The most you need it, the least likely that you will get it

I will be in Mexico for a few days. I am going to present a paper about remittance houses in the 53th International Americanists Conference. I am a Spanish citizen. Thanks to my passport I do not need visa to get to Mexico. I will board a flight that will leave me in Mexico in four hours (with midway stop in Panama for price reasons). At the same time, people of my same age in the village I currently live in are risking their lives to get to Mexico. Ecuadorian citizens do need a visa to get to Mexico. As Mexico is acting as the US entrance guard, poor Ecuadorians do not usually get a tourist visa for Mexico. Their journey to the US becomes harder and longer. I cannot help but feel odd. Nonetheless, it is the lucky oddity. Of the person who was born on the right side of the border.

MTV meets the Andes

Some weeks ago I attended a 'fiesta de quinceañera' (fifteen year-old birthday party). It was a Saturday evening. I skipped the first part, the mass in the main town some kilometers ago. In fact I had a very good reason not to attend the mass (beyond my feelings of having attended enough masses for the rest of my three next lives since I am in Ecuador).

The invitation card arrived over a week ago. It was a lovely bright pink card, girly beautiful. It stated the party will start at 8pm at the 'local de la Junta de Riego' (Water Board premises). Obviously they forgot to mention it was at 8pm 'Ecuadorian time'. Meaning nothing happened before 11pm!!!

The premises were decorated with pink balloons, gift wrapping tape, and some sort of glittering fans on the walls. The place of honor was marked with a bow of balloons. As soon as I arrived I was motioned into the room, not before I was invited to a shot of home-made sugar cane liquor. If anyone is interested, it tasted like someone with a hot and sharp knife stirring your guts. But not such an awful sensation in the cold night. It warms you up very quickly. As soon as I was into the room I found myself (and this is the part where the MTV meets the Andes more powerfully) with a plastic dish full of food. Potatoes, rice, roast quicken, a big chunk of cuy (roast guinea pig) and mote (hominy). As you can see all very Andean.

The party was carefully planned. Before everyone was allowed to dance, the court of honour (fifteen boys and girls) performed the program they have been rehearsed the previous weeks. In fact it looked like a proper wedding (a bit too pink for my taste) with a tiny bride. The ritual of becoming a woman (as the whole party was about it) was in fact quite elaborated. First of all, the godmother of the quinceañera changed the girls' slippers for high-heeled shoes. (Yes I also thought that the wedding pink dress did not match the slippers, though they were pink as well). Then the make-up, and the jewellery. One of the strangest moment took place when one by one each of the boys in the court of honour, took off a suspender from the girl’s leg and put it into their partners’ legs.
The best part was the last dance of the court of honour: a techno pasodoble. I swear I am not making this up. I loved it. Maybe I should try something similar in Spain. Wait for the next summer hit!
Afterwards, the DJ played music and people started to dance. Very few people at the beginning. The feeling was very weird because everyone was sitting around the room intensely looking at the dancers. I felt too aware of my poor dancing skills. However quite a number of people thought was very interesting trying to make the gringa dance.

Right outside New York

I come from Europe, that for the record is somewhere in the outskirts of New York city. For most people here world geography is extremelly simple. Either you live in any of the quarters of New York (and they know with astonishing accuracy their names and locations), i.e. Queens, Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, etc. or you live farther or nearer away from it. In short, the world is basically New York and its outskirts. It is funny how information filters all the way from New York to this little Andean village. And how it is distorted in the meanwhile. By the way, I love the way they call New York. 'La yony'. I have no idea who was the first person to call it like that. It comes from the sticker 'I♥NY'. And it is widely used in Andean Ecuador, especially in the provinces of Cañar and Azuay. These two provinces, with a shared cañari past (group who inhabited this area when the Incas from Peru arrived), have been sending migrants to 'la yony' for over three decades. And the flow is far from over.

Andean funerary rituals

Death is not a sad thing in the Andean cosmology. One must party to help the dead people in their journeys. Death is just another part of Life. Like nature, or energy, nothing ends, it only changes.

Last week (it seems so far ago, so many things happens to me here every single day!) I attend a funeral. The behaviour of the priest to me was unacceptable. He did not even make the effort to know the name of the dead people. Specially when he gets well paid for his services. Relatives must pay not only for the mass but also for a private car to bring the priest from the town he lives in. And he does not go up to the cemetery for the final pray. It is outrageous. The scarce dealings with the Catholic church are the most difficult part so far.

After the mass, things started going surreal. The path to the cemetery is partly destroyed after the rains of the last months. Mingas (communal work) takes place in this path quite often, but the path is still quite non-drivable. There was no way of taking the coffins up to the cemetery. They need to wait for a 4x4 car to be able to take the coffins. Nonetheless, no one was mourning at the time. There was an ice-cream vendor with his brightly coloured car and people were happily buying ice-creams. When I got into the cemetery, there were two men playing instruments. They were playing funerary hymns, however they could not help but sound as gipsy music. Quite happy in fact. Once inside the cemetery everyone sits down and start chatting to each other. It was a hot day, and people (including myself) were trying to protect from the sun with whatever piece of cloth we have. We looked like resting members of a funny circus. After a while the relatives of the dead person started going among the people offering coke, sprite, tobacco and liquor. Every one started drinking. I was encouraged by some old ladies to try the liquor. I needed to mix it with coke in order to finish it, so strong was it. It was really easy to forget where I was, with old tipsy ladies making jokes next to me and I myself holding a glass of coke with liquor.

No need to say, the cemetery was full of people!

Settling down

It is difficult to believe but everything is going better than I ever dared to dream. I started teaching English to the kids of the village. People seems to be very grateful for that and very willingly answer my questions. They are also very demanding. I kind of understand, but at times it is difficult to balance my limited time resources and their demands. I guess it is my fault, as I always try to prepare as much as possible everything I do. What means time.
I never thought I would ever enjoy teaching to young kids. But in fact I am really please with them and with myself. I don´t know why but the kids really really want to learn. They even ask for homework. In the last class they started clapping when I told I have some homework for them. Can you believe it?

Currently I am working on some workshops for the adult population of the village. It is been really hard because I want every side (i.e. they and me) to get something useful out of them. Just to anticipate that one of the workshops involve some food! I will tell you more about this very soon.

We (well, mainly he) are recording the traditional activities that people still do in the village. He has made some amazing pics, and I sure there are more to come. I am so happy he has found his way, and he is really enjoying the whole time.

The family we are living with (a grandmother with her grandson) are very sweet. The lady is an amazing cook. Last week she even taught me how to make bread. Bread in Ecuador is far more elaborate than in Spain. The dough is made of flour (here they call it 'harina de Castilla', Castile flour), butter, salt, sugar (salt and sugar is a very common combination here for lots of different meals), egg and cheese (I am probably forgetting something). As you can see, our daily life is really pleasant, both in terms of the research but also in terms of the personal life. Every time we go out for a walk we ended up talking to lots of different people. I think I have never had that much social contact as I am having now!

Back in Ecuador!

Life is a funny thing. One never knows what it is in store. Two days after landing in Quito, I found myself eating pan amb tomaquet (bread with tomato) and dancing Sardanes, traditional food and dancing from Catalonia. By chance, we discovered there is a 'House of Catalonia' in Quito, and we phoned out of curiosity. We found ourselves drag into a series of events and celebrations the day after the phone call. Arnau is delighted with the coincidence.

Leaving aside this anecdote, things are working more or less as planned with the fieldwork. Apart from an annoying misunderstanding about the visa register procedure that will force me to go to Quito to avoid being fined. It actually involves a 10-12 hour bus journey (if no roads in the highlands have been damaged due to the rainy season), and a 4-6 day stay in Quito, right after entering the field. Hope it will not complicate things further.

I must confess I am actually enjoying myself. The weather is wonderful, the landscape is beautiful and people are nice and polite (although I anticipate it is going to take a while to go beyond that politeness). We have even run into a person we met while we were in Cuenca last summer! It was such a nice surprise.

The next days are going to be essential, and I going to negotiate my entrance to the field. At this point, I wonder why textbooks and articles always skip this part. The researcher is either about to enter the field and planning, or s/he is already in the field. I think they have missed such precious days in between. I will tell you about my experience soon.