My first week in La Calera was great (minus the food poisoning). The people are so warm and welcoming, the festival going on right now is super interesting, and it's a beautiful town, right between two mountainous volcanos.
Here is a photo of the walk into town:
My family has been great and I have gotten to know the other family living in my home as well, Marisol's brother Richard, his wife, Andrea, and their two kids Suri (7) and Sumaj (8 months). They are all so great. Here is baby Sumaj, his big eyes, chubby cheeks, and crazy hair are the cutest.
Today I finally got to see Flora and Monica, whom I had met when they came to Madison for a week! I went with Flora and Marisol to Cotacachi, we walked there, it probably took around 40 minutes, but it was a beautiful walk!
In town, the festivities for the festival were already beginning! This week is Inti Rimi or San Juan, which is the festival of the sun, and the biggest festival of the year for this village. It is a very inidgenous and traditional festival and I'm so excited to be a part of it!
Today is the day where the older people in the community dance, aparently, different groups in the community have different days to dance. Everyone was dressed in their indigenous clothes, it was so cool to see. The reason we went into town though was to go to a meeting. Flora and Marisol are going to be selling beer and food during the festival and needed to go to a meeting about vending and food safety. It was interesting to listen to. We then went to the hospital, but not for me this time, Monica, Flora's daughter is going to have her baby! Moni was pretty pregnant when she was in Madison, and I arrived just in time for her to have the baby! The baby's name is Emily and she is absolutely precious.
I then took a nap because the night ahead of me would be wild. Monday night marked the start of inti Rimi. What does this community do to start celebrating, let me tell you, it is probably the craziest celebration I've ever seen, a mix of the Mifflin St. Block party, freak fest on state street, and the Badgers making it to the final four combined.
After dinner I went with Flora and Keenan, and a student that Flora is hosting from Canada, Taylor, to observe and participate in the festivities.
It starts with a group of people dancing (and when I say dancing I mean stomping in a circle, chanting in Quechua, their indigenous language, and playing the flute, harmonica or recorder). The group of people hop around from house to house in the community. They stay at each house dancing and chatting for about 5-10 minutes, they sometimes eat, and always drink alcohol when they get to each house, then they march over to the next house. They are always chanting and it was a bit frightening because I couldn't understand them since it was in Quechua. All people over 30 speak Quechua because it was what all of their parents spoke, but now the language is dying out and the kids only know Spanish. So the danced and marched and danced and marched from around 8-11:30pm. I almost got ran over a few times, but I survived. After dancing at almost all of the houses in the community, they made their way to the community house which they danced outside of and then danced inside. A few people in the community have a speech in the house before we headed off to the next phase of the night: the bathing ritual. Yes, you read that right. At midnight, we all treked down a mountain in the dark to go to a river for a spiritual cleansing. Everyone stripped down into their underwear, I wore my bathing suit, but many women just wore underwear, no top, and men, just undies as well. We used candles to light up the dark so we didn't slip in the river. We entered the river and then people proceeded to slap us with some type of leaf plant that had stinging nettles on it, but was supposed to be healthy for the skin or something like that. Then we entered a little cave where people splashed water on us. It was a quick cleansing, Flora says it's like a bird bath. People were chanting, it as such a cool experience. The purpose of the bathing ritual is to bring good energy, good prosperity, a good crop season and healthy living for the next year. After our bathing we put our clothes back on and hiked up the mountain using candles (and the flashlight on my phone). I realized I didn't have a key and didn't want to ring the bell to our house to wake people up because it was past 1am, so I just slept at Flora's house and went back to Marisol's in the morning.
The streets filled with people dancing!
Inside the communal house, I'm dancing, a guy is playing the flute, another guy is shaking the ortiga leaves, which they slap you with in the river, and people are heavily drinking. The whole dance is literally just stomping in circles and then changing directions when the guy in the middle yells.
The steep, narrow path to the river in the dark
My reaction to what just happened.
Post bathing photo
Tuesday:
We had our first meeting with Flora about the jewelry project. I was excited to see their motivation about the jewelry even though it was the festival and we wouldn't be doing that much work this week. We went to Cotacachi, I joined Marisol for a parents/ teacher meeting for Camila's class. Marisol is the class treasurer, so she was giving her expense report for the year. It was interesting to visit another school in Ecuador. This one was really nice!
After, we went to Luis Place (Luis's store) and waited for Flora because we were supposed to be buying all of the food and drinks that we would be selling at the fest tomorrow. Some of the women in the community are setting up a cantina to sell food and beer to everyone partaking in the San Juan festivities. They bought soooo much stuff, but mostly beer!
And yes we had to carry and load all that beer into this truck and out of the truck!
Classroom of the school
I also bought some of these little cakes wrapped in leaves for my host sisters school fundraiser! They are called Quinbolitos!
Wednesday:
Today was the first official day of San Juan. Some of marisols family from out of town was staying at their house last night so I woke up with an even fuller house than normal- but it was so fun to have breakfast with a big family!
I got all dressed up in the traditional, indigenous outfit that Marisol lent me. It is very beautiful and complicated to put on, it took about 3 women to dress me. There is the blouse, the anako (which is the skirt, there is a white one underneath, and then a black or navy one on top), there are two belts, one is red and thinner underneath the detailed blue one you can see on me, there is a necklace with many strands of gold colored beads, red beaded bracelets that wrap around your wrists, and a hair wrap that wraps around all your hair in a ponytail.
Me and my host mom Marisol on our terrace overlooking some mountains and volcanos
We then drove into town to set up the cantina to sell the beer and snacks. However, everyone else in calera danced/ marched all the way to Cotacachi.
Here is what the festivities include:
Each community from the area gathers up in the morning all dresses in their indigenous clothes to dance all the way to cotacachi. Once there, each community dances around the plaza, the stomp in circles at each corner of the plaza and then stomp to the next corner and do the same thing. I didn't really see any women dancing, it was majority men in the furry leather chaps and large hats. It was so so interesting to see this festival. Then after a few loops around which takes a while because there are around 12 communities that come, they all go to different cantinas around the area for lunch. We sold a lot of beer. Then they go back to the plaza and do the same thing. Then the come back and buy more beer. Then they go back to the plaza and do the same thing one last time. Then they come back and buy more beer and drink until they can't stand. There were many people that were unable to walk by the end of the night. I got to see some of the festivities in the plaza, but mainly just stayed by the cantina to help Flora and Marisol sell. I kept the books (used some of my Spanish finance knowledge) to keep track of what we sold. I also played with my host sister Camila a lot!
Selling a lot of beer with Marisol.
The plaza is packed
In case things get out of control, which they have in the past. A few nights ago, Flora and I went to the comunal house and saw a treaty meeting between different communities, because they wanted to stop the fighting between them.
They do a lot of chanting in Quechua while they stomp. I asked someone what they were saying and he said, "we are men, we are strong, we are from calera"
I went home with my host family around 9:30 and Camila fell asleep on my shoulder on the car ride home, it was precious. We were all pretty exhausted after a long day.
Thursday:
Today was practically a repeat of yesterday, except festivities started a little later. We sold a lot of beer and drunken men danced/ stomped around the plaza. The only difference from yesterday, was that people started getting a little violent. Not in the area we were, but some of the communities were fighting (which has been happening for a few years now) and a few people had to go to the hospital. No one from La calera was involved.
I was dressed up again in the traditional wear, and Keenan's host dad even lent him some furry leather chaps and a whip.
Not a fun day. We were supposed to start working with Sumak Muyo, the jewelry group, which I was super excited about. However, around 11am I did not feel well. I think I got food poisoning from eating choclo (an Ecuadorian type of corn) from a street vendor. I was puking a lot and feeling super crappy so Marisol took me to the hospital (6th hospital visit this trip). The doctors wanted to give me an injection and this time I did not want them to, because I had never heard of getting an injection because of puking, and the doctor wouldn't tell me what the injection was, just that it would help my stomach. He did prescribe me with some syrup and pills to help my stomach which I took. I got back and relaxed at flora's home because she has wifi there so I was able to talk to my parents. I layed on her couch for many hours, and read lots of articles about how America finally legalized gay marriage! Way to go, USA, it's about time!
Keenan, Taylor and Flora went to cotcachi and brought me crackers, Gatorade, and pedialite so I wouldn't get dehydrated, which was so so nice of them. I felt a little better in the evening but was in bed fast asleep by 8pm.
Saturday:
Vaccination day! I was pretty excited to get this vaccination done with, because I would go to Otavalo (which is only 20 minutes away), get the shot, and then be able to look around the huge market that Otavalo is known for. Wishful thinking that everything would go that smoothly.
I had planned to go to this particular hospital is Otavalo because I was told that they have the vaccine I need. I get there and find out they don't have it, and they said to go to Ibarra (40 minutes away), because they have it there. We went to Ibarra, I was also told they should have it there at the Ibarra Clinic, however, we get there, and they do not have it. They tell us to go to the health center, we go there, they do not have it, they also say that that vaccine is no where in the region. They say the only place it might be at is a place called Vacunorte which sells all types of vaccines. We go there, it is closed. Marisol wanted to check the hospital, we go to the hospital in Ibarra, they don't have it and they reassure us that we won't find that vaccine anywhere in the province and that I should go to Quito. It is now 4:00, and Marisol can't come to Quito with me because she has to watch her kids, so I call up Keenan to accompany me for a late night trip to Quito. We get on a bus by around 5:15pm, it's a 2 hour bus ride. We get to the bus terminal and ask when the last bus leaves for Otavalo, and they say 9pm, this would be a close call to make it back by then because it was 7:30pm. We try to figure out the local bus system to get us closer to the hospital. We thankfully get on the right bus and it lets us off on the street which the hospital is located, I know this because I had visited the hospital many many times, so I felt confident we could walk from there. However, it was a steep hill up to the hospital, but after a 15 minute climb, we made it. Now that I know just about everyone in the ER, I knew how to work the system a little bit. I was able to talk to the same nurse as last week who gave me the prescription so I could go down and get the vaccine and bring it up for them to administer it. Unfortunately, this whole process lasted until about 8:50pm, meaning we would not make the last bus. I was also starving at the point because in the craziness of running around today, I realized all I had eatten were crackers. So I asked the gaurd to let us downstairs to use the vending machine and I used all my coins to get myself some more crackers and peanuts!
We contemplated getting a hostel for the night or getting a taxi back to Otavalo. We chose taxi because 1. We had no way to find a nearby hostel 2. The price would have been similar 3. We just wanted to get home.
So the hospital called us a cab and we took a 2 hour taxi ride back to la calera.
I still have not received keys to my house, so Marisol told me to bang loudly on the door when I get back, no matter how late. She was nervous on Monday night when I slept at floras and wasn't in her house when she woke up Tuesday so she wanted to be sure I made it into her house that night. It was midnight and I felt bad banding but after hitting on the door a few times she came down and let me in. An eventful day to say the least. Never a dull moment.
Also, big congrats to my friend and "big sister" Darcy and her now husband, Lee on their wedding! Even though I was running around all day, when I made it to the hospital in quito which had some wifi I was happy to see some pictures and videos from your special day!
5 hospital visits today, content that the vaccine is in that cooler
Sunday:
I wanted to relax today after the past couple of hectic days. I caught up with family and friends in the morning using the wifi at flora's home. I also didn't really want to be in my home today because when I came down for breakfast and asked Marisol how she is/ what she's doing today, she said "we're killing the guinea pigs!" And I said peace out. I saw some little legs sticking out of a bowl in the kitchen and could barely hold myself together. 7 guinea pigs died in my home today :( . However, this is very normal for ecuador- Cui (guinea pig in Spanish) is a vey typical food here. I still can't get over it though because I have friends with cuis as pets, which they think is weird here. But anyways, they are killing the cuis and cooking them and everyone (except me) will eat them for lunch tomorrow for San Juan.
After relaxing, Keenan and I walked into town (Cotacachi) and looked in some of the shops. Cotacachi is the town of leather, so I'm considering getting a leather jacket at some point during my stay here, but so so many to choose from!
After a little window shopping, we went to Luis's place to meet flora and Marisol. We did a repeat of Tuesday. We loaded hundred something cases into a truck and then loaded them out of the truck under the tent where the cantina is, then we swept up a bunch of broken glass and other leftover garbage from under the big tent.
But at least I got some ice cream today and had some soup- better than all the crackers I've been eating the past 2 days.
Also saw some cute kittens in town:
Tonight is the night where everyone in La Calera burns things outside of their home. It is part of the tradition of Inti Rimi. People burn things outside of their homes to keep the devil from entering their home on this one day of the year.
What a wild first week! A bit different from the coast as you can tell. This upcoming week we have a few more days of San Juan but after that we get to start working on the jewelry micro enterprise, which I am super excited for!
