I have much to tell! Here is the first installment. I'll be writing again soon!
Since writing last, I finished my Spanish class, which has been a huge relief. Even though there was not very much homework, three hours of class every day is a huge amount. We had to turn in essays about a particular topic, which we had been working on for the whole quarter. My topic was "El Ecuador, su Gobierno, y la Economía en Desarrollo"- "Ecuador, its Government, and its Developing Economy." Obviously, it was written all in Spanish. It was one of the hardest assignments I have done in my life, simply because I did it right this time. On a lot of assignments that are like this, I wait until the week before to do it and end up being satisfied with what comes out, but not fully certain that I had actually investigated all corners of what I was talking about. This one I did right because I did all the research and then started writing. I wrote and researched and researched and wrote as often and as much as I could force myself to. Even so of course I had to do much of the work at the last minute.
Plus, my brother Conner came the week before "finals" week for half-semester classes, meaning that I had to do as much as possible the weekend before he flew in so that I would be able to take time off in class! Luckily, I didn't have to go on the field trip that all the Spanish students went on to Tulipe because our resident director Juan took us there the semester before during our Yunguilla trip. I had time to write then, but found that after a whole weekend of trying to focus on nothing but writing this paper, I only got the history and part of the dollarization finished! I still had so much to do!
But no matter, because Conner's trip was AMAZING. We had such little time because he was only here for Spring Break from UI, which is only a week. He flew in on Sunday night and out Saturday morning, meaning that we only really had 5 days. But what we did in those five days! We had pizza and beer with friends, went to Centro Histórico, chilled out in Baños where we rafted and rode around in a go-kart and bungee-jumped, and then we re-created a photoshoot on top of the Basílica because Daniel lost the photos he took from that. We had also intended to go on the train from Alausí down the Devil's Nose, but apparently it is still out of service from the rain storms earlier this semester. It is said that Ecuador has some of the worst roads around. They lay one strip of cement and call it good. Remember the US? We have an entire season devoted solely to mile-long strips of pristinely-engineered roadway that lasts for far too many years. But can you blame them here? No one in the states really wants to work road construction, but it pays VERY WELL. Here they are paid nothing. Welcome to Ecuador!
Listed below are the URLs to my facebook photo albums of Conner's visit:
(I have removed the links, since they were no longer valid. I may re-post them in the future.)
The next weekend and week, I was able to pull together my paper for Manuela. I was very proud of it. It ended up being somewhere around 21 pages, although that includes a title page, table of contents page, three pages of sources and some pages with graphs. But it was single-spaced and I am very proud of the work I put into it. It may be all crap, but I like it all the same.
The test for the class didn't go so well. None of us did very well! Not even Krista got an 80% or above and she was definitely ahead of the rest of us in the class! But Enrique passed, which was a very close call. He was happy. We were all pretty darn happy for him. And now he's gone and we miss him.
We had the chance to take a final exam kind of thing after finishing the last level of Spanish that they offer here at La Católica. Krista and Benji both took it and Charlotte and I were considering, but I decided in the end that it was not really worth it. I would have really liked to because our teachers said that the test was very similar to what we might expect for the something or other tests. The ones that certify you to teach or something like that. And so I would have liked to have some kind of experience as to what that test will be like one day, but it was such a long and stupid process! First I had to go buy a special sheet of paper for a dollar from the bank here on campus. Then I had to write a letter of solicitation on that special sheet of paper. Then when I went to hand that solicitation in, the secretary looked at me as though I were dumb and told me I had to go pay for the test first and bring back the receipt. Plus, whatever was I thinking leaving a scribble on that oh-so-important piece of paper?
So I said, screw that. It really isn't worth it. I don't like being busy all the time, so I might as well just take one more thing off of my list of things to do. I just had to laugh at seeing another manifestation of Ecuador's obsession with perfect papers and white-out.
We were finished! It was a great feeling. For the week that followed, everyone else set about traveling. Some people went to the Galápagos, John went to Perú, a lot of people went to the beach. I don't think I did shit, hehe. Actually, I went to the beach one weekend with Cassie. It was going to be more of us, but then some people backed out, which was fine with me. Cassie’s an awesome person, so why would I mind if other people decided to ditch?
Chassie wanted to check out Atacames because she had never seen it before, so we went there first. We had intended to go to Trans Esmeraldas and catch a bus to Atacames whenever the next one appeared. As we were approaching, we saw a bus pulling out and flagged it down, asked if it went to Atacames and if we could get on, and settled into empty seats. The assistant man nodded when we asked if the bus went to Atacames. Then he slipped in a little muttered “Esmeraldas” later, which I assumed meant that we were headed to Atacames, which is in the Esmeraldas province. But at somewhere around midnight, our bus pulled into Esmeraldas the city, and we were left to find a hostal in one of the most dangerous parts of the city! Luckily here there is never a short supply of taxis and I always feel safer in a taxi that has its doors locked. So the nice man in the very legal taxi took us to a nearby hostal that was neither entirely cheap nor perfectly clean. We spent an uneasy night with our sliding door tied shut with bed sheets (which Cassie forgot to remove in the morning! :) )
As a side note, does anyone know if I used neither…nor correctly in the sentence above? It sounds funny and I have too many languages running through my head to tell.
In the morning we caught another locked-doored taxi to the bus-station, where we got on the first bus that would take us to Atacames. For this trip we only had to take one bus, which was rather nice. But as we were sitting with steam escaping from all orifices while the sun beamed in the window of the clanker bus, a man selling water decided we looked like we needed someone to talk to. So he chatted with us, telling us we were beautiful gringas, and despite the fact that we were doing our best to be rude and ignore him, he continued with his one-sided conversation until the bus started leaving the station. Thank goodness we were told we were beautiful though!
Once in Atacames, we (we being me because I thought I knew the way) got lost, but made it to the same place I went with the antiguo group of Idaho. But, instead of staying in the same place we had the last time, which was a little too rich for my blood, we got a place at “The Snail” hostal across the street for $5/person/night. Our shower was pretty cold and the door to the bathroom didn’t actually close, but it was fairly nice anyway. And cold showers in weather that already gives you a shower all day everyday in your own sweat is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s nice to just have water coming from pipes and shower heads, rather than your own clogged pores.
Atacames was okay, to say the most. I knew that Cassie would not like it, but she knew she had to at least try it. She didn’t like it. It was a constant battle to keep from buying things from vendors that passed by. I mean, I knew I needed my 600th woven bracelet, but money just runs low, you know? Plus, we couldn’t go swimming together for fear of losing our possessions. And to leave the other alone on the beach with so many eyes upon them was a pretty bad idea.
We slept a night there and then got up in time to catch a bus that would take us to another bus that would take us to another bus that would take us to Canoa, our next destination. We waited in the hot sun for far too long, but the bus finally came. We made one bus switch well, then got into a little town just as it was getting dark. They had a bus going to Jama, where we could supposedly catch another bus to Canoa. We were told explicitly, after asking explicitly, that we would be able to catch the bus in this little town called Jama to Canoa, so we got on.
But we got into Jama sometime at night. 10:00 PM maybe? I’m not entirely sure, but we were then explicitly told that we could not catch any such bus heading in the Canoa direction until morning. After being lied to for the second time, we then found a hotel room to spend the second night in a wrong location in. We didn’t have to tie the door shut this time, so I suppose that was a plus.
Early the next morning we caught our elusive bus and made it to Canoa pretty early. We got our room in the hostal, which happened to be the same room Cassie and Carla and James had stayed in the weekend before when they had first discovered Canoa, and then headed to the beach. We did so much swimming and so much sun bathing! I did, of course, get burnt, but not too badly. We ate emborrajadas (which are basically bananas and cheese and flour, all deep-fried – the most amazing thing ever!), juicy hamburgers, delightful ceviche, and Cassie even had the most icey-cold and amazing Coke she has ever had!
After hanging out on the beach as much as we could the next day, we took off at night from Bahía on an overnight bus to Quito. But as we were waiting for said bus, the assistant who had been bustling around for no real reason for about an hour, came over to talk to us. Because, of course, all foreigners just want to be probed. No matter, sometimes it turns out fun.
He asked us some questions and along came the question “So, are you sisters, cousins, friends…?” No- I said. We’re lovers. That knocked his feet out from under him. I had wanted to see the reaction and enjoy freedom when he realized that we wouldn’t be interested in him. The former I got. The latter, was quite the opposite.
Immediately he became far more interested in us than he had been. Suddenly because we were girlfriends, that must mean that we were automatically more sexually inclined and open. He was asking us questions, telling us about how he is a writer. Well, I don’t have a job, he said. But guess what? He has a little notebook and he writes things about life in it. This one was sure to go in there.
Then it started to get really weird. He was putting his hand on my knee and staring into my eyes because he thought I was such an interesting person for opening up about something like that. Because I wasn’t ashamed by it. My heart was screaming inside because he just didn’t know what the LGBTQ community of Ecuador and Latin America in general was missing. Though the United States is far from “fair” concerning gay rights (I think it is an issue that can never be fully resolved, much like abortion, because they are topics that get so personal), we are still leaps and bounds ahead of this place. People here have heard of the crazy Americans and their homosexual tendencies, but to actually know a homosexual here is rare. Why? Because admitting something like that here would certainly be the end of one’s life. Maybe not in the sense of being murdered, necessarily, but definitely in the sense of social circles and lifestyle capabilities. If there is one thing that I LOVE about college students in the United States, it is that they are open. The University of Idaho, where I attend, is in no way perfect in the area of Gay-Straight Alliance, but one of the first things you learn when going to UI your freshman year is that vocabulary like “faggot” and sayings like “you’re so gay” are completely and 100% unacceptable. It really isn’t perfect, but it is a community where people are willing to love each other for who they are, not for what their sexual tendencies are.
Sorry, rant. But it doesn’t end there. One of the most irritating things that the man said to me while he refused to take our one-word answers and obvious gazes in other directions, was when he asked a hypothetical question. Say if she (Cassie) were to give you (that’s me!) a present for your birthday. And what if that present were sex for one night with any of your friends. Would you like that present? WTF? I am so frustrated with people who think that anyone who is not straight is automatically everything sexual, like their lives are entirely ruled by sexual acts and nothing else. No one needs to be a slut to know whether they are attracted to men or women. But why expose yourself to the harsh criticism that society will lay on you by coming out when there really is no tangible proof yet that you might have a non-straight leaning? But when Shirley decides she is ready to have sex with Rachel, everyone knows and therefore this couple is sexually deviant in some way.
I hate to break it to the public, but sex goes on amongst unmarried men and women all the time. Just as it goes on amongst gay men and lesbian women. Wake up. When I was younger I didn’t know how I felt regarding homosexuality. I was raised in a more conservative, church-going community that cast a disapproving look on all who dared to not be straight. My parents were fairly religious and I assumed that they held the same decision. When I asked my dad what his thoughts were on homosexuality, he told me something I have never forgotten and it is one of the wisest things I have ever heard. He said, you know, I was a part of my church and I was raised very conservatively and I guess I held that same opinion for a while, but when it came down to it, I had a very close and personal choice that might change me forever. I had to admit to myself that it was most certainly possible that any son of mine in the future might tell me he is gay one day. And what would I do then? I’d love him.
My dad is one of the wisest men I know and I got this from him: I don’t care if my friends are gay or straight. I love them and it is not going to change that. I don’t know how or why someone is attracted to men or attracted to women, but that really is not my business. My business is to love the people around me. I don’t care what or how or why. I accept and I love.
Yep, that was necessary. The whole conversation got me thinking SO MUCH about gay-straight relations, what we have to be thankful for in each other, and how some people can be so closed-minded. So you don’t agree with a non-straight lifestyle? Fine. Keep that to yourself. Some people can be so stupid not to love the people around them for sad and sorry reasons.
Alright, I thought that was something that needed tackling. I don’t mind detouring to tackle things like that. But back to the story, that was pretty much the end. :) We got on the bus, which was cold as ice with the AC blaring the whole way!, and made our way back to Quito all through the night.
I think I will take a break here. Happy reading, Happy Cinco de Mayo, and Happy Tuesday!
Love you all!
Emily
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