Encounters in Ecuador: Stories from my "Other Country"

“When are you coming home?” / “How long will you be in Ecuador?” Those should be easy questions to answer. Anthropologists typically spend 12 months conducting research, but I opted to break my research into two trips. Still, if you know me, you know I’m a planner, so of course I had my plan in place. But sometimes the universe has other plans. And what should’ve been easy questions to answer because a lot trickier about a month into what I hoped would be my final research trip. So I intentionally haven't told people about this because I wanted to wait until I had a concrete answer. it seems like one of those complications that Anthropologist have to deal with while in the field, but I didn't see the point in worrying friends at home because I was pretty confident I could solve it. Beginning the week of July 4th, I learned that Ecuador had changed their visa rules, although what the new rules are was rather unclear and took several weeks to finally discover. Some of y...

Sorry for the extreme delay. I've been having trouble getting my videos, photos, and blog posts to upload. For me, the final big Yamor event was the Queen Election on Saturday, September 1. The Queen Election basically is a beauty pageant, but this year, they threw in a lot of other entertainment, which to me, made the event really enjoyable. Different singers and dance groups performed throughout the event. Each singer initially saying a few songs on their own. Check out that snazzy suit and that girl’s dance moves! She was not intimidated at all! Unfortunately, playing to trends (she’s singing “Llorona” from the animated movie Coco , which you probably know if you've been around children this year) doesn’t always turn out so well. It’s a beautiful song, but tough to choreograph, as is evidenced by the awkward ‘spirit’ creepily following the poor singer around the stage. The singers also sang to the candidates while they were in the ball gown section of the...

The next Yamor event I attended was the enormous parade on Friday, August 31. And believe me when I say it's a big deal: it lasted 3.5 hours!! I wrote about it last year, so feel free to check out that description, too. The really cool thing about the event is that people come from literally all over Ecuador and even some neighboring countries to participate in the festival. As much as I enjoy the Yamor festivities, I feel compelled to note that the true nature of the festival is wasted on me, as it is a celebration of you particular kind of beer. In my opinion, Yamor chicha is foul smelling. It is produced by women chewing up the grains, spitting them out, and letting their saliva ferment the grains into beer. This particular chicha is extra special because it is made from either 7 grains.  For more about the Yamor celebration, see below. No good parade can kick off without the Virgin Mary, naturally. I  loved  the brightly colored floats this year, most of which h...

Even though last year was my first year attending Yamor festivities, I found myself looking forward to the celebrations this year. The festival officially runs from August 31- September 9, but there are events throughout August leading up to the main events. I already wrote in a previous post about my involvement in the filming of a promotional video, although I didn't appear in any of the clips I found online ( https://www.facebook.com/pg/yamor2018/videos/?ref=page_internal ). No luck yet obtaining a copy that contains my shots but that’s ok. The first Yamor event I attended was Proyecto Coraza on August 24. It was a fashion show and mini music festival. One of my friends from the market actually called me that morning to tell me about the event because she thought I'd want to take lots of pictures! Bless her heart!! It turned out to be a pretty cool event, and she was right. On my way to that event, I discovered a tea shop that I posted about on Facebook, so it was an a...

Over the weekend of August 25th, we celebrated another birthday. This time, it was for John Paul (my host-brother-in-law). Because he's an adult, it was a much more low-key affair. We had pizza and pop, followed by cake on Saturday evening. We danced and hung out and had a nice evening together. When his daughter Julie asked where the piñata was, her grandmother Cristina told her that John Paul didn't need a piñata because he was old. It was precisely at that moment that I looked at the candles on his cake... He turned 27. He is the biological father of a 4 year old daughter, a two-year-old son, and the stepdad of a 9 year old daughter. And Cristina called him old. I told her she had better watch your mouth since I am nearly 2 years older than he is (I’ll turn 29 in October). And hey, I wouldn't mind a piñata for MY birthday. It's weird how things like age can be experienced so differently, but at that moment, my age definitely hit me. I could easily trade places w...

As I've said, I'm behind on posts and have been fighting with the internet to upload my photos and videos, so here goes. On Saturday August 4th, I went to a wedding of the sister of the husband of one of my friends/contacts in the market. If that sounds convoluted to you, don't worry; it did to me, too! I had actually only met the bride once and had never met the groom, but my friend and several of her sisters and her parents were going, so I felt confident that I would at least know some people at the wedding. And like I said before, it’s totally normal for random people to attend indigenous weddings here, even though I always feel like a really boring wedding crasher. Unlike the previous wedding that I had attended, this was a religious wedding and I was actually able to attend the church ceremony. I went with the brother of the bride’s family…and we arrived 30 minutes late to the church. Not to be stereotypical, but I thought we might be safe since nothing here s...