Carnaval y otras fiestas

March 20, 2009
Friday
7:10am
Cloudy and Rainy, 55F
Sayausi


Carnaval
In our last blog we briefly explained what Carnaval is and the nationwide water, flour, and silly string fight that last from Friday through Tuesday of Carnaval. However, when we posted our last blog we had yet to actually participate in said water fight and were relatively clueless as to the finer details of this nationwide water fight. Now, we are seasoned Carnaval participants and can report on what it is like to be in Ecuador for their week long equivalent of Fat Tuesday.

We left off on the Friday of Carnaval when we were headed back from Riobamba after attempting a climb of Volcan Chimborazo. The drive out of Riobamba took place amidst a monster parade followed by an all out war zone of water fighting, flour throwing, and silly string dousing. When we arrived in Cuenca our bus was assaulted by water balloons soaking the first several rows of people on the bus. In Sayausi we made it to the safety of our apartment dodging buckets of water and water balloons which were being thrown from the roofs of surrounding buildings.

Saturday and Sunday began at just before dawn with an onslaught of homemade fireworks exploding every five to ten seconds until mass began around nine. Each mass was preceded and proceeded by a parade accompanied by another massive round of these homemade fireworks that release no show of lights when they explode, only an earth shattering “CRACK” that sounds exactly like gun fire (which makes sense since aside from bamboo and newspaper, they are made of gunpowder). Additionally, every time one of these firecrackers goes off it causes every car alarm within a half mile radius to go off as well. The result is more or less captured in the footage below.

The water fighting continued all through Saturday and Sunday. We saw a lot of the action from the safety of our apartment. The usually peaceful Sunday market was punctuated by occasional squeals and shouts from people soaking others, getting soaked themselves, or in somewhere in between one of those two stages. Even the Padre got out the hose and participated in the water festival.

Monday it was out turn.

Our host mom’s sister, Dona Rita, invited us up to her house for a carnaval feast. Having some idea that this feast may also include a little fight (in the form of throwing water) we dressed down for the occasion wearing clothes we not very attached to, or at least had no use for in the following week. Also, we made sure not to take our camera since we knew it would get wet….that means no pictures, but I’m sure you can imagine what it was like.

We arrived at Dona Rita’s house around ten o‘clock in the morning and were immediately put to work. I was a deliverer of various goods between the kitchen in the house and the smoke house where Mike was put to work roasting one of five cuyes (for pictures of the cuy roast check out our post from September when Don Jimmy visited us…same smoke house, same fire, same cholitas, same cuy sticks). Other meat prepared for that day include: several chickens and a roasted rabbit. Mike was told that he has a “muy linda mano” (a very pretty hand) for roasting cuy as his cuy turned out perfectly i.e. super red and crispy. He also got to eat a roasted rabbits foot as a snack since it was burning and needed to be removed. During the roasting, which took the better part of four hours, the family that wasn’t directly involved in the cooking i.e. the children, one Rita’s daughters who works six 14 hour days a week, and some of the older male cousins were of course engaged in an extreme water fight.

Please remember that it is cloudy with zero sun with the ambient temperature hovering in the low to mid 50sF and the water temperature closer to freezing than not and of course there is no sort of heat in the houses which are primarily made of concrete. Needless to say participating in a water fight in these conditions leaves the participants very wet and very, very cold.

Our luck held on, however, as we made through the roasting and other feast preparations without getting soaked. We did get espuma-ed (covered in a silly string like substance that comes in a can and is called “espuma”, it smells like a mixture between soap and shaving creams and dissolves pretty rapidly).

Around three o’clock the food was ready and everyone sat down to enjoy the fruits of their labor….
First Course: Chicken soup with mote and aji (a salsa made from tree tomato)
Second Course: Rice fried with noodles and hot dog, boiled chicken, roasted rabbit, roasted cuy, potatoes, and a glass of Coke
Third Course: Canned peaches and canalasso (warm, cinnamon rum drink)

At around four or four thirty after roasting for four hours and eating for one or two hours, we started making our excuses for having to leave. This started the second round of the Carnaval feast day celebrations. Apparently, one of the reasons for the feast and all the edible goodies is so that the guests can’t complain when they are attacked afterwards (although the people who host are also subjected to the chaos which ensued)!

Out came the boxes of flour and suddenly the living room and all of the people in it were covered in flour (yes, the water, flour, and espuma fighting is not limited to outdoors)! The flour was then covered by espuma and then people were carried outdoors (myself included) where they were doused with several buckets of near freezing water. Thinking about it sets my teeth chattering de nuevo. Mike, though he was not carried, was then also soaked with several buckets of the same near freezing water. After we were both floured, espuma-ed, and drenched to the bone we were allowed to say our goodbyes and start the long walk home.

I don’t think I mentioned that Dona Rita’s house is in the neighborhood where I teach and as such I know a large number of children in the area, and more importantly for this walk during Carnaval, a large number of children know me. I guess we left Rita’s at about the same time that all the other families had finished with their feasting and had smoothly transitioned into the water fighting portion of the day because the streets were lined with kids armed with bottles, buckets, hoses, and water balloons. Our twenty minute walk was pointedly marked every fifty yards by kids yelling, “Senorita!” and then some sort of water attack. On the way home we were soaked by at least seven kids with buckets of water and one very determined kid with a hose. By the time we got to our apartment I’m pretty sure my core body temperature had dropped by several degrees. Fortunately, we have a water heater and at least seven boxes of tea so we were warmed up quickly. (we did take a couple pictures of what we looked like upon returning home, but by then most of the flour and all of the espuma had been washed away, and there is no way the picture can capture how cold we were!)

Tuesday we had planned to go visit our friend Carmita for a little bit in the morning and then spend the rest of the day recuperating from Monday. However, at Carmita’s we ran into Ruth (a friend of ours from soccer) who invited us over to her family’s house which is two houses down from Carmita’s. And so by ten o’clock Tuesday morning we were back in the Carnaval swing of things.

Ruth lives in a house with her daughter, mom, dad, sister, and her sister’s daughter. This makes up about one twentieth of the people, all family, who were at her house that Carnaval Tuesday. Unlike Dona Rita’s where they filled up buckets from the faucet and then soaked people with the buckets, Ruth’s family had several inflatable swimming pools set up the largest of which was over two meters (seven feet) in length and at least one meter (three feet) wide (this did not stop people from making jokes about Mike’s size and whether or not he would fit in the pool, the best of which include; “We’ll have to fold him up”, “Who has a chainsaw so we can fit him in the pool”, and “ We’ll have to soak him part by part”). Needless to say we did not make it long without getting thrown into one of these pools. Fortunately, there was some sun in the morning so we dried out a little in between soakings.

The feast at Ruth’s included the following:
First course: Crackers with a sweet coconut, vanilla spread and canalasso drink
Second Course: Chicken soup with mote, aji, and canalasso
Third Course: Grilled Sausage, Potatoes, Chicken, Rice, Mote, Agua de Remedios, and canalasso
Fourth Course: A roll, pineapple marmalade, cheese, and canalasso

Being seasoned Carnavalers by this time we knew the party was not over after the food was served and eaten. Sure enough about ten minutes after everybody had finished eating the soaking resumed (not that it ever really stopped as buckets were thrown during the meal and the hose wasn’t turned off at any point during the day). However, I did think that since we had been such good sports earlier we might be sparred another trip to the pool….wrong, wrong, wrong. We were both ceremoniously (or unceremoniously) carried and dunked into the pool again, which by now was filled with mud and all sorts of yard debris. We were also each individually called upon to be participants in the Reina y Rey of Carnaval competition, which meant not only did we get soaked again we first had to parade around the pool as people cheered. I came in second place and was given a fake rose (the winner was thrown in the pool yet again after having eggs cracked on her head). Mike also got second place and was awarded a crown (the winner was covered with mud and then thrown into the pool). I’m sure that we each would have won, but they didn’t want to subject us to the eggs and mud…..we were thankful.

Then everyone gathered around the bonfire and were served coffee with bread and a piece of candy, which if you are counting is course number five for the day. After an hour or so of hanging out by the fire we said our “thank yous” and “goodbyes” and headed home for hot water and tea this time avoiding the street lined with kids and buckets of water.

Water fighting and more!


Padre leading the Procession while singing


The Band plays on...


What Carnaval sounds like...



Juramento de la Bandera
The Friday after Carnaval is a big day for seventh graders in Ecuador. On this day every seventh grader across the country swears to the flag. This means several things: they have to wear their fancy uniform with their white gloves, they have to practice the national anthem a lot so they can sing along during the ceremony, everyone gets out of classes for the day, and they are sworn to protect their country and their flag. I think it’s kind of like saying the Pledge of Allegiance in the States except they only have to do it once instead of everyday from first grade through twelfth like we do (or did) back home.

The day started with an hour and a half of recess during which time the kids played soccer and tag and stuffed themselves with hot dogs, french fries, and candy (a very normal recess here in Ecuador). Then around nine o’clock all of the kids, from second to fourth grade, lined up and got ready to march.

The entire ceremony took about an hour and a half during which time the students marched in, sang the national anthem, listened to a speech about the battle of Tarqui, another speech about being loyal to the flag, sang the hymn of Cuenca which sounds exactly the same as the national anthem, and finally swore to the flag.

To swear to the flag each child marches up to the flag, takes a knee, says “Te prometo” (I promise you), kisses the flag, then stands up and marches away. Then the ceremony is essentially over and all the kids line up to take pictures with their parents and the director of the school. I was the informal photographer of the day and so the event is pretty well documented, enojy!

My School


Recreo


Directing the Students


Marching



Sumakguaguapumachuspisapa
On the last day of February 2009 we went to the Feria Libre (the big market here in Cuenca) to look at kittens. And looking of course turned into buying and that is how Chuspi came into our lives.

We had looked at a few stalls that had kittens but the stall Chuspi was at was filled with chickens, ducks, turkeys, cuyes, dogs, geese, and who knows what else. As such it was a pretty noisy stall and we ended up stopped there for a few minutes just to take in the chaos of a ten foot by ten foot tent stacked high with countless cages each stuffed with various animalitos. It didn’t take long to spot the lone cage with several kittens crouched into the corner looking just about as pathetic as you can without looking ill.

Chuspi was the first one we pulled out and I guess once you hold a kitten there’s no putting it back so we played with here for a little bit at the stall. During this time a duck escaped and Mike was asked to grab the escapee. Having never caught a duck before, and not being able to stand up straight because of the low blue tarps and various ropes stringing them together, Mike was at a severe disadvantage and I’m pretty sure the duck got away as they still hadn’t found it by the time we left about ten minutes later.

So after a few minutes of playing with Chuspi and duck hunting we gave the lady at the stall three dollars and left with Chuspi in hand to find a basket to carry her home in.

Later that day we gave her her full name which translates roughly to “pretty little puma that’s a lot like a fly” a.k.a Sumakguaguapumachuspisapa or for those who know her well or don’t speak Kichwa simply Chuspi, which means fly.

We have now had Chuspi for three weeks during which time she has learned to use a litter box, doubled in size which makes her about 2 lbs and eight inches long, and has learned to jump to the amazing height of six inches.

Chuspi!!


Chuspi climbs up



St. Joseph’s Day
As most of you already know, March 19th is St. Joseph’s Day. You may or may not know that St. Joseph is the patron saint of Sicily. A long, long time ago there was a severe drought raging through Sicily and the people prayed to St. Joseph for rain. They promised that if the rains came they would have a feast to honor him. And very soon the rains came so the people of Sicily did not starve. In fact the rains allowed them to harvest their fava crops and so they survived on favas, or maybe they survived on favas during the drought. It happened some time ago so the details are a little fuzzy. Either way, St. Joseph’s Day is celebrated by creating an altar to St. Joseph and preparing a feast that includes the fava bean.

Luckily for us the fava (or haba bean en espanol) is super popular up here in the highlands of Ecuador and in preparation for the feast we bought three pounds of fava beans and told our friends to make fava-licious recipes for the feast of St. Joseph.

After cooking for several hours and constructing a worthy altar to St. Joseph everyone arrived (four other Peace Corps Volunteers from the Cuenca area) and the feasting began!


The Feast
Spicy pickled favas
Roasted curried favas
Roasted honey mustard favas
Sauteed favas with garlic and oregano
Roasted peppers with red wine vinegar
Assorted fruits
Bean dip with fava chips
Rosemary foccacia with herbed butter
Potato Rolls
Minestrone soup
Fava shepard’s pie
Biscotti
Pound Cake
Spinge cookies with ricotta filling

The Altar
Three tiered
St. Joseph card
Candles
Balsam wood incense
Bread Crumbs (symbolize the fact the Joseph was a carpenter)
Fava beans
Wine
Flowers
Fruit
Sprinkles
Fresh pasta
Fresh herbs
Anything we had with a face on it (Pez dispensor, Al Gore St. Patrick’s Day card, piggy bank, owl key chain)
Anything shiny or pretty (medals from races, bracelets, ribbons, hand stitched heart from Valentine’s day, hand woven change basket, pine cones from Long Island)

The musical entertainment consisted of a customized playlist of Italian artists, Italian-American artists, songs that were or sounded like they could be from the Mediterranean, and a DVD of a performance of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. hosted by Johnny Carson. Nothing but the best for St. Joseph’s Day.


Feasting



Wedding
This past Saturday Mike and I were invited to a wedding in Cuenca. The wedding was for a friend of ours in his third year of service with the Peace Corps who has been dating Gaby, an ecuadorian, for the past two years. We used this muy formal event to justify getting a suit made for Mike, as suits in the States never fit his unique build ( i.e. tall and thin). There were nine other volunteers at the wedding and about 90 Ecuadorians all ready to eat, drink, and dance. The ceremony started at five and we weren’t back in Sayausi until midnight (a late night for us). Enjoy the pictures and keep an eye out for the “dama de amor” (this is a woman who traditionally dresses in red and is supposed to distract all the single young men from the bride).


Pics from the Wedding