Home for Christmas

Well, my mother’s birthday yesterday marked my having spent just over three months in this country. I find it difficult to believe and yet completely understandable all at the same time. When I think about how my Spanish has improved, for instance, I realize I’ve advanced by leaps and bounds. When I think about how far my Spanish still needs to go, however, the story is slightly different. It’s the same way when I consider my progress in learning to surf. Everything takes more time than I want it to, but that’s just the way life is, I suppose.
All in all, I’m incredibly happy with my experience so far. I’ve already done a lot of the things I set out to do in Ecuador, but I must admit that I didn’t have much of a list other than improving my language skills, spending some time on the beach and attempting to prove myself as an effective educator.
Let’s just say that I will be missing Ecuador while I’m back home, even though I’m extremely excited to be seeing my friends and family. This land and the people who live here are really amazing. I probably have more stories and memories from these least three months than I have from any other three-month period in my life. And to think I still haven’t seen the rainforest!
I returned to Montañita this past weekend to visit Lisa and chill out. I don’t have a lot to say about the weekend. Peter and I traveled there together early Saturday morning and were on the water by 8:30. We got pounded by some of the biggest waves I’ve tried to surf before Lisa had to take off. I met up with a friend, Jonathon, along the main drag in town, and we ended up sitting on the beach and talking about a bunch of stuff, watching Peter get pummeled not too far away and running our feet through the sand. Unfortunately, it was another cloudy weekend on the coast. Temporada still hasn’t come to stay. I’m quite sure I’m going to miss the final transition while I’m away. Too bad.
That afternoon, Peter and I took a little hike down the beach and up a trail. The trail leads to an absolutely breathtaking church located on top of a hill overlooking both Montañita and Olón, another pueblito a little further to the north. The view from outside the church is spectacular enough, but you should see this church too. It’s built on multiple levels with all of these staircases winding through the different sections. Everything is made of this whitish sandy-colored sort of stone, set off by dark wooden benches and other woodwork. At the end of the main aisle is a rather sizable Virgin Mary, immaculately white.
But the architecture and church’s surrounding area aren’t even the best parts about the church. In the basement—almost hidden away (Lisa didn’t even know it was there until we told her about it)—is a small sanctuary to another small Virgin Mary statue, and this is the main reason most people come to this church. The Virgin in that chapel is recognized as one of a small collection of statues to have cried blood. Yes, this statue is seen as a modern miracle. You can still see the bloodstains running down Mary’s face.
Peter and I had to take off our sandals outside of the sanctuary before we entered. Inside was a kind-looking woman standing beside the statue of the Virgin, which lay behind glass. Very politely, she asked if we understood Spanish. We said yes, my confidence not quite matching Peter’s.
The woman started into a short history about the statue and the miracles surrounding it. 1990 was the last time when it was known to have cried blood. The statue has been in existence since around 1900; I don’t quite remember the exact date. In addition, I found it interesting that much of this woman’s little talk to us concerned the more scientific aspects of the Virgin’s miracles. She said that, after it had cried blood, the statue was taken to three different laboratories in the United States and somewhere else in South America, and all of the labs agreed on two things: First, that the “blood” was indeed human blood and, second, that the statue contained no structural infelicities, such as holes near the eyes or reservoirs for any type of liquids. The woman ended her talk by telling us what she believes the statue means to humanity. She believes that the Virgin Mary is crying for all of us, for humanity’s sake, like a mother would for her children. I was incredibly touched.
Outside the chapel, there is a display of other Virgin Mary statues that have cried tears or blood. There’s another in Colombia, one is Brazil, one in Guatemala and, surprisingly enough, there’s one in Chicago. I had no idea. Another larger picture, just inside the sanctuary, shows what the statue looked while it wept during 1990. I´ve included a photograph of the picture above. Supposedly, the statue cried for precisely 24 hours.
Going a little further back in time, I spent the weekend before last in Cuenca, for Thanksgiving. I don’t have too much to say about that trip either, perhaps because I’m kind of tired right now. A bunch of volunteers flocked there (not as many as my first trip to the city) and we pigged out big time. I must have eaten about two pies by myself, which was awesome. It’s extremely difficult to find that canned pumpkin goodness that’s so easy to find back home, but Peter and Ella, two of the Cuencan volunteers, went so far as to buy a pumpkin and make a pie from scratch. For that reason, I had to take advantage. Plus, Jon, one of the volunteers I lived with in Quito, baked a ridiculously delicious apple pie. He had to balance that one on one knee and the blackberry one he made on the other knee for over five hours on the bus ride to Cuenca—no easy task on an Ecuadorian bus. So, I couldn’t say no to that one either. And there was key lime too, which is a pretty solid pie. Basically, my second Thanksgiving consisted of convincing myself not to eat more pie, and then deciding to screw it and eating a ton.
That night we all gathered into the small living room to watch The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Whenever everyone else would jump, I laughed. It wasn’t fair because I watched the movie with my class on Halloween and I knew when all the scary parts were coming. The best part was that it was gently raining outside and the Cuencan family’s wiener dog would push against the thin metal door, creating a sudden racket, at precisely the worst times. It seemed as if the dog was timing its complaints to properly scare the shit out of us.
I woke up the next morning and took a monster run around Cuenca, which is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been in. Besides that, it’s nice because the people in the mountains are less confrontational than people here on the coast. What this directly translates into is that taxis here in La Libertad will constantly honk their horns at me, trying to convince me that I want to get a ride instead of walking. In Cuenca, however, no one does that. It’s nice to walk down the street and not to have an endless parade of cars all beeping at you, one after another after another. Some days I’m a pro at ignoring it, and other days I want to pop their tires with eyes that shoot laser beams I one day hope to have.
Just over an hour ago, I finished up my last dance lesson for 2007. A Swiss girl magically appeared this morning. I had forgotten to put on deodorant, though, so I was glad I wasn’t asked to dance with her. That’s just not right…
My class has their final today and we taped the infamous movie on Sunday. For those of you who don’t know or don’t remember, I assigned my class a project, which was to create a movie. We had two groups, five students to a group.
The first group chose to create their own sort of playoff of an episode of Friends. One of the girls in the movie befriends a rat living in the shared apartment, and she’s unwilling to kill it for the sake of her roommates. Eventually, the rat has babies and the four of them are stuck with a box full of baby rats until one of their friends unknowingly arrives with her kitten (for which a student actually brought her kitten to Casa Leon). The movie ends with the kitten positioned next to the box of “rats.” You’re left to put the pieces together.
The second group did a kind of spin-off of an episode of Jerry Springer. The movie begins when one of my students announces, “Today’s topic is cheaters.” Two more of my students come out and the host goes on to explain that their marriage isn’t as ideal as they believe it to be. The man’s mother comes out next and announces to the crowd that she caught her son cheating on his wife with a woman named Rose. Rose comes out next and, after the photograph evidence is brought forward from Ernest’s mother, the three women combine their efforts in beating up on Ernest, the cheater. He, meanwhile, continues to proclaim his innocence—everything is nothing but “filthy lies.”
I couldn’t have been happier with the movies. Sometimes convincing a group of ten teenagers to do anything is next to impossible, but they really did a great job with preparing for and shooting the movies. The second group even brought some materials for costumes. I came walking outside at one point to see that they’d drawn facial hair on Santiago with a black marker. Seeing him brought back extremely fond memories of my movie-making days in grade and high school. I was always the one we drew on (and still am from time to time).
I have little else to say for now. I’ve got things lined up for getting to the airport tonight. I’ll be ducking out of my class a little bit early (how many times will I thank my lucky stars for Humberto?) to catch a ride to Guayaquil by nine or ten o’clock. My flight doesn’t depart until 2 A.M., so I’m actually considering seeing if one of the volunteers there, Sarah, wants to hang out for a little while with me before I have to catch my flight.
The flight travels into Houston early in the morning, and then it’s a four-hour trip or so to O’Hare. I had explicit instructions to meet my dad in the baggage claims area. Among others, I’m looking forward to that moment very, very much.