Ten Cups of Tang

10/5/11

            For my media project in Ecuador, I have teamed up with Andrew and Alison. We have decided to explore gender roles in the Tsachilla community. Today we began our interviews.  Besides the language barrier, I would say the hardest part of the interview process, was the Tang. Everyone we interviewed insisted on making us Tang. I used to love Tang, but I’m not sure I do anymore. It was very hospitable of them, but I’ve used the bathroom four times tonight.

            Carolina was the first one we interviewed. We filmed her while she was washing clothes in the river (she had made us Tang when we arrived home and were preparing our questions.) It was difficult, because she is very shy and her Spanish is limited. We’ll have to interview Victor later, as there are never any men around in the afternoon.

            Next we went to Haley and Michele’s house to interview their host mother (Elena) and her ten-year-daughter Viviana. Elena is a very eloquent woman, and her interview went splendidly. When we told her we were researching the community of Los Naranjos, she even offered to change into her traditional Tsatchilla skirt for the  (video) interview.  Elena has six siblings, but does not want more children than the two daughters she has now.  She is set on their completing  not only high school (she only had six years of schooling,) but university as well.  I must add that currently Los Naranjos doesn’t have a high school, and it’s been a couple years since anyone from the community has attended a high school. Elena even sends Viviana to a school outside of Los Naranjos every day, because at the Tsatchilla school none of the teachers have college educations. It was truly a heart-warming interview.  It’s so wonderful to see such an empowered woman, in a community that our culture would consider to have very old-fashioned values.

            Elena’s determination that Viviana and Nicole (her youngest daughter) attend college intrigued me. No one in Los Naranjos is college educated.  Everyone seems so happy and content here. None of the many college educated adults I know appear  any more satisfied with life than the people I’ve met here. I know that I need a college education, because it’s what I need to be happy. I know it’s what I need to be happy, because of the material comforts and conversation levels I grew accustomed to during childhood. But if Viviana never grew up with a flushing toilet, why does she need one to be happy? If she never discussed literature with her parents, why does she need to to be happy? Perhaps I have misgauged the level of happiness here, or perhaps her mother feels that modern day society will not leave Los Naranjos blissfully isolated for much longer.  In my culture a college education seems to be necessary, but I can’t help but wonder if it truly is here.  Are they worse off because they are poorer? Or are they just living differently?

On a lighter note: if I’ve learned one thing about people in general today, it’s that all women, no matter where they’re from or what language they speak, giggle when you ask them where they met their husband.

You know what? I still freakin love Tang!

Love,

Katherine

My First True Log

10/3/11

Dear Everyone,

Lizzie and I are not due to be up for another hour, but Carolina and Victor are already awake a whispering under their breath. There is something so comforting and homey about the adults speaking softly and trying not to wake the sleeping children. They both have such beautiful voices when they whisper, especially when they use Safiki instead of Spanish. Safiki is like no other language I’ve ever heard before. It’s all just syllables mushed together, if that makes sense. It is beautiful.

            This weekend was pretty relaxing. I mean as relaxing as it gets when you’re trying to not to tear your skin off from scratching. Saturday we piled the fourteen of us into a five-seater truck, and went into Puerto Limon so we could use the Internet café to plan our ISTs (Independent Student Travel,), which are coming up the weekend after next. Three other girls and I are going to Banos, which is supposed to be a pretty awesome volcano, where you can get twenty-dollar massages. I need a break from the constantly being itchy, dirty, and sweaty okay!?!?!? Anyway, it turns out that in the entire town of Puerto Limon there is not a diet coke to be found! Plenty of regular coke, but not a single diet! I’m going through aspartame withdrawal.

            During dinner, we learned that Carolina only attended school from ages nine through eleven. She also told us that neither she nor Victor can read, although they can write a little. I’m not sure if she meant in Spanish or Safiki. Safiki doesn’t have it’s own characters, but  we hear someone sounded out the words with our letters about one hundred years ago.  

            After dinner we asked Carolina to play cards. After some discussion, Lizzie and I decided to teach her Gin, as poker needs chips, go-fish needs a lot of talking, blackjack needs a lot of counting, and war is boring. I guess it was sort of a gamble, trying to teach someone who can’t read to play a pretty  number-oriented game, but she’s intelligent, and caught on quick.  We started by laying out possible threesomes/foursomes on the table, and then progressed to an open hand. The second round we played closed-handed, and she won. It was actually a very enjoyable night. I’m going to leave her the deck when we move on to China.

            Sunday, Nikki and Haley visited us before breakfast, and when Carolina called us to the table, we saw that she had made food and places for all four of us. She’s such a sweetheart.

Later, we went down to the river with Andrew and Ben, and ran into Michele and Haley’s host-family. The little girls decided to slick back Andrew’s hair with red, in the traditional Tsatchilla style.  They opened these pods they picked from trees, and took out the “achote” seeds.  They smushed the seeds with their fingers, and placed them on a giant leaf. They had Andrew kneel on the ground, and they rubbed them into his hair for several minutes. My hands are still dyed red…

            That night we finally had “the log (see 9/30 post)!” It tastes like nothingness, and truly sits in your stomach like a log! I even got to help make them! Here’s how it’s done: First several plantains must be boiled. The families here all have a special tool they call the “lehrohnsah” (sounded out.) It’s like a large cutting board  with one propped-up end. You sit on the non propped-up end with your legs curled around to one side. Using a rectangular rolling pin-type-thing,  you roll out plantains like dough, until they have a matzo-ballish consistency. Then with your hands, you roll the dough into a plantain shape, and there you have your log! Enjoy the recipe!

Love,

Katherine

Skype!

This weekend I will have internet access, and would love to Skype! I´ll be free all day Friday, Saturday except for at nine EST (my parents already claimed that slot,) and Sunday morning. Just e-mail me with your Skype name and a time! Mine is kdkoller493. Hope to talk to you soon!

Hey neighbor, can I borrow a stick of sugar cane?

10/1/11

Dear Everyone,

So you know how women in the United States will sometimes visit one another bearing treats such as coffee and biscotti?  Well here the social act is very similar, it’s just the treats that are different. Michele and Haley stopped by randomly today, brining with them an opened cocoa and some sticks of sugar cane.  It all felt very grown-up. Sugar cane is wonderful. You simply gnaw on it and suck the sugar out. They told us that their homestay mother just chopped one down this morning and cut it into pieces for them. It’s as simple as that!

Today for lunch we each received and entire fish, face, tail, and all. Carolina caught them this morning in a net. Despite it’s terrifying appearance, it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t too fishy, so I’m pretty sure it was a white fish. When I asked “es pescado blanco?” Carolina answered yes, but I’m not sure if that means the same thing when directly translated. The tiny bones weren’t even an issue because she had sort of pre-sliced the fish, and the meat jus fell off the bone. I was a little worried she was going to eat the face (due to stories from my peers) and I would have to follow suit. But that never happened. 

This may be it for a week or two, and then I will inundate you all with news again.

Love,

Katherine

The New Wonderful Adventures of Machete Freddy and Henry Who Also Has A Machete

9/30/11

Dear Everyone,        

Here is a list of things not worth one extra hour in the hauling cattle to slaughter truck:  Disney Land

            Morton’s Steakhouse

            A Britney Spears concert

            A day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

            A Broadway Show

Here is a list of things not worth 15 extra minutes in the hauling cattle to slaughter truck:           A papaya and pineapple farm.

I do not know whose idea this was, as most of the time we are just following blindly on this trip, but to whomever’s idea it was to drive an extra hour (after the first hour it takes to get to Puerto Limon) in that G-d forsaken truck to visit a farm on our day off from hard physical labor: tisk tisk.  To be fair the pineapple was delicious. But the tour itself… And then there was the papaya. I must start by saying that not a single person in TBB West enjoys papaya. Out of the 14 of us, about three can force themselves to choke it down. They would not stop bringing it out to us! All sliced and ready to be eaten, with those big puppy dog eyes. Ben must have eaten 3 entire papaya himself. As we left, they brought us 6 pineapple to bring back to our families. They gave us four large cardboard boxes of papaya.  Hopefully Carolina or Victor like the stuff.

Speaking of Carolina, I decided that although they’ve told us not to be obnoxious and American with our technology, I’m not going to hide out like a shut-in in my bedroom to type. The point is, I’ve brought this laptop into the kitchen to transcribe my journal entries onto a Word document, and as I type, Carolina sits and watches in fascination. In my broken Spanish I’ve explained to her what I’m doing, and I think she understands. I thought she might have seen a computer when that Peace Corps agent stayed with her family for two years (building the cultural center,) but it would appear not. I think she does know what it is though, from the television.

Lizzie and I finally found out what Victor does for a living. He cuts down plantains with his machete.  Plantains seem to be the life-breath (or is it life-blood? What’s the expression?) of Los Naranjos. Many of the other homestay fathers work in the plantain labor industry, and they show up in almost every single meal. My peers speak of “the log,” which is the name they have oh so lovingly given to two plantains mushed into the size of one and boiled. We are the only pair who have never been fed a “log,” while Andrew receives one with every meal.

            Some even speculated that the ice cream Machete Freddy gave us after the farm today was plantain flavored.  Jemma thinks it was just “miscellaneous sugar.” Either way it was… different. It came in a plastic baggy, sort of like an obese milky brother of the freezy-pop.  Well whatever it was, in the blistering heat, I enjoyed it.

Guess what! My homestay mother found Lizzie’s shoe! We came home from work yesterday, and found it waiting in our room for her. Apparently Carolina stumbled upon it while doing laundry in the river. Craaaazy.

Yesterday I saw a woman coming back from bathing in the river, wearing nothing but her traditional Tsatchilla skirt. I believe toplessness is the natural way  here, at least for the older generations. The men who wear their hair in the traditional manner never wear shirts.  I wonder if the older women are covering up because we’re here. I hope not. I guess I should probably specify about the “older” generations. The youngest two don’t seem to really follow all of the attire traditions, but the oldest three do. That’s right, there are currently five generations in Alejandro’s (also Carolina’s) family. This man has grandchildren, and his grandmother is still alive. She even collects her own firewood for cooking! I guess in a society where most women marry and begin childbearing at seventeen, this is possible.

Most people know that chocolate is made from cocoa, which grows on trees, but did you know that you can eat the cocoa fruit? You eat it from around the seed, and then spit the seed out. It is very sweet and wonderful. Yesterday as we were walking back from work all tired and sweaty, “Henri who also has a machete” was cutting them down for us and feeding us their fruit along the way.

It’s strange, but for the first time the other day, I realized that Victor has barely said one word to me. Then I realized that I hadn’t really been addressed by any men in the community. They told us before we came that men and women aren’t really friends in this society, perhaps this is why. Perhaps Victor is just shy and I haven’t spent much time with the other men.  Something else I’ve noticed, is that men here greet every single individual, no matter how large the group, with a handshake. I suppose this is supposed to make us feel personally greeted, but I feel even less noticed, as there is never any eye contact during the handshake.

Note:  watching the news in a language that you barely understand is terribly dangerous. Yesterday as I was watching all hell break loose in Quito, with rioting and general madness in the streets, I began to grow quite concerned. When I asked Carolina if something important was happening, she shrugged and said “es in Quito.” So I went next-door to Haley and Michelle’s house to see if they knew anything. They turned on the news, and finally their homestay  mother was able to explain to me that is was the one-year anniversary of Correa’s (el Presidente de la Republica) kidnapping by the police. Can you imagine what it must have been like for last year’s group?

            Written the next morning: Hahahahaha when I woke up this morning, Lizzie informed me that I fell asleep with a pen in one hand, the anti-itch cream in the other, and the computer in my lap. I guess that’s probably the best way I can illustrate how tiring and itchy my days have been.

Love,

Katherine

P.S. Carolina asked me before dinner last night if I like cheese. Since I arrived, she hasn’t asked me once if I liked something before she cooked it. I was able to say no, and there was no cheese with my egg. Cheese is the one thing I couldn’t choke down for my homestay mother. What a match made in heaven!

As I Went Down in the River to Bathe

9/27/11

Dear Everyone,

            Yesterday was like any ordinary day at home; I had my breakfast, I grabbed my backpack, and I headed off to the bus stop.  Except breakfast was panfryed plantains (like Ecuadorian cheerios) with freshly collected scrambled eggs, my backpack was a wicker contraption made for carrying trees, and instead of a bus, a truck (the type that carries cows, hoses, lumber, etc.) picked us up for work.

            I woke up feeling guilty and itchy. Guilty because I believe our homestay parents have given up their bed for Lizzie and me to share. They are currently sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the other room. I felt itchy, because despite my mosquito net, the bugs had gotten to me in the hours in which I was not sleeping. And these are no ordinary mosquitoes; they make the ones at home look just plain lazy! The bites cover my body, in clumps with tens of bites no more than a centimeter apart. On my feet, they are white and look like boils. On my arms, they are red and look like chicken pox.  On my eyebrow, the single swollen bite denies me the ability to fully open my eye, and it looks like I have a lazy eye. There is also some talk of sand flies… So despite the heat and humidity, I departed for work in long sleeves and long jeans to protect myself.

            Our work project here is planting trees. As communities along the river cut down trees to expand their farms, severe deforestation occurred. The deforestation led to erosion, which is killing the fish the river communities need to survive. The communities now understand the issue with cutting down trees, and have pledged not to repeat their mistake. I must clarify that this is no Hadassah mosey on down and plant a single tree. Our goal is to plant 10,000 trees. The first day we planted a dismal 200. Giovanni, our project manager, said we planted 300, but I knew he was stretching the truth to make us feel better. To reach 10,000 we are going to have to work up to over 600 a day. I’m not sure if we can do it…

            The trees we are planting are about the size of houseplants. Every morning we fill up our wicker baskets with about twenty trees, and wade across the river in our regulation boots. I don’t know the actual name for the tools we use, but we call them “diggers.” We stab the earth with the diggers, then pull the two end pieces apart to close the mouth of the two front claws. In this way we scoop out sections of dirt, to create perfect cylindrical holes. About half of us dig, while the others put trees in the holes and cover them up with dirt. My favorite job is the digging. There is something very satisfying about completing a hole. Along with Giovanni, “Machete Freddy” and “Henry who also has a machete” accompany us, telling us where to dig and macheteing down shrubbery that gets in our way.  

            I never knew the meaning of sweating before yesterday. People use that a lot as an expression, but seriously, at home I had never really sweat.  Yesterday, I looked like normal people after they exercise! My peers looked like they had just existed the shower. Not only was I drenched in sweat, but I was filthy as well. After about your fourth plant the dirt is everywhere, your face, your hair, your clothes, your nails. And you know what happens when dirt mixes with the moisture of sweat. Anyway, after returning home in this disheveled state, we recalled that we do not in fact have running water. So our homestay mother promptly sent us down to the river to bathe. We took Haley and Michelle (who live right next-door) with us, and trekked down to the river soap, shampoo, bowls, and towels in hand. The only issue with bathing in the river (besides the cold, the mud, and the trek,) is that it’s not very deep. So to fully submerge my body, I had to either squat, or get down on my knees (which would be extremely complicated with the mud.) Basically, it was a mess. A hilarious and ridiculously fun mess. Lizzie lost a flip-flop to the mud. She had to stumble back up through the woods with one shoe. Perhaps next time we will be able to bathe more gracefully. I imagine pouring water over ourselves with a bowl will be quite tranquil once we get the hang of it.

            It’s funny how everything tastes better after the most physical labor of your life. The peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich I had for lunch: the best butter-and-jelly sandwich of my life. I have a theory that PB&Js really only taste good when you’ve earned them. Yesterday, I earned two.

            Carolina made chicken soup for dinner. I don’t know how she knew that is what I’d been craving to heal me ever since I came down with this cough (that sounds more like consumption.) And at dinner we finally found out why she appeared so much wealthier than the other families around us. It turns out that she’s Alejandro’s (they call him the President (we think he’s sort of the shaman) of Los Naranjos) daughter.  We have now figured out that we have homestay cousins on both sides. Maggie and Kelsey are living in the huge house of Alejandro’s son (we believe he is inheriting Alejandro’s position,) and Michelle and Haley are living with Victor’s brother.  I guess since our leaders are living with Alejandro, that makes them our homestay aunt/uncles. I wonder if it is hard to marry in a community with only 248 people, many of which are your cousins. I know that Ben and Andrew’s homestay father goes to a different Tsatchilla community every weekend to visit his girlfriend. Perhaps it’s done this way?

            It’s funny how I talk of the cushy homestay situation I’m in, with no running water, concrete floors, and four doorless (actually she hung sight-blocking blankets today) rooms.  I guess it proves that wealth is all relative. I wonder sometimes if it would be a better experience to live with one of the poorer families, with their thatched roofs, wooden floors, and no electricity. But I guess big picture my home is still a pretty drastic change.

            There are benefits and drawbacks to Carolina and Victor’s not having children. We have no kids to play with in the evenings, but on the other hand, some of my peers have so many homestay siblings, that they cannot eat with the family because there simply isn’t enough silverware. I’m very glad we get to eat with the family.  I know I’ve made a lot of assumptions in this post, but just one more I’m promising. We assume that Carolina cannot have children. In this community it does not seem possible to be married seven years and have no children. Carolina’s sister-in-law is twenty-four with three children. She was married at thirteen and gave birth to her first child at 16!  And at the grand welcome, there were several women who looked like teenagers nursing babies. What a different culture.

            Well, with these bites in addition to the sound of rain on a metal roof (the Soviets are coming!) Lizzie and I have had to Benadryl ourselves to sleep and it’s starting to kick in. More soon!

Love,

Katherine

Day 1 – Los Naranjos

We’re in Puerto Limon for the afternoon, and I have about five minutes of Internet access. I’m just going to use my thumb drive to post my latest four journal entries. Do not be offended if you do not receive an e-mail, I have very little time.

9/25/11

Dear Everyone,

I can’t get over this situation I’m in. I’m currently in bed, surrounded by a mosquito net that I have romanticized into a four-poster bed. This home, this culture, it is the most drastically different situation of any situation they can throw at us on this trip. I can’t believe they chose this for our first destination. I don’t know whether to respect them or resent them for refusing to ease us into the habit of culture shock.

            Today after four hours on a public bus, followed by one hour in the back of a truck (that Dave (our leader) commented would send his mother into ballistics) we arrived in Los Naranjos. Our homestay families we all there waiting for us, and I was shocked to find that the Internet had not over-exaggerated.  The women here really do wear the customary colored striped skirts; many of the men do have hair slicked back with red, and the children are covered in black drawn-on stripes. I’m assuming the black stripes, like lots of black eyeliner in India, are to protect the children. I will eventually ask one of the better Spanish speakers of our group, to ask one of the better Tsachilla Spanish speakers.

            My homestay mother, Carolina, speaks about as much Spanish as I do (for those who don’t know, which is mas poco.) Her husband, Victor, speaks only a little more. It feels very strange to call them my homestay parents, when at twenty-four and twenty-five it’s biologically impossible that they would have a child my age. Carolina married Victor at seventeen. That’s a year younger than I am! I’m practically an old maid here (haha for those of you who saw Hello Dolly!)

            Upon our arrival, we were introduced to Alejandro, the leader of the Tsachilla tribe, and a few of the community members. After a short argument with one of the homestay mothers on how we could possibly work for four hours every day and only have a sandwich for lunch (yes, we will be well taken care of here,) Jemma (our Australian coordinator here) paired us with our families, and we proceeded to their homes.

            My home here consists of four rooms: the kitchen/dining room, the bathroom, the room in which Lizzie and I sleep, and the room in which my parents sleep. All four rooms together are about the size of my bedroom at home. The floor is tile in the kitchen and bathroom, and concrete in the bedrooms. The roof is metal, which leads me to believe that we are staying with one of the more affluent families in the community, Most of the  homes have thatched roofs, wooden floors, and no indoor toilet. Although I must specify that although there is an indoor toilet, there is no running water.  We brush our teeth and wash our faces with a jug of clean water, and this runs into a basin beneath the sink. To flush the toilet, we poor the water that collects under the sink into the toilet, causing enough pressure to flush.

Despite the lack of running water, we do have lights, electrical outlets, a gas stove, and an eternally playing television. It’s funny to think I’m living in such an isolated community, with so few of the technologies I’m used to at home, but I’m able to fall asleep to the Spanish-speaking Selena Gomez voice-over.  I mean, there are so many chickens running around here, that they sometimes enter the house. And yet, as I sat in the plastic patio furniture at the kitchen table for dinner, I was accompanied by the sound of “The Simpsons” in Spanish. No doors to the bedrooms (which makes changing a game of chicken,) but 24/7 access to the telenovelas.

Dinner was the best meal I’ve had here since we left home. It was simply boiled chicken (very fresh I imagine with the amount of chicken running around) with pasta, vegetables, and rice, but it was seasoned to perfection. The portions were extremely generous, but thankfully Carolina has no children, so is not biologically predisposed to force seconds on us. McKinley (of TBB ’10-’11) scared us out of our minds about always being hungry in Ecuador, and with horror stories of eating grubs (maggots.) It seems the food Lizzie and I stockpiled in preparation will go to waste, as Carolina is such an excellent cook that I’m sure even her grubs will be delicious. I’m going to try to fall asleep now; it’s been a long day.

Love,

Katherine