This past week has been the Festival de Quito, celebrating the foundation of Quito. The festival is celebrated through drinking, parades, and most famously, bull fighting. Today I went with friends to the bullfight, curious to see what the tradition is really all about. I was somewhat ambivalent about going to the fights in the first place. They were said to be quite violent, with the bulls essentially tortured before they died. Ecuadorians themselves are divided about bullfighting, with some Ecuadorians opposed to bullfighting and some who love it. In the end I decided that I wanted to see for myself what this tradition was all about, figuring this was a part of the Ecuadorian heritage that I needed to see before I left.
The fights take place in a small sized stadium in the north of Quito. The experience getting into the stadium itself was quite an experience. First there were the hat stands, all selling the straw hats that everyone apparently wears to the stadium. Then there were about 25 models dressed in ridiculous costumes, handing out all kinds of free items. After you passed through the models you got into an area where there were stages set up with people singing and dancing, a must at any Ecuadorian event. Finally, you pass through an incredibly small door, packed chalk full of Ecuadorians all trying to ignore the line which had formed.
The bullfight itself was just as violent and disturbing as I had heard. However, I had expected that it would be more of a fair fight between the matador and the bull. This was absolutely not the case. One of the first thing is done when the bull is released in the ring is that two men riding horses covered huge padding ride into the arena. The bull is directed by men towards the horse, where it then gets its horns stuck in the padding. The men hold huge spears with a small blade and a piece of metal preventing the spear from going in to far. The men then stab the bull repeatedly until the bull is sufficiently wounded. It is only after this that the matador begins to attack the bull. However, still whenever he is in danger he runs behind little forts constructed at the corners and the bull gets distracted by helpers. Finally, in a drawn out manner, the matador and his helpers wound the bull until it no longer can stand, at which point the bull is killed and dragged away and the process starts again for a new matador.
Probably the most disturbing part of the entire experience was the crowd. The tickets are not cheap, meaning that the crowd is the upper crust of Ecuadorian society. However, the entire experience is a connection to the barbaric past, a modern day equivalent of gladiators. The crowd cheers on the death of the bull with whistles and yells, the whole time yelling “Viva Quito”. They probably would be just as excited had the bull killed a man, they were just trying to satisfy a desire for death. The matador at least to some degree risks his life fighting with the bull, the crowd simply stares and cheers the process on.
Still, despite my regret at donating my money to continue bullfighting, it has made me do some serious thinking. I have always been disturbed by the Western World takeover of other cultures, wanting to allow cultures to keep their traditions and customs. However, should all elements of cultures really be kept? Or instead are there parts of culture that I don’t think should be kept, and that instead should be replaced with more humane values? Should we allow cultures to keep their traditional values, even if that means having them maintain a patriarchal, violent, and often closed-minded society? If not, how do we go about convincing people to change?
Monday, December 4, 2006
Monday, November 27, 2006
El Dia de las Elecciones
So yesterday was the presidential elections in Ecuador. It was a crazy event, completely different from elections in the United States. This was actually run off, as the elections last month had narrowed the canditates to two from the original 13! Everyone in Ecuador is requried to vote, with the consequences draconian if you refuse. This dramatically changes the complexion of the experience, completely eliminating the need for get out the vote operations. It also makes the vote of poor ecuadorians unbelievably important, since approximately 95% of ecuadorians are poor. On a final note, there is a liquor ban in ecuador 48 hours before any election, where hard alcohol and beer cannot be sold. However, the ban does not include wine, which is apparently a soft drink and therefore does not matter.
The election pitted Rafael Correa, a leftist semi-socialist economist intellectual who considers himself friends with Hugo Chavez and who wants to decrease Ecuadorian dependence on the United States against Albero Noboa, the billionaire banana tycoon who is the richest man in Ecuador, owns 114 companies, and who touts his ties with the richest men in the United States. Many of the Ecuadorians I spoke to really liked neither candidate, some even going so far as to cancel their vote, meaning they showed up to the booth and then deliberately chose neither.
I have the fortune of having one the main election booths in Quito right next door to my apartment, and therefore got to watch the full glory up close. The entire street leading to the booth turned into a fiesta, full of food stands, various other stands, and my favorite, a jumping pen for children. The street was absolutely packed with from 9Am when voting began to 5PM when it finally closed. Imagine if the parking lot of the voting booths in the United States were full of people, food, and fun, utter craziness.
Anyways, when the polls finally closed Correa won the election, capturing 57% of the vote. His victory party was just 5 blocks from my house on La Avenida de Shyris, which was awesome because it meant that I got to go and take more pictures. Although Correa himself was not until much later, being kept away by speeches in TV interviews, I got to experience the insanity of the atmosphere. There were tons of people, many dressed in lime green or waving lime green flags, that being the color of Correa's campaign. To go along with the lime green there was a huge stage where bands were playing salsa and other music, music which everyone in the crowd seemed to know the words and were happy to sing along. Vendors were moving through the crowd as they do in any event, selling beer, wine, cigarettes, and anything else you could want. Everyone was dancing, pumping fists, cheering, chanting, all in all is was incredibly exciting.
After it was over I was left wishing campaigns and elections happened all the time, but then I reminded myself that instead of election day we would probably have coup day within the year. No elected president in the last 16 years in Ecuador has actually completed a term, so it would be no surprise in the next year if Correa was overthrown. Apparently once you lose the army you lose the country, or something along those lines.
Still, I have hopes for Ecuador's newest president. Although critics tend to dismiss him as in the mold of Chavez, he at least for now is making at effort at being more moderate. He actually has an advanced degree from the U of Illinois and Harvard in Economics, interesting given his strong disagreement with the United States. Also, at this point in time, any change is good change. Corruption in government here is unbelievably high, and the government has almost completely failed in helping the plight of the countries significant poor population. Viva Ecuador!
The election pitted Rafael Correa, a leftist semi-socialist economist intellectual who considers himself friends with Hugo Chavez and who wants to decrease Ecuadorian dependence on the United States against Albero Noboa, the billionaire banana tycoon who is the richest man in Ecuador, owns 114 companies, and who touts his ties with the richest men in the United States. Many of the Ecuadorians I spoke to really liked neither candidate, some even going so far as to cancel their vote, meaning they showed up to the booth and then deliberately chose neither.
I have the fortune of having one the main election booths in Quito right next door to my apartment, and therefore got to watch the full glory up close. The entire street leading to the booth turned into a fiesta, full of food stands, various other stands, and my favorite, a jumping pen for children. The street was absolutely packed with from 9Am when voting began to 5PM when it finally closed. Imagine if the parking lot of the voting booths in the United States were full of people, food, and fun, utter craziness.
Anyways, when the polls finally closed Correa won the election, capturing 57% of the vote. His victory party was just 5 blocks from my house on La Avenida de Shyris, which was awesome because it meant that I got to go and take more pictures. Although Correa himself was not until much later, being kept away by speeches in TV interviews, I got to experience the insanity of the atmosphere. There were tons of people, many dressed in lime green or waving lime green flags, that being the color of Correa's campaign. To go along with the lime green there was a huge stage where bands were playing salsa and other music, music which everyone in the crowd seemed to know the words and were happy to sing along. Vendors were moving through the crowd as they do in any event, selling beer, wine, cigarettes, and anything else you could want. Everyone was dancing, pumping fists, cheering, chanting, all in all is was incredibly exciting.
After it was over I was left wishing campaigns and elections happened all the time, but then I reminded myself that instead of election day we would probably have coup day within the year. No elected president in the last 16 years in Ecuador has actually completed a term, so it would be no surprise in the next year if Correa was overthrown. Apparently once you lose the army you lose the country, or something along those lines.
Still, I have hopes for Ecuador's newest president. Although critics tend to dismiss him as in the mold of Chavez, he at least for now is making at effort at being more moderate. He actually has an advanced degree from the U of Illinois and Harvard in Economics, interesting given his strong disagreement with the United States. Also, at this point in time, any change is good change. Corruption in government here is unbelievably high, and the government has almost completely failed in helping the plight of the countries significant poor population. Viva Ecuador!
Friday, November 17, 2006
A Mall for who?
Just two blocks from my apartment is a beautiful mall called Qui Centro. This mall would be a very nice mall in the United States, filled with a combination of ecuadorian brands and brands like Calvin Kline and Diesel. However, in a huge surpise to me, it is just as expensive as an American mall if not more. This is in a country where things are generally around 1/3 to 1/4 as expensive as the United States, and where the average salary is 200 dollars per month. I cannot even afford to shop in this mall, and I make 3 to 4 times the amount of the average ecuadorian. This quickly raised the question for me, who can afford to shop here? The mall is always full of ecuadorians, it is not being supported by tourists. Amazingly, this is not the only mall of its type. There are 3 malls probably within a 2 mile radius exactly like this one, often with the same stores, and at least as expensive, all supported by the .5 % of ecuadorians who can actually afford to shop there. The money divide here is truly huge, even bigger than in the United States. These people live in a seperate section of town, shop in different places, drive their cars everywhere, live a completely seperate life from most ecuadorians. It is almost as if they are not living in the same country. I will have more examples of this later, but is one of the issues in Ecuador which is proving most disturbing to me.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Transportation in Quito
Quito is a city which is still in the process of modernizing. Also, it is huge, stretching nearly 25 kilometers north to south. Most transportation is done in one of three ways. First, there is the most advanced form, the trolley, of which there are two. They run north to south, however do not extend nearly the entire distance of the city. The best feature of the trolleys is that they often play a song that sounds like a broken ice cream truck as they go along, constantly sounding as if the battery will die completely any second. Also, the Ecovia, the trolley which I take and which is supposed to be more environmental makes so much pollution that the back half of the red trolley is black, utterly disgusting.
The second main form of public transportation is the bus. It is worth noting that both the trolley and the buses only run till about 9 at night, and are generally unsafe after 8, making them absoltely useless after dark. However, they are also both only 25 cents, meaning that when they are safe they are a great deal. The buses are the most confusing I have ever seen. They are of different colors, which do not really mean anything, and all have signs telling random places which they may or may not go. Their most distinguishing feature is the controllador, the man who leans out the door of the bus shouting destinations and hustling people in and out of the bus. He literally will shout for the entire duration of the busride, leading me to believe that controlladors have incredible lungs. Also, the busdriver has a button which he can press to make a cat call, a truly incredible feature. It seems to be to much effort for the bus driver to lean out the window and make catcalls, thus they built in the feature for him. The final great feature of the buses is that they really don't stop to let on or off passengers, much like the rolling stop at stopsigns. Either you quickly become skilled at hopping on a moving vehicle, or you hit the stairs on the bus until you do learn.
The final form of public transportation in Quito is the taxi. Luckily all taxis in Quito are required to be a certain color and run on the meter during the day, making life far easier. However, taxi drivers will still try every trick in the book to get you to pay more, especially if you are a foreigner. Probably the favorite one is my meter is broken, meaning you quickly have to negotiate a price or get out, because if you drive to the location first you will almost certainly be paying twice as much. The same goes at night, when the taxi drivers don't have to use the meter, and therefore charge outrageous prices, forcing you to bargain with them until you arrive at something somewhat reasonable. All this having been said, a really expensive cab ride in Quito is 4 dollars, so compared to the United States you are still doing amazingly. Also, as a final note, all taxi drivers drive completely crazy, often in cabs that I think are losing pieces as they go, meaning that the entire time you are scared for your life. They will pass cars on a one lane road three at a time, will squeeze in openings that I don't even see, and will use every other trick imagenable to shave 2 minutes off your ride and thus save themselves 50 cents. Brilliant.
The second main form of public transportation is the bus. It is worth noting that both the trolley and the buses only run till about 9 at night, and are generally unsafe after 8, making them absoltely useless after dark. However, they are also both only 25 cents, meaning that when they are safe they are a great deal. The buses are the most confusing I have ever seen. They are of different colors, which do not really mean anything, and all have signs telling random places which they may or may not go. Their most distinguishing feature is the controllador, the man who leans out the door of the bus shouting destinations and hustling people in and out of the bus. He literally will shout for the entire duration of the busride, leading me to believe that controlladors have incredible lungs. Also, the busdriver has a button which he can press to make a cat call, a truly incredible feature. It seems to be to much effort for the bus driver to lean out the window and make catcalls, thus they built in the feature for him. The final great feature of the buses is that they really don't stop to let on or off passengers, much like the rolling stop at stopsigns. Either you quickly become skilled at hopping on a moving vehicle, or you hit the stairs on the bus until you do learn.
The final form of public transportation in Quito is the taxi. Luckily all taxis in Quito are required to be a certain color and run on the meter during the day, making life far easier. However, taxi drivers will still try every trick in the book to get you to pay more, especially if you are a foreigner. Probably the favorite one is my meter is broken, meaning you quickly have to negotiate a price or get out, because if you drive to the location first you will almost certainly be paying twice as much. The same goes at night, when the taxi drivers don't have to use the meter, and therefore charge outrageous prices, forcing you to bargain with them until you arrive at something somewhat reasonable. All this having been said, a really expensive cab ride in Quito is 4 dollars, so compared to the United States you are still doing amazingly. Also, as a final note, all taxi drivers drive completely crazy, often in cabs that I think are losing pieces as they go, meaning that the entire time you are scared for your life. They will pass cars on a one lane road three at a time, will squeeze in openings that I don't even see, and will use every other trick imagenable to shave 2 minutes off your ride and thus save themselves 50 cents. Brilliant.
My blog
Hey, so I have given up on writing mass emails and have decided to follow the examples of others and simply post what I have to say in the blog format. After having spent two and a half months in Ecuador I feel like I have a lot to share, and hope that you will all find some of it interesting. For anyone curious about my name the nickname of the tourist sector of Quito is called Gringolandia. Also, gringo is a casual word in Ecuator, used for all people who are not latino or asian. As much as I have tried to fit into the culture here, I have come to the realization that I will never quite fit in, being blond, blue eyed, and having about 4-5 inches on the average ecuatorian male. Nonetheless, I continue to strive.
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