Well I´m back in Quito after spending a week in Riobamba. Originally Manuel, the man with whom I spoke in the last post, was going to set me up with a friend of his to stay for the week. After I stayed with Manuel´s family for a night and we all connected really well, we just decided that it would be the best possible situation if I just stayed with their family instead! It´s always amazing how drastically things can differ from your expectations. My first meeting with Manuel was nerve-wracking and discouraging but by the next day we had become very good friends.
Alright, so the day after my meeting with Manuel I went back to his house for another chat. There was another miscommunication about meeting time so I ended up spending the afternoon with his 17-year-old son Luis (or Israel) talking, playing chess, and making lunch. When Manuel got home that afternoon he suggested that I just stay the night with them since he didn´t have a family. After I got settled Manuel invited me to the preparations for a wedding to be held the following day. Manuel is an extremely important community leader (he actually had two meetings with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa during the week I was with him) and conducts many of the more important ritruals in the community. That night Manuel led a few prayers for the marriage and led a really interesting pre-matrimony ritual that involved the fiancés force-feeding each other, much like the American wedding cake tradition. We also met Manuel´s parents that night and had a beautiful view of the Southern Cross constellation.
The next day we woke up at 4:30 (the normal wake-up time for the family) and headed back to the groom´s house for a ritual bath. As we were sitting around waiting for the bath and watching the sun rise an ancient Quechua woman came hobbling out of the house dragging a large bucket. When I got up to help her carry it I realized the bucket was full of probably 70 skinned guinea pigs for the wedding feast. The night before I´d explained to Manuel that guinea pigs are only used at pets in the U.S. and he very somberly replied, "Many pets will die tomorrow." Manuel, Luis, and I collected herbs and plants from the garden to use in the bathing and then headed out into the field behind the guinea pig hut. The bath consisted of Manuel dripping, splashing, and throwing alternating ice cold and luke warm water on the bather (the bride actually broke out in tears from the shock of the cold). Not having woken up at 4:30 for nothing, I too was brought close to tears as, standing in a field in my underwear, I was thrashed with cold water and orange peels.
While the bath in itself was definitely refreshing, being ritually cleansed also allowed me to help Manuel with the actual marriage ceremony that afternoon. It was held outside La Balbenera, the oldest Catholic church in Ecuador, were Manuel, Luis, a friend Pati, and I set up the ritual space with a fruit border, an offering of geometrically arranged food at the center, and a special burning. It was a very elaborate ritual lasting about 40 minutes in the noon sun. The ritual burning had to be lit by a non-menstruating woman and only people who had been bathed could even enter the sacred space. All in all a very interesting afternoon. When we got home I had lunch with Rosario (Manuel´s wife) and the kids, Ruth (20), Luis (17), and Koreths (13) where we traded Quechua and English words and phrases. That evening I went to a youth service at Ruth´s evangelical church which was very interesting.
The next we also woke up obscenely early and headed off to an Inti Raymi (the summer solstice festival, inti=sun and raymi=festival in Quechua) ritual in Cacha, a traditional community high in the mountains above Riobamba . When we got there we were immediately put to work making breakfast for a group of visiting American medical students and the community leaders who would be attending the ritual. It was a lot of fun to be on the inside, making the salads and traditional drinks and getting to serve people instead of being served. Most of the Ecuadorian attendees got a kick out of being served by the American visitor and were really patient. The Americans were just confused. The breakfast was followed by the actual Inti Raymi festival where Manuel was once again leading the proceedings. It combined several of the same elements of the previous day´s ritual but was much better attended. On the ride home Manuel and I talked about indigenous politics and tourism after so many of the people at the ritual were either foreigners or Ecuadorians from the city with little interest in the actual ritual. I was amazed at how carelessly and disrespectfully the Americans and Europeans would push there way through the crowd to get a view, walk through the sacred space, and snap pictures despite Manuel´s request that they not.
The rest of the week passed relatively calmly with cooking, cleaning, reading, birthday parties, Incan exercises, Quechua/English lessons, community visits, a marriage offer from a Quechua woman, conversations about politics, religion, academia, and background, walks, and views of Chimborazo, Tungarhua, and El Altar (the highest mountains in the country) from my bathroom window. It feels incredible that I became so close with this family after such a short period of time but saying goodbye was much more difficult than I´d ever anticipated. I´m sure we´ll stay in touch as I want to improve my Quechua and everyone in the family is very enthusiastic about learning English. Manuel is also very interested in American indigenous politics and would like to make a connection between Jatun Sacha Wasi (the Quechua university in Riobamba of which he is the director) and a Sioux college in South Dakota. Hopefully something will work out.
Sorry for the long post but if you can believe it I´ve left out tons. After a week of waking up at 4:30 (ssoo the opposite of what I´m about) I´m headed for a nap. My mom and sister will be arriving in Quito soon for a week after missing some connections so I´m sure I´ll have more to tell soon. I hope this finds you all well and stay tuned! Yopaichani (Thanks) and ashta kama (until later).
Coming soon: a week with Mom and Lauren in Ecuador
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