It's starting to make sense

In recent blog posts, I have remarked about how culturally acceptable it is for people to go to the bathroom anywhere.

It might be out the window of the bus. It might be in the middle of a group of people waiting to get onto the bus. It might be on the wall that says "Don't pee on this wall."

For many months now, I have wondered where this freedom to go where you please comes from. I finally answered that question this weekend.

I took a day trip up to Zaruma, a colonial gold-mining town about two hours into the mountains from my site. It might be a relatively short journey, but it almost feels like a different country. The architecture is different (There is a distinct architectural style). The scenery is different (Mountains). The climate it different (Not hot). The pace of life is different (Not "in your face").

Given how different Zaruma is from my site, I was surprised by a statue in the central park.



That is a statue of a child going to the bathroom in the middle of the park. Even in a town as different as Zaruma, they glorify public urination (At least they make an art of it).

I asked some people around town why there is a statue of a kid peeing in the park. Apparently, it has been there for over a hundred years. They told me that it was brought over by some Europeans.

I did some further research on similar statues and discovered that there is a very famous statue in Brussels, Belgium. I imagine that the statue in Zaruma tractes its inspiration to that one.

I wonder how the presence of such a statue in the central park of a town such has Zaruma has affected the acceptability of public urination in Ecuador. If the statue was, in fact, donated by a European country or organization over a hundred years ago, people here might have thought that a statue of a person urinating in the central park accurately reflects cultural norms in that country.

If they associated cultured Europe with public urination, they might think that using the toilet or going out of site is the practice of bumpkins.

I only propose this hypothesis based upon my experiences in Ecuador. What people know of the United States they take from portrayals in popular culture. I have been asked if there is actually countryside in the United States (many think it all looks like New York). I have been asked if the United States is all night clubs and discos. I am still asked if I knew Michael Jackson.

Based on these experiences, I might be inclined to conclude that the statue has something to do with the propensity to pee in public.