Good evening! I’m currently back at my apartment after a
great, yet exhausting, day of exploring the FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de
Ciencias Sociales) library and getting an Ecuadorian cell phone. I’ll start,
however, with where I left off last time!
I stayed in on Saturday night, and while I was watching TV,
heard fireworks outside. I ran to open the sliding glass door to the terrace,
and sure enough, there they were – fireworks at eye level! They only lasted a
minute, though, so not enough time to grab my camera.
Unfortunately on Sunday, I ventured out to find a bar where
I could watch the Ecuador vs. Colombia soccer match, but since they don’t sell
alcohol in Ecuador on Sundays, everything within walking distance was closed! I
could’ve taken a taxi to La Mariscal, where I know there would’ve been places
open to watch it, but I settled for watching it on my little TV with the actual
noise from the stadium (it’s about 2 km away and there were 40,000 + people
there) in the background.
On Monday afternoon, I met up with my friend Galindo from
Yunguilla, and we went to buy our tickets for the Ricardo Arjona concert in
Quito next Friday evening. He’s one of the most successful Latin American
artists of all time, so it should be fun! Here’s the YouTube link to one of his
most recent popular songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9cCPQVPv8o
We came back to the apartment and I was all excited to cook
chicken parmesan, one of my favorite dishes, for dinner. The friend I made in
Customs, Erin, sent me an e-mail and so she and her friend came over and joined
us, but unfortunately the chicken parmesan was, in my opinion, a disaster. The
oven and stove here are gas-powered, which I’ve never cooked with in my life. I’d
mastered the stove earlier in the week, but I had yet to attempt turning on the
oven. With Galindo’s help, we got the oven lit, and I put in the chicken to cook.
Apparently you can’t control the temperature with gas ovens, so the two chicken
breasts took almost an hour and a half to cook! (Normal time is 30 minutes) And
even then, they didn’t turn out the way they should have. I got some water
boiling for pasta (this is a feat considering the altitude), and even prepared
salad, which I washed with bottled water because I was feeling very vegetable
deprived, but in my semi-perfectionist eyes, nothing was how it was supposed to
be. We ended up making delicious mojitos, however, and Galindo and I taught
Erin and Briana how to play cuarenta (a traditional Ecuadorian card game that
translates to “forty” because that’s how many points you need to win), so all
in all, it was a fun evening.
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| Tomates de arbol (tree tomatoes) that I used to make juice! |
On Tuesday, I went out to explore the Universidad de las
Americas (University of the Americas) library. The University is a ten minute
walk (downhill) from my apartment, and the building is very nice and modern! I
knew before I went that they don’t specialize in social sciences, but I thought
that maybe it would be a good place to get work done. Boy, was I wrong! The
library was extremely loud! All of the students looked to be doing work, but
they were all talking to each other in the process! There were at least two
loudspeaker announcements while I was there asking people to quiet down, but of
course people could barely hear them, so it didn’t make much difference. I was
able to find three or four good books related to my research, so I’ll probably
go back there again next week because I can’t check them out, but I might try
going at a different time of day to see if there’s less noise!
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| A close-up shot of a tomate de arbol fruit |
This afternoon, I walked to the nearest Ecovia (integrated
bus system – the US should really learn a lesson from these South American
systems – you pay BEFORE you get on the bus and they’re handicap accessible!)
station, and kind of made a new friend along the way. This woman with an
umbrella that I had seen walking out of the neighborhood caught up to me as I
was waiting to cross the street, and asked if I was taking a taxi. I told her
that I was walking to the bus stop, and she starts on a story about how she
grabbed all of her bags in a hurry because she need to make an “urgent trip to
the mall”, but had forgotten her wallet. She then asks if I can give her money
for the bus. She seemed harmless, and the buses here are only 25 cents, so I said
sure, and we walked the 10 minute walk down to the station together, and I paid
for her bus fare to/from the mall. Not really sure how she was going to the
mall without a wallet, but she was really friendly and I’m sure I’ll probably
see her again because she lives in my neighborhood! Very odd, though – I feel
like most people in the US would return home upon discovering that they had
forgotten their wallet.
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| The finished product -- tomate de arbol juice! |
I made it to the bus stop closest to FLACSO, and decided to
stop for lunch before going to explore the library. Almuerzos (lunches) here
usually consist of some kind of soup, a plato fuerte (strong dish) of chicken,
beef or fish that is grilled, baked or fried, a glass of juice and a piece of
fruit for dessert. Today I had some kind of fish soup, baked chicken with rice
and beans, a slice of watermelon and some kind of juice (often a mystery as to
what fruit it is, but it usually tastes good!). All for $3 (no need to tip). What a deal!
After having to ask for directions several times, I made it
to the library! FLACSO specializes in social sciences, so I knew I was going to
be able to find a lot of good books there, and it didn’t disappoint! The
library building itself is gorgeous, and compared with La Universidad de las Americas,
it was quiet! I spent some time there finding books and reading and then went
downstairs to the café for a really good cup of coffee. I then ventured over to
the main FLACSO building, where I bought a book very relevant to my research (that
I can now highlight and write notes in all that I want!) and walked through a
photography exhibition. There was a student tabling for this “intercultural”
group, and so I asked her what it was about, and it seems like something I
might be able to get involved with that could help with my research, so that
was exciting! There’s also this big political science congress going on at the
university, so there were lots of people walking around and it felt all
academic, which made me quite happy after being away from Bryn Mawr this past
semester.
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| My kitchen! |
I then went on my next adventure, which was procuring my
American cell phone that I had dropped off on Monday at a small technical shop
to be “liberated” so that I could use it with an Ecuadorian cell phone chip.
Luckily, whatever the guy did worked, and so I took it to a Claro shop (an
Ecuadorian cell service provider) and now officially have an Ecuadorian cell
phone number! Of course I still don’t completely understand the whole prepaid
thing (there’s a way to buy a big block of text messages, but then you still
have to pay by the minute for calls?), but I’m learning! I also signed up for a
frequent shopper card at the supermarket, so I’m feeling super Ecuadorian right
now.
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| The view from the kitchen into the dining/living area |
Because of my oven situation, please feel free to send any
easy stovetop recipes you might have my way! I fried a frozen Chilean salmon
patty for dinner tonight (sandwiched between a fresh roll from the bakery down
the street) and sliced up a cucumber (see, Mom, a vegetable!), but I’m very
much in need of suggestions for easy to make stovetop dishes that aren’t pasta.
Otherwise, things here are great and I’m excited to get into a routine of
visiting libraries and doing my research. El buen vivir is in part about proposing
a different development model that focuses more on people’s rights and abilities
to “do” (hacer) and “be” (ser), rather than to “have” (tener), and I’m really looking
forward to seeing how this somewhat radical notion is manifesting itself in Ecuadorian
society.
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| And finally, a thrilling shot of the washer/dryer |
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