Cleansing

I’m sitting in my room drinking broccoli tea. No joke. It doesn’t really taste like broccoli, but the package tells me that it’s anti-cancer, so that’s good!

I love my afternoon teacher. For real. I am so so so happy to have her as my teacher. In the first half of the afternoon we had a terrific talk about so many things – we talked about poverty both in Canada and Ecuador, we talked about the political situation in Ecuador, about consumption, capitalism, feminism, machismo, and revolution. To be fair, she did most of the talking and I did most of the listening, but I can’t wait until week four when I’ll be able to have super wonderful conversations with this woman.

In the second half of the class we went to the market. On Tuesdays and Fridays there are women-shamen in the market that will perform rituals to ‘clean’ people of bad energy. Apparently on Tuesdays and Fridays there are a lot of bad spirits around and so it’s important that it is done on these days. Mostly it’s done on children who have illnesses – but these illnesses result from absorbing bad energy usually. They’re expressed through loss of appetite, sleepy all the time, eyes that can’t open all the way, crying a lot and so on. As well, there are some cases where children’s hearts have dropped to their stomachs and have made them sick.

What the shawomen does is she first has a bunch of plants that each are designed to cure a different part of the child (although adults sometimes get cleaned as well) and they rub the bunch in their hands to release the energy – they then proceed to rub it all over the child’s body and tap their body with it all the while saying something in Quechua. After this, they rub and egg over the body to absorb bad energy. Apparently sometimes the shawomen will break open the egg and read what illness the child has but we didn’t see this happen. After the egg, she marks the child in three places – on the forehead, on the stomach and on the back. All of these marks are for protection. Then, she drinks from a special combination of flowers and alcohol and then spits some of it on the back of the child.

For certain illnesses it’s important to come back a few times – for example we met a women whose granddaughter was crying often and she had to get the treatment three times. Each time took place on a different day.

I also found out today that Marta teaches dance! Frig, what are the chances? So on Fridays here she teaches merengue. There is also a salsa class on Wednesday and Thursday. I think I will go on Wednesday and Friday. She also told me that where she lives there is a kind of cultural area where they have different kinds of art – like yoga classes and cooking classes! The cooking classes that start this weekend are vegetarian! I know, no way, right? I know. Shut up, it’s amazing. So, she’s going to bring me information tomorrow in class to see if I can sign up for both the cooking class and the yoga classes. Frig, Cuenca, way to be amazing.

I think this weekend I’ll hopefully do that, explore the old part of the city a bit and take photos (of course) and then maybe go to Cajas national park. It’s a beautiful city here. I like it a lot.

Tea update: after more steeping it does, in fact, taste like broccoli. So strange, but also delicious.

Day One!

So, I’m in Ecuador. I started learning Spanish today. I can feel myself improving already.

I flew into Guayaquil on Saturday and the weather was incredibly humid! I had a chance to soak up some rays and take a swim in the pool of my hostel which I’m grateful for since upon my arrival in Cuenca I have discovered it is much like the April in Canada!

Today was my first full day here in Cuenca and my first day of classes! My classes seem to be designed specifically for me. As far as I know I am the only student right now doing 8 hours of classes a day. I have class from 8-12 in the morning with a lady named Viviana. She is quite wonderful. She was very insistent that I think of us as friends and not as professor and student. We follow the exercises in the book pretty tightly and she’s pretty easy going about the mistakes I make. She’s an excellent teacher for so early in the morning and is willing to move into conversation over the things we’re reading in the book.

From 12-2 everyday I have a break where I’ll return to my host family for lunch, do some homework and then back to school where I have class from 2-6. My class in the afternoon is again with a lady and her name is Marta. She’s much more tough that Viviana and corrects most of the things I say which is terrific. She’s very understanding that communication for me is top priority and is more than willing to mostly engage in conversation and to improve my listening. It’s terrific for me to have such a tough teacher in the afternoons!

Each evening the school as events planned and I think I will try to make it to most of them. Tonight there was a conversation circle about cities and specifically about the history of Cuenca. On Wednesdays and Thursdays there are salsa lessons. I’m definitely up for those!

My host family is wonderful. The family is quite large –as many Latin American families appear to be – but only two people live in the house – Helena and Eugenio. They’re both wonderful although Eugenio is quite silent while Helena is wonderful – very accommodating and kind. I can’t wait to have a real conversation with her! There are two other students here – a retired man from Colorado who teaches sociology and history part time and a fellow Canadian who is spending a year traveling around Latin America. At first I was a little disappointed at not having a family to myself but now I feel grateful – it’s nice to have people to talk to in English and to come home to. Tonight we talked about feminism!

The weather here is… good. It’s like Canada, I suppose. It’s cold in the mornings and in the evenings. It poured on my walk home at lunch and I didn’t have an umbrella so it was necessary that I changed my clothes. Which is fine. Then in the afternoon I had overdressed and it was quite warm. In the evenings I feel really cold and so have taken to having showers in the evening to warm myself up. All in all it seems like a good routine. It’s only 10pm here and I’m already wiped. In fact, when I finish writing this I’m planning on crawling into my bed and sleeping until 630am (I hope) and then studying before heading to school.

Hopefully I’ll find more time to write about the city because it’s so beautiful and some of the terrific conversations I’ve had already with my teachers.

Airports

I love the atmosphere in airports – the air seems to crackle with excitement, with plans to see new places and meet new people and love seems to float freely between embraces of people who haven’t seen each other for years, months, days, in the tears and kisses of those separating and in the anticipation of return. It is a place of liminality – where things don’t really count but they feel even more epic than they are. Where two and a half months feels like years, where new friendships last for minutes and you bond with children through smiles, peek-a-boo and winks despite language barriers.

Despite my love for airports, for planes and for travel they are often places that embrace those things in life that are hidden and that I resent. Although air travel is a luxury there are still important distinctions to be made – those who are first class, gold class, platinum class, business class… and then those who are not. Those who can go into the members lounges, use the showers, get massages and free coffees while waiting for their next flight and then those who can’t – those who sleep on the chairs clutching their things for fear of theft. This inequality, often hidden and ignored on the street and in our everyday lives, is embraced and normalized in this space of liminality.

A pleasant flight for me consists of the following things:

Co Conversation with at least two strangers, a child to make eye contact with at least two times, time to write in my journal – liminality is a terrific time for reflection and a good book.

Luckily, my flight has consisted of all of these things. Talking with two flight attendants first about my earrings, then about crafts and somehow onto one of my favorite topics – coffee. With the man in front of me we talked about Guayaquil, Cuenca, studying Spanish and his own immigration to Miami 25 years ago. Across from me sits one of the cutest little girls I have ever seen – she has big, brown eyes and two high pigtails that twist into ringlets and bob around her face as she explores the seats her family has. Not afraid of adventure, or of strangers, she climbs onto the armrest and peers over the seats in front of her. Next, she takes the Safety instructions from all three seats and brings them over to me and begins to tell me about them in Spanish – only about one in five words are ones I can make out or understand. I’m not sure if this is because of my own incompetency or because she is babbling. I’m hoping it’s the latter.

In two hours I will arrive in Ecuador. I’ll be there for 72 days. Looking at the sunset out the window, feeling thankful for the friend I brought with me- Abraham, eating the only thing for dinner I can eat – salad – and sipping on some warm coffee I feel confident that no matter what happens this will be an adventure and will give me many stories to tell my children.