Mama Negra

I guess I can´t have a title like "Mama Negra" (Black Mama) without explaining it right off the bat. Last Saturday I went down to Latacunga for the Festival de la Madonna de la Merced or Mama Negra as it is more commonly called. Latacunga is a town one hour south of me and directly below the volcano Cotopaxi. Apparently in the 18th century Latacunga was destroyed by eruptions of Cotopaxi several times (Why the kept rebuilding there? I don´t know, but you have to admire their spunk.) Eventually in the late 17 hundreds, all the citizens went up on a hill overlooking the town and prayed to the Virgin for protection. Since then the volcano has been dormant. To celebrate this miracle, the town throws a huge party every year. The culmination being a massive parade that leads a fat man in blackface dressed up like a woman through town. How this is relevant, I don´t know, but it was still a great time.

I met up with another PCV who lives in Latacunga and we walked from his apartment through town and met a bunch of his friends. The guys were all 20 something Ecuadorians and very nice. It was a fun change to hang-out with people my age. We had a couple beers and joked around while waiting for the parade to start. I don´t get to do this in my town because most of the people my age are either too busy with their kids to hang-out or have gotten the hell out of town ASAP. Most of my "friends" are 10 years old.

Anyway, finally the parade started and we moved to the street to watch. One big difference between this parade and others I´ve been to was that instead of throwing out candy, they were giving out shots of booze. Since John and I were the only "gringos" around, we got more than our share of scotch, cane liquor, wine, and chicha, a homemade corn drink that tastes like a cross between hard apple cider and pumpkin pie filling. They had the chicha in buckets and were serving it from ladles that you had to drink out of. Not very sanitary, but when at Mama Negra... There were a lot of bands, kids doing traditional dances, and groups doing "purifications". The "purifications" were a lot like the one I had when the family thought I was sick. A group of 4 dressed up in white would pull you out of the crowd, rub leaves and deer antlers on you while chanting, "Cotopaxi, Chimborazo" (Mtn. names), and then spit liquor on you. Again, the "gringos" stuck out, so John and I got dragged into the parade a couple of times. Not a big deal, but you had to pay a buck each time for the privilege of getting spit on. They used the money for buying the booze, so I figured I drank my couple of bucks worth.

Finally, Mama Negra came buy. I know that customs are different down here, and this was all in good fun, but there was something a little disturbing in seeing a man in black face as the center of the party. Ironically, I saw this article http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/education/story/AE94276F66A2D5E8862573880016C17C?OpenDocument on some students at UofI who are getting in trouble for going to a Halloween party dressed as characters from "Cool Runnings". Right there pretty much sums up a lot of differences between our countries.

While I was in Latacunga I met some tourists (another thing I didn´t get in La Libertad). Two were from the Czech Republic and were in the middle of a two year round-the-world trip. That made me think of my own two year adventure. I guess they´ll get to see more of the world, but I´ll get to...um, you´ll have to give me a moment on that one. Also, I met a couple from Scotland who were on week four of six weeks in Ecuador. They were having a great time, but when I asked the girl what she thought of guinea pig, she made a disgusted face and said that she couldn´t eat anything that you could give a name to. Understandable.

So that was Mama Negra, the best parade I´ve ever been to. Which leads me to the worst parade I´ve ever been to. Why so bad? Because I was in it! The teachers at the high school I work at told me about it last week and asked if I wanted to march with them. It was a pretty big deal at the High School. So big in fact that they spent two days practicing marching with the kids. At one point they asked me if the marching style they were practicing (high knee kicks, swinging arms) was the same as I marched in High School. I explained that marching wasn´t important back home, we usually just had classes in High School. They were amazed and evidently unaware of my sarcasm.

The parade was Friday at 11:00 in Latacunga, so we met early in town and took a charter bus with the kids. It took a while to get organized, so I was able to look around at all the other schools. There had to be 30-40 other schools there. Al the kids were in nice uniforms and most of the schools had drum corps with them. Right as we were starting, it started to rain. This along with me being the only white guy in the whole parade made it a little uncomfortable. The streets were lined with thousands of people, and I could see in all their faces the question, "What is he doing here?". At the end of the parade we stopped in front of the review stand and they announced the High School, the teachers, and the "Foreign English Teacher". I don´t teach English at the High School, but I think they put that in to make them look better. After the parade we went back to the bus and loaded up he kids. The teachers weren´t paying attention to the kids, so it took about an hour for all of them to stop goofing around in town and make it back. Finally the bus left and the teachers and I grabbed lunch and then went to a bar for beer and karaoke. I was able to bow out after two hours and get home right before the last bus.

NOTES:

- Since Daylight Savings Time is over, I am now on Eastern Time.

- Can someone please explain to me what is going on in College Football. Notre Dame looses to Navy for the first time in my life (43 years to be exact) and Mizzou and KU are in the top 10. I leave the country and everything goes mental!

- Those who haven´t figured out what was missing in the picture I sent out...it was my shadow. At noon on the Equinox, the sun is directly overhead here.

- I got this from Tim Hogan, a college friend, the other day. I figured that if anyone is thinking about heading down, they could use it to brush up on the Spanish. Unfortunately, I haven´t had much opportunity to use these phrases.

1. Excuse me; may I buy you a drink? - Con permiso, puedo comprarle una bebida?
2. You look amazing - Se ve maravillosa
3. Would you like to dance - Le gustaria bailar?
4. You have nice eyes - Tu tienes ojos lindos
5. Would you like a massage? - Te gustaria un masaje?
6. Would you like to come inside? - Te gustaria entrar?
7. Let me help you out of that - Dejame ayudarte a quitarte eso
8. Are you on birth control? - Estas usando anticonceptivos?
9. Would you like to stay here? - Te gustaria quedarte aqui?
10. I'm sorry, I have to go now. - Losiento. Me tengo que ir ahora.
11. I think this was a mistake. - Creo que esto fue un error.