Feliz Ano Nuevo!

I wonder what that Smurf will be doing on New Year's Eve?

Do you ever wonder what other countries do to celebrate the New Year?  Granted, it's not something that occurs to you on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis...honestly, I have never really thought about it myself.  Until we got to Ecuador, I assumed the whole world watched Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve until midnight and then went outside to the front porch and banged on mom's old pots and pans with wooden spoons until said wooden spoons broke and splintered or until the neighbors called the cops.  Not the case here in Ecuador, as far as I can tell.  Instead, the tradition here is much more colorful, creepy and loud!

The tradition is known as, Ano Viejo or Better Luck Next Year...and we dig it!  This is a centuries old practice that every Ecuadorian participates in with vigor and enthusiasm.  Ecuadorians construct effigies ranging in size of anyone from political figures, famous people, cartoon characters (i.e. Smurfs!) or even regular people.  There are roadside stands which were selling paper mache heads or full bodies...seeing a vendor selling colorfully and usually smiling decapitated heads along the road and in town is a bit creepy.  People either buy the heads or bodies or make their own and then display them proudly for the week leading up to New Year's Eve.  These lifeless bodies are everywhere...outside of homes and businesses, tied to cars, in the supermarkets...I even saw one trying to catch a bus out of town the other day.  Sadly, I never saw a bus stop for him...poor bastard.  In addition to the paste and paper dummies, notes or messages are attached to the bodies.  A handwritten note explaining all the regrets, disappointments or negativity from the past year which must be eliminated through a cleansing fire.  Oh, there are also men who dress in drag and act as the widows of the crusty characters complete with crying and begging for money to compensate for the loss of their husband or the old year.  In an word, awesome!  Nevertheless, the culmination of this week is at midnight on New Year's Eve when the effigies are burned as symbolism for the end of an old or unlucky year and the hope of better luck in the new year.

Laura decided that we should put our own twist on the tradition and do a little burn of our own past year.  We colored ugly paper masks that represented our past year and wrote on the back various things, names, unfortunate situations, etc.  We took those masks down to our terrace and burned them in a flower pot while Eli watched and wondered out loud why we were burning our pretty masks that we worked so hard to color.  He's too young to have issues to burn, but soon enough my son...sadly, soon enough.  I have to say it was very cathartic and made Laura and I both thankful we made it through 2011 still healthy and no worse for the wear.  It is a great and meaningful tradition that we hope to continue no matter where we are in the world in the future.  Hopefully, we won't have to write too many things when we burn our next masks.

Happy New Year to all of you and we wish you all the best of health and happiness for 2012 and beyond! 

Cheers!

Merry Christmas!

Santa is much bigger here in Ecuador.

Merry Christmas to all of our wonderful friends and family!  We wish you all a happy and healthy holiday with your loved ones.  Cheers!

Hasta Luego, Cotacachi...

The Three Musketeers or Moe, Larry and Curly?

Last Monday, we bid a very fond farewell to Cotacachi.  We have, for now, traded the mountains for the beach.  Seems a pretty fair swap, right?  Besides the obvious differences in scenery, there are some very stark contrasts between the two locales that were mostly unexpected.

Manta is a fairly large city, by Ecuadorian standards, with a population of around 150,000.  And, just as in the States, small towns and cities have their pros and cons.  We have immediately found that here in Manta, the locals are not as friendly as the locals and indigenous peoples of Cotacachi.  This is a broad stroke and I am merely generalizing for the sake of being concise.  Nevertheless, Cotacachi was such a wonderful place for us to move to on our first try…it was lucky.  The warmth and kindness of the locals and indigenous peoples is unmatched in my experience.  They were genuine in their thoughtfulness and pure in their sincerity.  It was a great experience to live amongst such a high caliber of people.  I loved walking into town for the simple pleasure of getting to say “good morning/Buenos dias” to the random person, or stopping to chat with Maria, the sweet indigenous lady who lived outside our community and to be also greeted excitedly by her pack of very friendly dogs.   Riding the bus from Cotacachi to the surrounding towns and cities was also one of those unexpected pleasures that will be missed.  There are countless details from the bus which will be forever etched in our hearts, minds and noses.  Bartering and buying from the markets in Cotacachi and Otavalo.  The people, colors, textures, variety…it was a feast for the senses and wallet!  Laura has gotten to be quite the champ at bargaining in Ecuador…she knows just enough Spanish to be deadly.  Eli and his two friends, Donato (formerly Jonah) and Nanke.  I don’t know whether or not Eli will have a memory of them when he is older, but I hope so.  Our wonderful and selfless Ecuadorian friends who helped us navigate our way through a new life experience in a foreign country.  So many absolutely perfect things to pack away in our mental suitcases it is hard to remember them all.  Did I mention the natural beauty or that they speak slower so we can actually try to understand what they are saying?  It’s the little things.

So, back to my original point.  The people in Manta are not as friendly.  However, we have met some very kind and nice people.  Just enough to make us really think we could live here on the coast for awhile.   Manta has the conveniences of a city that was lacking in Cotacachi.  There is an airport which can get us anywhere nationally or internationally cheaply and quickly.  There is more variety for shopping.  Easy access to beautiful beaches and the Galapagos Islands.  Warm weather and a coastal lifestyle all year.  And, most importantly, there is work for us here in Manta with which we could actually make a decent living.  That was the most glaring and important difference for us.  If we want to stay here in Ecuador, I/we need to work.  As much as we like to pretend that we are retired, we are not retired.  As much as we loved Cotacachi, there was no real future for us there.  Manta can offer us a future, and it has.

Now, here’s the rub.  We decided to move to Manta because I was offered a job teaching English at a wonderful school.  Of course, as is the norm for our lives, something happened.  While we were in Cotacachi getting the rest of our things packed and moved out of our rental house, we received an email from another school in Manta wanting both me and Laura to come in for an interview.  This wasn’t just any school, this was THE school here in Manta.  The school that is the Carmel High of Manta, but in a good way.  This school has a group of private investors dedicated to making this school the best and most well-rounded of any school in the country.  They are sparing no expense to meet that end.  They have a brand new, state-of-the-art facility (with a view of the ocean!) that would rival most schools in the States.  They have made us a very generous offer to come teach for them.  An offer that we are seriously considering.

Life here in Ecuador is good, but not perfect…

Manta Pics...

Sunset in Manta

Thanksgiving Dinner

Enjoying the beach

Cute kid

How Eli likes to pose for pictures these days

Manta Coast

Manta On My Mind...

Un penique for your thoughts.

Decisions, decisions.  Seems like just when we have our hearts and minds set on something (or someplace) then the wind changes direction on us.  This time, the wind was a gentle and warm ocean breeze coming in off the coast of Manta.

It began innocently enough with just taking a vacation from vacation and a break from the chill of the mountains.  We had never been to the coast of Ecuador and had been given differing accounts and testimonials of what to expect.  All we knew was that sand plus water multiplied by sun equals happy...outside of that, we didn't really care.  The trip there was quick and painless and easy, just as are most things here in Ecuador...pleasantly uncomplicated.  Laura was coming off of a brutal case of Montezuma's Revenge and I was unfortunately starting to feel a little funky on the plane ride out to Manta.  The Revenge had gotten hold of me upon arrival to our hotel and I spent the first two days in Manta riding out headache, fever and chills under the covers in our room while Laura and Eli hung out on the beach...cruel and unnecessary punishment. 

The night before we were to leave for Manta, I got a random call on our rinky-dink Ecuadorian cell phone from the Director of English Studies at a bilingual high school in Manta.  Laura had sent around my resume and teaching certification out to various schools around Ecuador just to see what would bounce back.  I had already interviewed and gotten a very nice offer from an English school in Cayambe which is a beautiful, but isolated town in the Andean highlands shadowed by an amazing snow-covered volcano.  We thought about it for a second, but decided to decline the offer for various reasons.  The call from the school in Manta was unexpected and intriguing.  I decided, "Why not?"  We didn't have anything planned while we were to be in Manta so I might as well test the waters with an interview.  In spite of my bout with The Revenge, I pulled myself together and went for it...my pasty skin was even pastier, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep and sweat was pouring down my back like some diseased waterfall...I was a vision.  The school was very nice and located outside of the city in a secluded and quiet area.  All the schools we have seen in Ecuador are behind walls or gates.  I still can't decide if they are trying to keep people in or out.  Nevertheless, the school was great and the Director was a lovely woman who spoke perfect English and had apparently had a bad experience in Wisconsin earlier this year...I got the impression it was a romance gone bad because she didn't want to tell me about it and she may have cried a little bit when I asked.  The rest of the interview went very well and she encouraged me to explore other teaching opportunities while in Manta.  Native English speaking teachers are a hot commodity in Ecuador and one can usually walk into a school and get either an interview or job offer on the spot.  It was nice to feel so needed and valuable and not in the "dime-a-dozen" category as I was so used to in the States.   I could start to see more clearly the potential.

Laura went out looking for some food later that day and made contact with an American business owner who had been living in Manta with his family for quite sometime.  He had told her that his kids went to a great school and they were looking for a Native English speaking teacher for the next school year.  I was still a hot mess, but decided I should go and visit that school in the morning regardless of my zombie-like condition.  I showed up unannounced at the school armed with nothing more than my resume and flop sweat.  I got some resistance from the security guard at the front gate as I tried my best to convey to him in my pseudo-Spanglish that I would like to speak to someone about a teaching position.  He was very patient with me and decided I was worth the extra effort to go and get a teacher who spoke English.  A very sweet woman with a kind face appeared before me and asked what I needed or wanted.  I showed her my resume and before I could utter the words "English teacher," she grabbed my arm and whisked me away to speak to another teacher.  This teacher was the head of the English department at this school and to my delight, he spoke perfect English.  He spoke to the female teacher (who still had a death grip on my arm so presumably not to lose me or have me escape!) in Spanish and he got very excited.  He asked if I was wanting a teaching job and I don't think he waited for my answer as I was again being whisked away to an upstairs office.  I was to meet immediately with the Principal of the school to discuss my employment.  It was a literal whirlwind...in my foggy state I was unclear if this was cool or if I was a security threat.  The principal did not speak English and so the male teacher stayed to act as translator for our meeting.  Unbeknownst to me, they had apparently been waiting for me to show up on their doorstep.  I was the cute little stray puppy at their gate who just wanted a nice family to feed me and rub my tummy and not hit me on the nose with a rolled up newspaper for piddling on the rug...or something like that.

At some point I remembered that Laura and Eli were out waiting in the taxi...I wasn't sure how long I had been inside, but I figured it had been more than an hour at that point.  The taxi driver decided that Laura and Eli should go inside to see the school, too (I found out after the fact that the taxi driver was keeping Eli busy teaching him the Spanish alphabet...Eli hung in there until the letter T then pooped out).  So while I was finishing up my meeting they were getting a tour of the campus.  I met up with them outside the Principal's office and Laura's eyes were wide with excitement and anticipation.  I was still trying to process everything that had just happened, but knew that I had just been offered a job to be their only Native English teacher and they had also offered to have Eli go to school there as well for half price and they had also asked me if Laura needed a job and they may have offered to take care of my visa dilemma.  Not too shabby for some sickly dude off the street. I would say that it was my winning smile, but I don't remember even playing that card.  All in all, it was an experience and we had some thinking to do.

So, here's the bottom line:  As much as we love living in the mountains and our cute little town, we are very isolated and there aren't many kids for Eli to interact with on a regular basis...not to mention, our tourist visa expires the first week in January.  If we intend to stay in Ecuador longer than three months, we need to apply for a visa extension or, I needed a job that would offer to get me a work visa.  Manta was beautiful and I, in my wildest dreams, never thought I could live and work in a place like that.  We could seriously afford to live right on the beach, literally!  It is a great opportunity and something that we are very much considering...this is one of those decisions that is pretty obvious and could potentially be a regret later in life.

I am reminded right this moment of the song "Seize the Day" from the movie Newsies which was a favorite of my dad's...he used to sing it with such conviction and his usual theatrics and flair.  I feel like right now at this point, that song should be the theme song for my life...with my dad singing it for good measure, of course...

Open the gates and seize the day,
Don't be afraid and don't delay;
Nothing can break us, no one can make us,
Give our rights away.

Arise and seize the day;
Now is the time to seize the day,
Now is the time to seize the day!

Happy Thanksgiving via Ecuador...

Our forefathers would approve.

I'm just going to get this out of the way right off the top:  We spent Thanksgiving on the beach and did not eat turkey.  I don't feel so much guilt over the former, but the latter I do have a smidge of regret.  Turkey, of course, is tradition on Thanksgiving...as is green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, cranberry salad and family dysfunction.  It just all makes sense together, except for the cranberry salad...never cared much for that combination of ingredients.  I missed the turkey and the interaction with dear friends and family, but our sushi was pretty darn tasty.  I imagine that the Asian pilgrims may have enjoyed sushi and sake with the natives those many long years ago.  Probably not a California Roll, but definitely a nice Dynamite Roll or Pink Dragon, perhaps.

This Thanksgiving, more so than any in recent memory, I am very thankful for a new life and fresh start with Laura and Eli.  It has become more and more evident that this roll of the dice was a pretty good one.  We needed this.  When we left the States in October, our little family unit was teetering precariously on a thin strand of waxy dental floss strung very loosely over a deep gorge of stress, disappointment and regret.  It was dismal at best and mostly hopeless.  Stepping back a few thousand miles away from that disturbing Dali painting it is amazing that we could make anything positive happen in the emotional state we were in...I was certain that we were incapable of making a good decision or choosing a direction that wouldn't come back and bite us in the proverbial butts.  Granted, it's still early, but things are falling into place and we have learned to smile again.  We are "The Little Family That Could" and we are almost to the top of that mountain.  I am thankful for the constant, steadfast, selfless and gracious support of our family and friends...we love and appreciate you all.  It's been a rough year, but I am certain it will end on a positive note that will carry us on through next year and beyond...we will endure and keep hope alive or, as a wise and beautiful Irish woman from Colorado once told us, "Don't let the bastards get you down!"  Wise words and a beautiful sentiment, indeed...cheers to all of you this Thanksgiving weekend!

That wave never did catch him.

Embracing the Randomness...

The owl was very impressed.

Many of the things we see around here on a daily basis are odd, strange and very random.  We have learned to embrace and accept most everything.  I like to equate our new surroundings to Wonka's Chocolate Factory...it's crazy and doesn't necessarily make sense, but it works!  It is amusing and innocent and, yes, very brightly colored.  There is a palpable innocence and honesty to the locals.  They love life.  They love their families.  They are completely happy to just be happy.  I dare say that this is unconditional and pure and devoid of naivete.  From the smallest child to the most weathered and seasoned adult, the same innocence is in their eyes.  And their culture is a direct reflection on their honesty and innocence.  What I view as "random" from my perspective, is unintentional.  Everyday is rife with examples.  So, without further ado, here are a few of those great examples of randomness:

We were leaving the SuperMaxi (side point: It still boggles my mind why they chose to name a grocery store after a feminine hygiene product.) grocery store in Ibarra yesterday when we noticed a guy standing literally in front of on-coming traffic juggling three big machetes...and, sadly, he wasn't very good, possibly self-taught.

Families of three, four and even five riding on the same motorcycle or scooter...amazing and impressive.

There is something of a fascination, which we cannot figure out, with the local culture and stickers or decals.  This is the very definition of random when it comes to adorning cars, trucks, buses (especially buses!) and businesses with any sticker image ranging from western sunset scenes, Detroit Pistons or New York Yankees logos, clowns, rainbow Jesus, regular Jesus, Bart Simpson, Tweety and/or Pooh, Playboy logo, local soccer team logo, the names Teresa or Maria, over sized blonde in bikini...you get the drift.

Massive colorful statues, usually located in common areas or roundabouts, depicting local peoples doing various activities like working in a field, riding horses or breastfeeding.  The latter statue was disturbingly graphic.

Indigenous children wear some interesting accessories with their customary dress, such as: silver boxing gloves, spider man pajamas over the clothes, Disney princess backpack, etc.  A nun was walking through the main square texting on her phone.  I wonder who she was texting?  Street dog walking down the sidewalk carrying a baby doll in its mouth.  Small truck with 15-20 students piled in the back.  Local "handyman" fixing our gas stove armed with only his mouth and a long piece of wire...works great!


Anywhere we go, whether it be here in Cotacachi or in another town, locals and indigenous peoples take the time to acknowledge Eli and either touch his face in a gentle way or try to interact with him.  I believe they are genuinely intrigued and amused by him.

Everyday we walk into town, there is a little boy who always manages to find a dandelion to pick and give to his mother.  He tells her she is "the most beautiful mommy in the whole world" and I'm pretty sure he means it.  That's just the way Eli is most of the time...very random and very sincere.  I think this culture suits him well.