been so totally enriching to my life.
Yesterday I played chess with this 6-year-old boy, and it was the best game I've ever played. I won (I love winning), but he also pulled moves out of his sleeve that were challenging and unexpected. We were a perfect match as chess partners.
Have I mentioned, he's 6?
Then the other night I had this great conversation with the 5-year-old about poop. She was about to fall asleep when we had to make a great excursion to the bathroom. She explained that she doesn't poop much because she doesn't eat healthy enough. I explain, "You need more fiber". "What's fiber?" "It's in veggies, it's the part you don't digest and turn into food, so it just comes out the other end." "Yeah, I like to just eat sugar. Look, I'm spitting all over the old toilet paper roll. I should wipe with it too and just cover it with all my body juices. " "Absolutely not. You can't flush cardboard, and you're not throwing poopy cardboard in the trash." "I'll take it outside and bury it!" "No. No way. How's that poop coming?" "I dunno." "You think it's gonna happen?" Gleeful shrug.
Half an hour later I had glitter all over my cheeks, a piece of spitty cardboard in the trash, and a girl who wouldn't stop chatting with me and start falling asleep.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Also this:
The bible belt actually exists. I drove through it in a car-full of jews.
And I was very, very, afraid.
And then I decided, next year, I'm moving to the south.
More on this later...
...but I've been thinking a lot lately about small vs. big scale activism. And how they need each other. How we need people planting gardens on rooftops, but we also need people signing legislature that makes farm subsidies go to the right farmers, and that makes it impossible to buy high-emissions vehicles, with affordable alternatives, so that not only rich conscientious people buy hybrids.
I went from an apathetic to an anarchist to a democrat in about 5 months- hot damn.
Correction- I'm now an amalgamation of all three.
Ultimately, I find that again, things rest in a spot of tension between equally compelling forces. Maybe striking that balance without being ripped to pieces is one definition of wisdom?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Reinstituting the Sabbath
I was raised by my mother to be critical of religious observances as hegemonic, and taught that conversely, spirituality is a practice that requires no discipline and no rules. This has been liberating for me to an extent, but beyond that extent it has not served me altogether for the best.
I have made a decision to reinstitute the sabbath. I mean, sort of. What I mean is that from Thursday sundown to Friday sundown, I will not turn on my cell phone or my computer. I hope this will help to combat my constant need to attend to social/organizational issues and unnecessary extroversion. I have also noticed that checking my email is an act of grasping, of hoping someone I want to hear from has sent me something that will make me feel good. This habit is the opposite of mindfulness, and encourages me to feel dissatisfied, always searching for stimulation(/simulation?). I think email and cell phone are helpful, and there are many people far away from me who I love and want to connect with. I just need to be aware of how these positive uses of technology morph into more negative habits.
No, I will not ask other people to turn on the light switch. And I moved the day ahead by one because it suits my personal schedule, and this isn't about a god that's watching, it's about taking better care of myself. And because I believe the intention in this is more important than extreme observance, of course I will use my cell phone and computer if I REALLY need to. Obviamente. But I really think that this as a mindfulness practice will be good for me.
Also, this.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
More Love
pretty
pet me, petty,
greedy filigree,
perfect pedigree,
I'm up to snuff,
enough to sport
an itty-bitty
bit of snooty
sashay my booty
rock my body
baby
gallivanting
stepping your more
fearless foot forward,
so cavalier,
how could I refuse?
we galloped threshing
the beach with our feet,
rolled over and tumbled
in brickle seaweed.
each poem will be in a 2X2 handmade envelope with its name on it. I love miniature things so much.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Letter Poems
I am doing a project writing (loosely defined) love letters to words. Some examples:
panorama
once, I thought you
were a palindrome.
that was many
years ago. in the interim,
you are widening.
your third vowel flickers
between England
and Midwestern America.
you belong, my once-
palindrome, in a field
thick with corn.
absence
but I am here.
unless existing is a process
of disappearing.
in which case, I am
an absence waiting
to happen. I am
waiting to happen
to you.
flirt
you are not my mother, you are a snort!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
I said GODDAMN!
Caramelised Onion, Mushroom, and Spinach Muffins
makes 6 muffins
1 onion diced
1t olive oil
1bunch spinach, washed and chopped (abt 1/2 c)
4-5 button mushrooms cleaned and quartered (I used comparable amount portabello tops)
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 white unbleached flour
1T sugar
1/2 t baking powder
1t salt
1 egg
1/2 c milk
1/3 c oil
1/2 grated cheddar or parmesan cheese
Caramelize onions, set aside. Sautee the mushrooms dry, then add oil for the final 5 minutes until they're dark and reduced. Add spinach, wilt it. Set aside to cool.
Mix all dry ingredients. Then, add all ingredients except for cheese. Mix until just combined.
Pour into a well-buttered muffin pan, 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops with cheese.
Bake at 425 F (215 C) for about 15 minutes
(courtesy http://arundati.wordpress.com with some changes made)
So, this week was muffin week at Earth House. Every morning, one or two people signed up to make muffins for the house. This morning was my morning. Always opting for the avant garde, I decided I wanted mushroom muffins. (Side note: always opting for pushing the envelope way too far, I decided to add 60% dark chocolate chunks to some. While not a bad taste per say, I did feel it was just distracting to the subtle savory flavors in the muffin. Not recommended.)
So I did my research, and what muffins they are!
Tune in next week for these!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Spirit As Cinema
"One of my spiritual influences was J. Krishnamurti, who rejected any opportunities to become a guru. I once saw him speak at Carnegie Hall to three thousand of his nondisciples. Somebody asked him why there was evil in the world, and he answered, 'To thicken the plot.' That inspired me to perceive reality through a theatrical filter, and now I just admire how skillfully everybody plays themselves, including evil people. On the other hand, another influence, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, told me, 'There are no evil people; there are only victims.'"
-Paul Krassner
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Past As Prologue
Afterword (or, The Bridge)
Because desire always exceeds
its object. Because the energy you gave me
feels big enough to birth wings. Because
I want you to push into the wetness
and I know it. Because of the salt
and the wind. Because everything
that is supposed to happen
will happen, is happening, or
has already happened. Because
ambivalence is more beautiful
than justice. Because my heart is
shooting ahead, and I have no choice
but to follow it. Because I want you
to be happy, with or without me.
Because of the birds fleeing the storm.
Because the harbor is permeable
and shining. Because it felt like
the last night of my life
but it wasn't. Because a web of cables
is there to catch me if I blow
sideways, and always will be. Because
I walked across the bridge and was free.
-Maggie Nelson
I memorized this poem on the car ride to my meditation retreat. We couldn't have books, and I felt like I wanted to have it there with me. And of course now whenever I read it I think about being there, and what it felt like. The flavors of the rooms. The qualities of light coming in the windows. The sounds that the world makes when nobody is speaking for days.
I memorized the poem, though, because it reminded me where I am in my life. I think the first line is really the most important to remember. And the third to last. And the third line, I keep trying to figure out what I think it means, and I've formed an opinion. But make your own.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Old Notebooks
As a person who has been writing most of her life, I have a lot of old notebooks. Today I was helping my father clean out the attic, and I found a journal from 6th grade, with only one thing written in it:
To Draw You In...
Imagine... if someone lived, only to you...
Monday, January 5, 2009
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