Arenillas Racquetball Club

As the wet season approaches, the morning rains have been stronger and more sustained. And with the rains come puddles, which bring standing water and optimal conditions for mosquito breeding.

One strategy to combat the mosquitoes from getting to me this year is the electronic, mosquito-killing racket I bought a couple of weeks ago.

Not only has this allowed me to marginally reduce my risk of dengue and malaria, but it has also given me the chance to keep my racquetball skills fresh, even though there isn't a court in a few hundred kilometers.

I walk through my house a couple of times per day, swatting at mosquitoes and other flying insects with all kinds of strokes. I go with whichever approach gives me the best chance at the kill: the forehand, the backhand, the volley, the slam, the cut, the slice, and so on.

When the bugs hit the racket, there is an awesome zapping sound.

A really, really awesome zapping sound.

The bugs don't bounce off the back wall as well as I would like, so I guess that part of my game will get a bit rusty.

While this might not be the most effective way to reduce my risk for mosquito-borne illness, it is by far the most interactive and entertaining. (Telling my neighbor to do something about the exposed well in his backyard would probably be better. This takes nothing away from how entertaining it is to talk to my neighbor, but the mosquito racket is in a category of its own.)

A volunteer friend of mine recently purchased a racket of his own. He called me last week, and in the background of the conversation there were constant zapping noises.

I bought the racket in Huaquillas, the border town between Ecuador and Peru where one can find everything they could imagine - such as mosquito-zapping rackets.

Huaquillas's primary distributor of these fine products is no one-trick pony. He has figured out the key to reducing risk is diversification. The same guy who sells these rackets also manages a public bathroom. There is a big sign outside of his store that says "bathrooms for rent." He has to step aside from his toilet paper-ripping duties to sell the rackets. He also copies keys.

I couldn't think of a better januca present that a mosquito zapping racket, which comes in a variety of colors, as well.

Officially Censada

How many doors do you think sport a "censada" sticker and a mezuzah?

Census Day

In the United States, the Census takes several months to complete. It involves the hiring over 650,000 temporary enumerators and costs billions of dollars.

In Ecuador, the Census is essentially taken in a day. For that day, the entire country is at a stand-still as volunteer census takers, mostly high school juniors and seniors, go door-to-door collecting statistics.

That day was today.

From 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., it was illegal to be out of your house.

Soldiers and police officers were patrolling the streets to make sure that nobody was milling about. Domestic air travel was shut down, but international flights arrived and departed on schedule (except that you had to be at the airport before 7:00 a.m. because there were no taxis to take you). As part of keeping order during the Census, consumption of alcohol has been prohibited since Friday at midnight.

It was pretty eerie to look out my door at 7:00 this morning to see nothing but a few soldiers doing their patrols. Luckily, I didn't have to wait long until the census taker arrived at my door. The volunteer came by at 7:30.

Apparently, everybody in the country must participate in the census, whether or not they are citizens. So I answered the questions like everybody else.

One of the questions asked about my principal method of waste removal. I either recycle or compost almost all of my waste. Neither of those was an option. So I selected "other", but the census taker had trouble comprehending my response.

Another one of the questions asked about where I was born. It is clear that the census takers were not trained to survey people born outside of Ecuador. Although one of the responses to the question read "other country," my census taker was insistent that we should not fill in that blank because that is not what she was taught. I insisted. Then after conferring with her supervisor, she got permission to say that I was born outside of Ecuador.

It was also hard for the surveyor to understand that I work more than 60 hours a week, but that I am volunteer and am not making a salary.

After the forty-minute interview, she put a "counted" sticker on my door frame and moved on to my neighbors.

That left me with more than nine hours before I could leave my house. I tried to make them as productive as possible.

I started off by listening to a podcast before reading a hundred pages of my book. I went back for another podcast before lunching on leftovers from Friday night's dinner. Then I picked up my book again but only advanced another thirty pages before I got restless.

This is when I decided to "clean." I started with the floor. But as I picked up dirty clothes to clear it, I realized that I had a large pile of laundry to do. Considering it was a sunny day and I still had four hours to kill before the lockdown was over, I resolved to do all my laundry. By the time that, I only had a half hour left.

At 5:00, there was a collective exodus after everyone was cooped up all day in their homes.

Although I'm not quite sure what I would have done with my Sunday if it had not been Census Day, I was quite pleased with how productive I was. Maybe I should treat every Sunday as Census Day?

Ian vs. Kitten: The Solution

The cat is gone, and peace and quiet has returned to my house.

After the epic struggle between a cat who wanted nothing more than to be able to roam freely in the crawlspace above my apartment and some residents who wanted nothing more than to sleep at night without constant meowing, tranquility has triumphed.

This was no easy fight. The kitten relied on its size, quickness, and survival instincts. Last year, I saw a kitten kill a poisonous snake. These animals are much tougher than they look.

I needed a can of tuna, a block of cheese, a broom, two wooden planks, one pet-removal specialist, my neighbor's nephew, and a plastic bag.

---

When I left for work Thursday morning, I had set out food in two locations to try to lure the cat down from its perch in the crawlspace. I would have spent all morning trying to get the cat down, but I had some meetings that would have been hard to change.

By the time I got home for lunch, my neighbors reported that the problem was solved.

After I left in the morning, they had called in a "specialist." I use quotation marks because my refrigerator repairman was also described as a "specialist."

I wonder what qualifications this guy had as an "animal-removal specialist." This is a do-it-yourself culture. Everybody has tales about how they woke up in the middle of the night and found a poisonous snake crawling around the floor, so they just grabbed their machete and killed the snake. So for someone to be described as an "animal-removal specialist," he must have killed hundreds of snakes. (It was never explained to me who this "specialist" was. For all I know, it was the same "handyman" who tried for six months to fix my toilet and eventually gave up)

He might be competent at this whole animal-catching business, though. According to my neighbors, it only took him about an hour and a half. He could use some help at the disposal aspect of his job.

Once he captured the kitten, he set it free in the street outside my house. Displaying tremendous resiliency and determination, the cat turned around and climbed back up into the crawlspace.

Back at square one.

All of this struggle apparently tired the cat out because after returning to the crawlspace, he decided to take a little siesta. My neighbor's called in their nephew and his small hands to grab the sleeping the cat and take him away.

I was a little sad to have missed all the action, but I'm mostly just happy that the cat is gone.

Ian vs. Kitten: Day Two

At first, I found the meowing cat in my ceiling to be annoying.

I couldn't stand the fact that the cat would purr every six seconds.

But like a lot of other things in Ecuador, it's something I've gotten used to - kind of like the trucks that roar outside my apartment all night long or the reggaeton blasting from motorcycles (the drivers carry boomboxes). You kind of just get immune to it to the point that you don't even realize that it's there.

Because the cat ate some tuna last night, it doesn't appear to be as hungry as your typical cat in the ceiling.

Working with my neighbors, we now have divided our efforts to offer the cat to possible escapes.

One is the plank of wood with tuna that was up last night. My neighbors have placed another plank of wood in their apartment with some cheese on it. (It is the same plank of wood that I use to secure the door to my refrigerator.)

I sure hope that an animal on the ground does not follow the bait and find himself trapped in the ceiling with a cat. On the plus side, that would give our feline friend someone to play with.

My landlord has also called in the assistance of a handyman to fix some things around the house and enlist his efforts in Cat Snatch. I doubt that he will be of much use. This is the same handyman, who misdiagnosed a problem in my bathroom for six months. It turns out I just needed a little piece of string, the same piece of string that the handyman discarded his first day on the job.

I know I shouldn't get too far ahead of myself but I have started thinking about what I will do once I get the cat down from the ceiling.

Here's an idea:

Ian vs. Kitten: Day One

It started at 6:15 this morning.

As the fresh fish and humita vendors walked by my house with their familiar sales pitches, another sound caught my ear.

It was soft, high-pitched, feline, and coming from my roof. Unlike the vendors, who continued along their daily routes, the sound on the roof persisted.

Somehow, a cat had found its way on top of my house. I didn't really worry about it at the time. I figured that as long as the cat could find its way onto my roof, it could just as easily find its way down from my roof.

This wasn't the first time a cat has found its way into my house. One time, a kitten climbed through my kitchen window and sought refuge behind my fridge for the better part of a Saturday before I took care of the situation. Another time, while I was making macaroni and cheese, I spilled some of the hot milk-cheese mixture onto the floor. When I looked down to see the mess I was making, a cat was there, licking the sauce off the floor. (He was probably the happiest street cat in the world at the time.)

But I wasn't quite certain whether or not this was someone's pet cat who had found its way onto my roof because some new neighbors moved in next door. Throwing their pet cat out to the street would be a horrible first impression. So I figured I would just let the cat be and hope the problem would resolve itself.

I came back to my apartment for lunch, and, unfortunately, the problem had not solved itself. I asked the people who were moving in whether it was their cat, and they told it wasn´t. But I wanted to get the all-clear from my landlord before asserting myself.

The all-clear didn't come until 5:30.

By that time, the cat found the crawlspace between my ceiling and the roof and managed to forget how he got into said crawlspace.

Realizing that this situation probably wasn't going to change all night unless I did something about, I decided that it was time to get the cat down.

At this time, one of my new neighbors walked by. I asked him to help me out because if the cat didn't come down, I wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight. He told me "Don't trouble yourself. The cat will come down by itself." If he could have come down by himself, he probably would have done so at some point in the last 11 hours.

This part of the night turns into the part from The Sandlot where they try a variety of strategies for getting the baseball out of The Beast's domain.

The space between my ceiling and the roof is big enough for a cat to move around in and for a person to jam a pole into, but not much else.

I don't think that cat had eaten all day. I figured the best way to get him out of their would be to lure him out with the possibility of food. I put some tuna-smelling juice on the end of my broomstick. Then, as the cat was sniffing and licking the broomstick, I would just knock the cat onto the floor.

Except that I don't have cat-like speed and reflexes. When the cat realized what I was doing, it scurried back into the roof. I did hit him on the head a few times, if that counts for anything.

Instead of just offering the cat the scent of food, I decided to give it a little food and then knock it to the floor when it was distracted and eating. I tried this once, but couldn't get a good enough push on the cat. So I just ended up giving it dinner. Then a second time, I was on the phone with a friend about the situation, when the cat took some more tuna out of the can. My lack of Denard-esque speed and reflexes showed as the cat eluded me once more.

Now, it was time to pull out all the stops. I pulled out every large piece of wood in my house and set out and elaborate ramp system, with food incentives along the way, the get the cat down.

After waiting for half an hour without any movement in one part of the courtyard, I decided to move the ramp to another section of the courtyard to see what happens.

Well, so far, the kitten has the upper hand. The ramp has been up for two hours, with little pieces of tuna along the way, but all I can hear is meowing.

I'll update you tomorrow with any developments.

The search for nutmeg

With Thanksgiving approaching, I decided to get in the spirit by cooking some traditional holiday food for some of my Ecuadorian friends.

Recipes for this season typically include what my mom called "Thanksgiving spices," like nutmeg and allspice. These spices aren't very common in Ecuador, bu they do exist here.

Last week, I was in Machala, the closest city to me where one could buy these "exotic" spices. I knew that I could find them at the large supermarket on the outskirts of town, but that was out of my way.

Instead, I tried the subpar grocery store in the center of town on the chance they might sell nutmeg and allspice (they didn't) before venturing into the outdoor market, which is several blocks of produce, poultry, clothes, bootleg movies, and just about anything else you could imagine buying.

After asking around for someone who sells nuez moscada, I was directed a woman who sells medicinal plants. I asked for nutmeg, and she pulled out a jar from under the counter.

Young woman: Is this what you are looking for?
(She points to little white nuts in the jar)
Ian: I'm not sure. (I have never bought nutment, but when I have seen it in markets, the jar is clearly labeled "nutmeg" and the nutmeg crushed up)
Young woman: Hold on. Let me ask my mom. (To older woman) Is this nutmeg?
Older woman: Yes. I think so.
Ian: How much does it cost?
Older woman: One dollar per nut.
Ian: So expensive?
Older woman: Yeah.
Ian: And you're sure this is nutmeg?
Older woman: Yes, positive. I think.
Ian: What does one do with nutmeg?
Older woman: People crush it up and put it on food.
Ian: Well, let me think about it for a minute. In the meantime, do you also sell allspice?
Older woman: No, allspice is something that people put on their food. I don't sell things that people put on food.
Ian: Oh.

After asking around, I couldn't find allspice. So I decided to pass on the nutmeg, as well.

Searching Ecuadorian market for obscure products is something that I really enjoy doing. You normally have to ask ten people where you can buy a certain product and will probably end up walking in circles several times before finally coming across what you are looking for or realizing that nobody has any clue what you are talking about. So the fact that I came up empty-handed in my search for allspice and nutmeg really didn't matter.

Luckily, I got an awesome package in the mail from my mom with all the necessary holiday fixings. And everybody loved the pumpkin pie at shabbat dinner this week, even though it didn't have nutmeg or allspice (I used cinnamon and cloves, instead). (Thanks, Mom.)

Traveshamockery

Beauty pageants, or reina competitions, are a big deal in Ecuador.

They are mentioned all over the newspapers - to the extent that I have begun calculating the reina ratio. Much like the Vikings tried to get Randy Moss the ball on 40 percent of the plays, it appears as if newspaper editors in Ecuador try to put reina pictures or references on 40 percent of the pages.

In the week leading up to a city's beauty pageant, the contestants will visit the local newspaper offices to do interviews so that the newspaper can run a full profile of each candidate with all the information one would care to know and not know.

Almost every organization elects a beauty queen. The drivers union, the artisans, the agriculture center, the high schools, the elementary schools, the preschools (I kid you not), neighborhoods, recreation sports teams, seniors groups, the firefighters, etc. Almost every group, of any kind, elects a reina. (We have been asked whether or not AREvista will have a reina competition. AREvista feels that having a reina competition would distract the group from producing the newspaper.)

Most of the pageant contestants are between the ages of 15-22. To participate in the competitions, they typically have to buy a really expensive dress and shoes. Sometimes a local organizations acts as a sponsor for pageant-related costs, but sometimes families have to spend hundreds of dollars to finance their daughter's candidacy.

The reina competitions in the larger cities are broadcast nationally, and the winners become celebrities.

---

To celebrate its 55th birthday, Arenillas elected its beauty queen last week.

Normally, I don't pay any attention to the reina competitions, but one of my friends was in the running. Also, as someone who graduated from high school and is currently working on two college degrees, I thought that she would be a good role model for the Arenillas youth. So I attended the event to support her.

Unfortunately, my friend finished in second, even though she was the only contestant to answer her question and everybody I spoke to thought that she was, by far, the best candidate.



As this guy would say, "This whole thing is a travesty and a sham and a mockery."

---

Despite the disappointing outcome, the reina competition had its share of ridiculousness.

• The pageant was supposed to start at 8:00, didn't get going until 9:45, and finished at 3:00 a.m. It was by far my latest night out in Ecuador.

• At the beginning of beauty pageants, they always emphasize that there will be a "qualified jury" deciding the results. I guess there has been such a long history of biased or questionable judging that they have to put everybody's mind at ease with a disclaimer.

They talk about how it will be a fair process, that none of the judges have preconceived notions about who will win, and that the judges understand their role.

So one would imagine that when the judges spend 90 minutes conferring about the winners, they would actually do their job. Not so much this time.

The judges were supposed to order the contestants one through five because, like summer camp, there are no losers in reina competitions. They each win a different position.

The MC opened the envelop with the help of the municipal lawyer (kind of like the guy who oversees the ping pong balls in the NBA lottery) and realized that the judges did not choose fourth and fifth place.

After conferring for a few minutes, the MC, lawyer, and city councilman who was supposed to award the prize decided to flip a coin. Neither of the girls was too thrilled with the idea.

• During the wardrobe changes, different musical groups come on to entertain the crowd. One of the acts was a woman singing karaoke. It was horrible. She wasn't much of a singer or a dancer.

When she asked the crowd if she should sing another song, there was a resounding "no." Unfortunately, she didn't take their advice.

• When the candidates are parading around the stage, the MC reads a brief profile about each one. A questions on the sheet was "favorite color." One of the girls said her favorite color was blue, red, green, and gold.

• There was a seven-year old girl sitting next to me who was just miserable. All she wanted to do was go home and sleep. Unfortunately, her parents didn't arrange for a sitter.

• The President of Ecuador said that beauty pageants should no longer include the swimsuit competition. If they had included a swimsuit portion in the contest, this thing easily would have gone until 4:30.

• One of the most important things for any reina competitor is to have a strong cheering section. They handed out noisemakers and whistles as if it were purim. I embraced (This drew some laughs from my neighbors). Once I got home, I used a hammer to reshape my frying pan. I also have a pretty outstanding t-shirt from the event that I will be proud to wear back home.

A new take on the tandem

Or is this the original tandem?

Thursday is the new Monday

Last month, I talked about how the local municipality turned what was supposed to be a two-day weekend into, for all intents and purposes, a four-and-a-half-day weekend.

Today was the first day of work since last Friday. The main difference this time around is that it was a state-supported vacation. Let's check out how they made this dream a reality.

Saturday: Normal weekend
Sunday: Normal weekend
Monday: Nationally recognized day off to promote tourism
Tuesday: Day of the Dead
Wednesday: Independence Day of Cuenca

When Thursday becomes Monday, that is a great week. But for some people that wasn't enough time off. The local high school will essentially not hold classes all week.

Between today's teacher's expo and tomorrow's high school expo, this is pretty much a week of vacation for the students. And after holding classes Monday and Tuesday next week, there will no be classes until the following Monday because of the student parade, Arenillas' independence day, and the hangover day.

Fridge update

As you can tell by the picture, my fridge is still in my kitchen. Although not exactly providing an Arctic chill, the fridge is definitely cold and the freezer noticeably colder.

The only slight issue is that the door does not stay closed. There is a problem with the seal, and it stays permanently ajar. So my landlord jammed a wooden pole between the door and the wall. I have suggested some less obtrusive solutions. They should take fewer than four months to install.

(I sure hope I didn't jinx anything with this post.)

(But if there is anything to jinx, I'd like to do it now so that I have a properly functioning fridge for the rest of my service instead of partially functioning fridge that completely craps out a week before my service ends (forcing me to split the cost of a new fridge with my landlord)

Blueberries in Ecuador?

The blueberry is one of my favorite fruits.

During blueberry season in the States, I binge - which is very good for my immune system but also causes a lot of stains on my clothes.

Last October, I learned that blueberries do grow in Ecuador, but that blueberry season only lasts two days. This makes for some very concentrated binging.



On November 2nd, Ecuadorians commemorate Dia de Los Difuntos (Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Day). It is a holiday in which families go to the cemetery to spend time with the loved ones they have lost.

One of the traditions associated with this holiday is a special beverage called colada morada. It is a brew made of naranilla (little orange cousin), blackberry, blueberry, flour, cinnamon, cloves, lemongrass, arayan, and a variety of other locally available fruits and spices. It is served either hot or cold and often eaten with gingerbread men.

Because blueberries are one of the main ingredients in this beverage, one can find blueberry at the market in the days leading up to the holiday. There is nothing the rest of the year.

On Friday, I bought two bags of blueberries and another one this afternoon. I put them all in my freezer (still working) with plans to make muffins and other baked goodness with them.

Although blueberries do grow wildly in Arenillas, they are very rare. I knew of one person with a blueberry plant in her house and my other friend claims to know of a couple others. According to the woman at the market, the blueberries that she buys come from Ambato in the mountains, which is where most of the berries in Ecuador come from.

Don Maximo and my fridge

Refrigerators are supposed to create cold.

At the end of July, my refrigerator decided to stop producing a low-temperature environment and decided to produce noise, room temperature gas, and plenty of blog material.

While everybody likes blog material, that's not exactly what I look for in a refrigerator. So I sent it off to my refrigerator repairman, who told me that he would fix it within a week.

My fridge finally returned to my kitchen this week.

My repairman has a reputation for being the best in town. That says a lot more about his competition than his competency (or reliability or professionalism).

---

Don Diego is the name of a hallucinogenic plant native to this part of South America. It is also my repairman's name.

Is that just coincidence?

Yes. (But that doesn't mean it's not funny)

---

This was my third occasion when I needed Don Diego's technical skills. The first time he fixed my fridge in four days, and it worked for three months. The next time, he spent a couple of afternoons working on my fridge, and it worked for a couple of afternoons.

This time, he told me that he wanted to patch up a hole that was causing the gas to leak out.

Each time my fridge breaks I have this conversation with Don Diego.

Ian: Can you fix my fridge?
Don Diego: Yes.
Ian: Tell me the truth. Because if you can't fix my fridge, I'll go buy one that works.
Don Diego: No, I can fix it. Don't worry. I'll get it done.

---

One of my friend's is Don Diego's nephew. After spending a few years at the university, he moved back to Arenillas and was in the market for a fridge. He asked his uncle if he knew of anybody with an extra fridge.

His uncle told him not to worry because there was one in his shop for a long time because the owners never came back to pick it up.

My friend plugged it in and realized that the fridge was still broken. The reason the owners had never picked it up is because the repairman had never fixed it. My friend brought it back to his uncle, and only a few months later did he have a functioning fridge in his apartment.

---

When Don Diego told me that the fridge would be ready in a week, I knew that it would take longer. I've lived in Ecuador long enough to expect that. (If you can't find this stuff hilarious, you would probably go insane.)

When it wasn't ready the first week, he explained that he identified the gas leak and would order a new part from the factory to patch it up. He said he would get it to me by Friday, at the latest (or maximo el viernes)

When that week passed, he said that there were so many holes in the back panel that he had to replace the panel. Maximo el viernes.

I came back the next week. He said he was so busy with other projects that he didn't have time. Maximo el viernes.

After patching the hole, he realized that the machine needed a new filter. He didn't have the right piece and would have to go to Machala to pick it up. Maximo el viernes.

He went off to go visit his daughter at university and stayed there four days longer than he planned. Maximo el viernes.

Before leaving, he plugged to fridge in to see if it would stay cold throughout his trip. It didn't. He would have to spend more time filling the holes. Maximo el viernes.

He plugged it in again and realized there were still more holes. Maximo el viernes.

After filling all the holes, he noticed that another aluminum piece needed to be replaced. He couldn't get the piece locally. Maximo el viernes.

He went to visit his daughter again. Maximo el viernes.

He discovered more holes upon his return. Maximo el viernes.

Before you know it, three months passed, and I still didn't have a fridge.

Last week, started the same as any other. I went to Don Diego's house on Monday morning to check in on the fridge and hear whatever excuse he had that week. He told me that he was going to plug in the fridge. If it ran well for a few days, he would get it back to my house.

I came back to his house on Wednesday. He said it was working well. He just wanted to make sure that it would keep working and told me to come back on Thursday.

No one was home on Thursday.

On Friday, his wife told me that the fridge was still working well. She said that her husband would be home around 5:00 and that she would tell him to send the fridge back to my house as soon as he got home. At 6:00 there was still no fridge in my kitchen. I went back to their home. His wife told me that he wasn't back from work yet.

Early Saturday afternoon I was back at their door. He told me he would run one last test on the machine and that he would bring it by my house Sunday.

I went to his house Sunday morning, and he told me he would bring it by later in the day. I said that if it isn't at my house by 6:00, I would ring be ringing his doorbell at 6:00.

I rang his doorbell at 6:00 and woke him up from his siesta. He told me that he had to get ready for mass because he sings in the church choir but that he would bring it by my house afterward.

At 8:45, he finally pulled up to my house with the fridge in tow. We plugged it in and heard some gentle humming and felt some cool air in the freezer.

And finally, after three months, the my fridge was back in my kitchen.

The real question is whether or not he actually fixed it. Hopefully, that's not the subject of another blog post.

---

Now a few thoughts on the whole "repair" process:

• Do I actually believe that he looked at my fridge that many times as many times as he claims to have? No.

• As I told some of my Ecuadorian friends about my refrigerator saga they began referring to Don Diego as Don Maximo Viernes.

• One would think that after three months of disappointment, I would be mad a my repairman. I'm not. Maybe this a case of integration (or assimilation) but I'm still friends with Don Diego.

• Stay tuned for another post that talks about life without a fridge.

Shield vs. broomstick

About a month ago, I wrote about how important Flag Day is in Ecuador.



For all of its pageantry, Dia de la bandera only celebrated the flag's three color bands. It did not celebrate the shield. I wondered whether there was a day to honor the shield.

It turns out that there is.

The Ecuadorian Congress approved the national shield on the flag on October 31, 1900 in the government of Eloy Alfaro. The shield image was originally designed by Jose Joaquin Olmedo, a former Ecuadorian president, in 1845. It contains symbolic images of Ecuadorian national heritage and the zodiac signs from March, April, May, and June.

Little did that congress know what kind of global phenomenon Halloween would become. Although Halloween is an American holiday, Ecuadorians have taken to the idea of dressing up in costumes and going to parties.

The government and school system, however, have not embraced it quite as enthusiastically. At the beginning of October, I began reading official pronouncements in the newspapers that schools and high schools will observe Day of the Shield. They will hold civic moments to commemorate the day and will be prohibited from having Halloween parades or parties.

I understand where the government is coming from on this one. Furthermore, there is enough attention given to Halloween in society here that the educational system doesn't need to promote it as much as it should preserve the national cultural heritage.

This school ban on Halloween won't stop the discos from having their big Halloween parties. Or will they be National Shield parties?

My only question is: How many people will show up dressed as the shield?

Hazy memory

I was talking to a high school teacher last week about the weather. Talking about the weather in Arenillas isn't the most exciting subject, but it is something to talk about. It was a misty morning and a little chilly (By local standards, that is. I was still wearing a t-shirt.)

He had been watching the TV and saw something about flooding in the United States. (It's unclear when he was watching the news or what part of the United States was flooded.)

Professor: It floods all the time in the United States
Ian: No, only when it rains really hard, and the water doesn't drain well.
Professor: It never floods here.
Ian: Really?
Professor: Almost never.
Ian: Weren't there lots of floods last year?
Professor: Yes, they were really bad.
Ian: I think a lot of people had to leave their homes and live in schools for a few months.
Professor: I know. It happens like that almost every year.

Fedipedi

Saturday and Sunday mornings are very quiet in Arenillas.

The residents don´t really leave their homes. Some go to church while others make their weekly visit to the market. Besides that everything is relatively tranquilo.

People aren't that interested in doing projects or having meetings or work days on Saturday and Sunday mornings. They just want to take it easy.

This means I have some free time on your hands.

Starting in June, I began using these early mornings for exercise, going for some long runs in and around Arenillas. At first, these runs weren't really building toward any specific goal, except finding a productive use for the 6:30-8:30 time slot.

I looked at a running calendar and saw that the Guayaquil marathon was at the beginning of October. I figured that four months would be enough time to get ready.

Running the marathon had a few motives behind it.

• For a Peace Corps volunteer, it it necessary to lead by example. Many times, community members will complain that a project or a task takes too much time or energy to complete so they won't do it. If there aren't people willing to push themselves or try something different, then very little will change.

Part of my motivation for training was to show the members of my community what one can accomplish if he or she pushes themselves and plans ahead.

• Recreational exercise isn't really taken seriously here. Although there is a small walking/running group that goes out a few times a week and an aerobics class that meets at night in the coliseum, exercise for the sake of better health isn't normal.

• This is my first marathon, and I couldn't imagine a better training story (rabid dogs, speeding semi-trucks, and venomous snakes). The other volunteer in Arenillas participated in the half marathon. She would go for training runs with me during the week. (It's really easy to get out of bed at 6:15 when you know someone will knock at 6:30, ready to run.)

---

The marathon was last week. It was a great experience.

The run was supposed to be October 3rd but the September 30th police strike pushed it back a week. (Don't you just hate when civil unrest ruins your running plans? It sucks.) The new date, October 10th, was the day after Guayaquil's independence day. The city was a circus, not to mention that actual circus that was in town near the bus station.

I imagine that the date change affected the turnout. There were about 700 participants between the three races (10k, half marathon, marathon).




The race began at 5:00 a.m. (Actually, it was supposed to begin at 5:00 but it ended up starting at 5:20 because we are in Ecuador and "on time" has a different meaning). It's normally a bad idea to be milling about Guayaquil at that hour because the city has a reputation for being quite dangerous. But because Guayaquil also has a reputation for being quite warm when the sun is out, organizers opted for the early start so there was less running in the beating heat. It was quite funny in the first few kilometers because parties were still raging from the night before. You could still hear the booming bass from the discos and ran by the circles of drunk men on the sidewalks still passing small glasses of Pilsener.

If I were planning a marathon, I would strategically locate bathrooms along the route. I understand that most runners' systems should be regulated, and therefore the need for a toilet along the route probably wouldn't arise. But sometimes race-day nerves might aggravate it. There are very few establishments open in Guayaquil at 6:15 to let someone freshen up. For that reason, I will be eternally grateful to the restaurant owner who opened his door and took a chance on me. After my pit stop, I was a new man. No one passed me for the rest of the race (27 kilometers).

After I finished the first half, the sun came up. The heat was pretty bad and hovered around 90 degrees from 7:00 a.m. onwards. Luckily, the race organizers anticipated this and placed water stops at every kilometer. I would grab two cups at each stand, take a gulp from each, and dump the remaining contents on my back. It was quite refreshing and probably the best shower I had taken in days.

(One reason I prefer the metric system: if they put water stops at every kilometer, then there are 42 water stops along the route. If they put water stops at every mile, there are only 26 water stops.)

Because there weren't too many participants, the race organizers did not close off the roads to traffic. Instead, there was a police officer stationed at every intersection. Whenever a runner would approach, the officer would stop traffic and allow the runner to pass. This worked out quite well, and it offered the pedestrian some power that he or she rarely enjoys in this society. I only had two issues with this system. Once, three-fourths of the way through the race, I approached an intersection and noticed that the cop had decided to sneak off duty and get himself some breakfast (large plate of rice with a small piece of chicken), therefore leaving his post unattended. I waited for the car to pass and continued on my way. At another intersection, at mile 23, I don't think the cops saw me coming because I though the five lanes of traffic were stopped so I could pass. It turns out they weren't moving because of a red light. As soon as it turned green, I skedaddled across the remaining lanes.

Over the final kilometers, I felt great. I didn't run into any walls or cramps (I hate running into cramps). I just kept on going and finished in 4:32.20. My goal going into the marathon was to finish it. I did my training without a stop watch and had no specific time goals. Overall it was a great success.

The night before the race, the organizing committee offered a free, all-you-can-eat buffet dinner to all the participants. It was at an upscale restaurant and was the second-best meal I have eaten in Ecuador. There were hundreds of different dishes. Anything you could really imagine. The event had been advertised as a "pasta party" so that everyone could carbo-load before the big race. Ironically, about two percent of the dishes at the buffet included pasta, and just one of them was vegetarian. I wasn't too disappointed. I found other filling options.

My advice to anybody in Ecuador at the beginning of October: participate in the Guayaquil Marathon. Race fee includes an awesome buffet, a nice t-shirt, and some great stories. You can sign up for the 10 k, half marathon, or marathon and still get the buffet ticket.

The Mango Solstice

One of the most common conversations I have with Ecuadorians is about seasons.

Because Ecuador is located on the Equator, it only has two seasons. People want to know what it's like to live in a climate that has four seasons.

I tell them that it's pretty great, but nothing compared to the two seasons they get in Ecuador.

Of course we get fall colors and spring blossoms in the States, but, the way I see it, one of Ecuador's seasons far surpasses any that the United States can offer.

Why is that?

Well, for me, the two seasons in Ecuador are Mango Season and NotMango Season. Mango Season refers to the time of year where you can reach into a tree down the street from your house for a big, juicy mango. There is really nothing like it.

Last week, I celebrated the Mango Solstice: the first Ecuadorian mango of the season. It was delicious.

There is always a great variety of locally produced fruits here: oranges, bananas, zapotes, and papayas (and those are just the kinds of fruit trees I can see from my front door). But in my mind, the mango reigns supreme.

The flavor, the juiciness, the experience, and the residue it leaves in your beard/mustache is just something very special.

For the next four or five months, I will be in mango heaven. I shall try to maintain a count for how many mangoes I consume this season. I'm already at five. (I know I've said this before, but I mean it for real this time)

A five-day break?

The last week of September looked as if it would be normal for local municipal workers.

Work Thursday and Friday followed by the weekend and returning to the office on Monday.

It should have been a normal week. Although Arenillas was in the middle of fiestas, there were no planned days off because the biggest days of the celebration fell on Saturday and Sunday.

Instead of a normal week, they put in a half day's work over the five-day period. Let me explain.

Thursday morning was the police strike. Everyone left the office and took the afternoon off.

Friday morning, everyone showed up a little late unsure of what would happen the day after the police strike. After lunch, the city hall was closed because of municipal worker soccer matches between the city council, the municipal workers union, the contracted municipal employees, and the drivers union.

Saturday and Sunday were a weekend.

Monday was a hangover day so that everyone could recover from his or her fiesta rowdiness. All city offices were closed.

That is how one transforms a two-day weekend into a four-and-a-half-day weekend. If you want to take into the account the civil unrest on Thursday and not count that as part of the weekend, you have an unplanned three-and-a-half-day weekend and that half day of work started late and ended early to prepare for the soccer matches.

I sure hope I don't have to go through that again

Before I continue with the blog post, I'll just let you know that everything in my town stayed relatively calm throughout the protests last Thursday. Although most of the activity was concentrated in the major cities, the entire country was on edge. Tensions have eased, and normalcy has returned.

Last Thursday was supposed to be a normal Thursday. I had a full day of work planned. When I left for work in the morning, I was focused on collecting seeds for the tree nursery. When I got home for lunch, I wondered about the stability of society. And just as quickly as my thoughts escalated, I went to bed Thursday night and woke up to a town that showed little evidence of the national crisis it had faced the day before.

No pasa nada, right?

Not quite.

---

One of my main projects right now is reforesting the local watershed with 250,000 plants. I like to stress the importance of planting native species to protect the area's biodiversity. Since almost all primary forest has been converted to agricultural use, the largest remaining forest in the area is the local ecological reserve, which is run by the Ecuadorian military.

Now is the season when most species in the area go to flower and give off seeds. I have been trying to coordinate seed collection with the ecological reserve for several months. Like any effort to deal with a large bureaucracy, even trying to do a small amount of work requires a large amount of time and paperwork and frustration.

In the course of this process, they had relocated the ecological base and changed commanding officers. But after months of trying, we had finally arranged to go the reserve on Thursday morning.

We were going to meet at the municipality at 9:00 a.m. and go to the reserve from there. When I arrived, I glanced at the news on the TV and saw some demonstrations but didn't really pay close attention. There are always demonstrations of one sort or another, so I didn't really look to see what was going on.

The army arrived at 9:30 a.m., and we set off for the reserve.

The trail that we used for seed collection is deep in the forest. There is limited cell reception. The entire horizon is covered by dense brush. You feel completely separated from civilization.

As we continued along the trail, they received radio transmissions updating them about the escalating situation. I wasn't in earshot of the radio. All I could pick up was their reaction to each update.

With each message the strike's severity became more clear.

We continued with our seed collection because they didn't have orders to do otherwise. But on the ride back to town, there was an air of doubt and uncertainty about what would happen next.

They were talking about the looting and bank robberies that were occurring because the police were not enforcing the law. Some wondered what this meant for the government's stability.

We got back around 1:30, dropped off the seeds at the tree nursery, and bid each other farewell. We said that we would do another seed collection run in a month or so, but given the country's current situation it seemed silly to be planning so far ahead.

I went home for lunch. On my way home, I called another volunteer to find out what was going on. At this point in the day, the police strikes were the big news.

I went home to learn more and parked myself on my neighbor's couch in front of his TV. As the afternoon wore on, there wasn't much new news coming out. A group of people marched through town cheering support of the government, and some of my neighbors played a war drum all day (I think they were practicing for the high school marching band, but the drum definitely made it seem that much more suspenseful).

I watched the news all afternoon and night until I went to bed. At that point, the president was still in the hospital.

When I woke up at 5:30, the first thing I did was check the news. I read about the daring police raid that freed the president and about his address to the country upon his liberation. It was still dark out at this time.

I didn't know how my town would respond to the situation. Would everyone stay inside and reflect on what had happened the last day? Would they go about their lives as normal? Would they just take the day off?

Life just went on.

At about 6:00, the morning milk man passed by. A few minutes later, the boiled corn and humitas saleswoman came through. Then, it was the fresh fish guy.

Aside from the fact that the schools were out and the military was patrolling the streets instead of the cops, life was normal. I went into the municipal office later in the day, and everybody had recovered.

All the talk was about that night's beauty pageant and the weekend's fiestas. Nobody was dwelling on the police strike.

A disturbing story from the newspaper

While reading the newspaper a few weeks ago, I came across a very troubling story. If you would like the Spanish version, you can find it here. If your Spanish isn't strong enough, don't worry. I paraphrase it below.

Headline: They took him from downtown to leave him in a landfill

German, a 72-year old homeless man, was living on the streets of downtown Machala. He had been living this way for many years. One day, a few weeks back, a municipal employee put German in a city car and told German "I'm taking you to a better place." He actually just drove him to middle of some banana fields on the outskirts of town and left him in a pile of garbage.

German pleaded with the workers and asked them how he would get back to the city. They just drove away.

Not knowing what to do next, he stayed in that spot for several hours. Eventually a police car stopped. He asked them to take back to the city but they refused. Instead, they just dropped him at the outskirts of another outlying neighborhood.

The municipal worker who initially "relocated" German to the banana fields said he didn't want the homeless person "affecting the decoration or revitalization of the city." The city worker continued "we don't have the intention to do harm to nobody. ... Machala doesn't have indigents that are from Machala. They are always from other places." He said that he planned on dropping the homeless man in El Guabo or Huaquillas or some other town so that he wouldn't hurt the image of Machala.

Once he was discovered on the outskirts of town, German was taken in by social services. He was given a shower and a hot meal at a city councilman's house before heading off to a hospital and then on to a senior citizen's facility.

The city worker who decided to leave the man in the banana fields was suspended for one month without pay, and his actions were condemned by the municipality. I heard one report that said he carried out the act because he had not been paid for several months.