Cultural Musings

Next on the list of things to do actually turned out to be: help mothers with computer problems. I say mothers because I spent part of my Tuesday night sending computer instruction to my Mom through email, and another part showing my host-mom how to send emails with attachments. I think Susie really likes being able to ask me computer questions. She does it about once every-other day.

It’s nice to feel like I’m being useful here and starting to fit into the daily lives of the people I meet. One of the girls in my Capoeira class seems to have befriended me because she said a full hello to me in the hall the other day and I talked with her on the bus (we ride the same bus home, go figure!).

There’s other everyday things that I’m doing or seeng now that also make me feel like I’m getting used to being here. One of these is pestering Toño while I’m brushing my teeth. There’s a skylight type thing in the house that also lets light into the next floor down, so there’s this empty box of windows in the middle of the house. One of the panes is missing from this box right next to my sink. Since the box covered by an opaque domed window on the roof, I can see when Toño is near it. He can hear me if I call to him, but he hasn’t yet figured out that the voice is coming out of the window. It’s rather fun to confuse him once in a while.

I’ve also been indoctrinated into the select group of people who know about the miracle tea. APPARENTLY there is a tea out there that will cure you of anything. Literally. It is sold by a man who gets on the Cumbaya bus, stands up, and gives an entire presentation, with laminated scientific-looking articles and everything, about how great this tea is. It even cures hepatitis. It might cure AIDS. I didn’t fully understand that part of the presentation. No, I did not buy the miracle tea (only a dollar per packet, can you believe that?), but it was one of the best bus vendor experiences I have had yet.

Some every-day things I’ve managed to do sound comical when I tell people who aren’t here about them. For example: on Monday I did my laundry for the first time here, all by myself. That doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment if you think about it from a stat-side perspective, but I was really proud of myself. I also left my first Spanish phone message. It’s the little things like that that make me feel good, like I can actually do this and survive in another place, another culture.

I was introduced to a favorite past-time of young Ecuadorians by Andres and Mafero the other day: shopping with friends, online. They had four friends over and all of them were gathered around two laptops, searching for the best online deals and approving each other’s purchases. It was a bit comical.

Quito, being a large city, has quite a night-life, so yesterday Hannah and I decided to go join in on it with a few other people from Kalamazoo. We had heard there was a Beatles themed bar somewhere in the party district, so we went on a quest to find it and the people we were supposed to be meeting. In the process, we ran into a group of fire jugglers. Totally on accident. I just happened to notice that one of the guys sitting on the side of the street seemed to be twirling around an unlit fire devilstick and another had juggling club handles sticking out of his backpack (a very familiar sight for me). So I worked up the courage to go back over and introduce myself to the group and find out more about who they were and what they do. We later saw another person from their group actually juggling fire on the corner, and even later ran into the whole group again gathered around a guy with a guitar and singing away. I found out where and when (approximately) the group practices, so I may try to go play with them some time. Hopefully!

Eventually, Hannah and I found our people and went in search of the Beatles bar, which we ended up finding by accident. Everyone had gone into a big noisy bar that didn’t look very appealing, so Hannah and I left and just happened to glance across the street, where we saw the Beatles bar, called Strawberry Fields, hiding between two much larger establishments. It turned out to be a very chill place with all Beatles music, and all Beatles themed drinks. Much better than the loud and crazy place across the street.

I’ve been spending a lot of breath on the things I’ve been doing here, mixed in with some of my cultural observations, but there are some things I haven’t managed to talk about yet. Some are as simple as the hilarious use of the English language here. Clearly someone needs to edit this city, because there is a lot of “bad English” all over the place. One example is the shirt I saw on a man waiting for the bus the other day. It said bikecycle. Not bycicle, bikecycle. Editor: GIANT RED PEN MARK OVER YOUR SHIRT!

One of the more serious “cultural” things I have noticed here is the prevalence of what I consider to be racism. It gives me a little more perspective on the “racism is conquered” idea that some people have in the US. They say that racism really doesn’t exist anymore. Well, people here say that too, and I can definitely see it all over the place. Generally speaking, it seems that the whiter people are here, the more money they have. Major generalization, but it’s kind of true. Of course, this means anyone who looks indigenous is going to be discriminated against, but probably be robbed less. The more open and obvious discrimination actually seems to be between regions and “types” of people. The telenovela my family watches has characters that are almost all based solely on a particular stereotype. The stereotypes here are strong, and this carries over into the regional discrimination. I often hear that people from” such and such an area of the country” are “stereotypical characteristic.” When I went to the soccer game, the Ecuadorian host-brother of one of the girls in our group insisted that all the Barcelona fans are crazy and dangerous and are the only reason there are fights after games (super simplified version of what he actually said). Well, I hate to break it to him, but you can’t really have a fight unless there are two sides willing to go at each other, it’s not called a fight if only one side wants to be violent. That’s someone getting beaten up. I think his opinion was partly the result of the belief here in Quito that Guayaquil is extremely dangerous. I’m sure it’s not that much more dangerous than Quito, but to hear Quiteños talk about it, stepping foot on the streets of Guayaquil is really asking for it.

Included in the “racism” is class discrimination. Once again, this is all tied up with the fact that whiter people are richer. There are clear boundaries between different classes of people and everyone here seems to know exactly how one is supposed to treat everyone else. This is also tied in with the large amount of service jobs that exist, like the young man who pushed our luggage for us on the coast, the lady who comes to clean my house and make lunch, the guard that sits outside the house at night, and the guys who help you park your car in parking lots, among others. Nearly everyone in the service business seems to be considered a class down from the people they are serving. There’s no mistreatment that I can see of these people, but they are treated differently, if at least amiably. The difference was made a little clearer to me after an interaction I observed between my host-parents over the last weekend. Susie asked Marco to do something, and he protested because she didn’t use any “cariños” (endearing words and nicknames used between loved ones ALL THE TIME!). To him, the lack of extra words meant she was treating him like an “empleado” (a person employed in some way in the house). He sort of jokingly made the comparison, but he definitely noticed the difference. Such language would normally be used with someone of the lower class, not someone at the same level. Even if the person were a stranger of the same class, I think there would be other additions to a request that would make it clear that the person was being respectful, even if those additions weren’t cariños. It’s strange for me to see this division of classes between servants and served.

Of course, at the next class step down are the many people selling various things on street corners and busses, and no one really seems to like them at all. The best reaction you get towards them is ambivalence. Many of these people are of completely indigenous ancestry, no Spanish blood whatsoever. Because of this connection, many of the well-to-do here are scornful of most things indigenous. For example, my 16-year-old host-cousin’s reaction to my Quichua class was “Que asco!” “How gross!” I think that reaction is a bit stronger than most people would have because of her age, but it shows that she’s picked up on the attitude that Indigenous things are “gross” and she’s taking it to the extreme.

Keep in mind, I don’t mean to say that everyone here is extremely racist and discriminatory. The things I have noticed are all very small and not super prevalent. But they are there, and it is interesting to see the difference between how the society here functions, in both good and bad ways, compared to the society I am used to in the United States.

Well, I have many more things to write about, but they will have to wait until next time. Remember, comments are always welcome here! Especially on this post as I would like to hear some other reactions to my observations.