My debut on Ecuadorian radio was a bit anticlamactic. I went on Saturday morning (December 8th) with some kids from the high school I teach at to "Radio Latacunga" AM 1280 for the kids show. The kids just read news from Friday´s paper and some jokes and a story from the paper´s "Kids" section. They picked and played a lot of music too. Halfway through, they interviewed me. Here is a rough transcript...
Kid - We´re here today with Jay. Where do you live?
Me - In La Libertad.
Kid - Do you have any siblings?
Me - Yes, two.
Kid - What are your parent´s names?
Me - Richard and Mary.
Kid - OK. Now for some more music.
Not exactly Charlie Rose, but still, I can always say that I was interviewed on Spanish radio.
The next night I went to a Wedding in town. I was actually excited to go because this is the first Wedding where I was friends with the couple. The bride is part of the woman´s group in town and the groom works at the grade school. Also, I teach their eight year old daughter English. Yeah, kind of strange getting married with an eight year old, but down here that is pretty common. Weddings are expensive, so a lot of times people will live together as a married couple until they can save enough for a blowout (this can take some time).
The other Weddings I have been to have all been Catholic and were pretty much the same; a lot of booze and dancing, but this one was very different. The couple is Protestant and they don´t drink. Instead of toasts and drunks walking around forcing shots on everyone, they played games and asked trivia questions about the Bible. It seemed everyone in their church stood up at some point and said a prayer for the couple too. One guy explained why they don´t drink and said that 60% of Ecuadorians are alcoholics and also that 30% of American are. I´m not sure about that, but why let facts get in the way of faith. Anyway, the Protestants started dancing later in the night (I say dancing, but the really were just bouncing around). The did this to religious music for almost an hour, and then when everyone was exhausted, the band slowed the music down and started talking about Jesus´ love for us. All the people stopped dancing and immediately started hugging each other and crying. Even the little kids started to. Some of the people even fell to the floor and were almost in convulsions. One more step and they would have brought out the snakes.
Between the two types of Weddings, I don´t know which I prefer. It´s like if I had to vote in a Democratic Primary. I´d have to go with the candidate I disklike the least.
On Friday the grade school had their Christmas Pagent. Other than a sign the said "Feliz Navidad", the program had nothing to do with Christmas. It was a beauty pagent for girls from all the grades. One event was a traditional dance. The picture from the top of the post is the neighbor girl in her outfit. (Note: I finally changed the picture from the "Mama Negra" post to one that I took) She finished third and I said that maybe she´d win next year, but apparently this is the last year for these pagents. The Government is banning them because in other towns the parents will get into fights if they don´t like the results.
Saturday and Sunday were big party days in town. We had bullfights in an arena that was constructed in the center of town. (If you want to see what this looks like, go to YouTube and search under "torros del pueblo Ecuador") These weren´t bullfights like Hemmingway wrote about, but instead just a bunch of drunks from town with blankets trying to mess with the bulls. I went to watch on Sunday and was kind of disgusted. The first bull got it´s ear and a horn ripped off chasing a guy into a fence. Also, most of the guys in the ring would just stand 50 feet away from the bull, yell, throw bottles at it, and then run away if the bull moved toward them. I saw two drunk guys get gored (one pretty bad) and found out later that a 20 year old on Saturday was in the ring and fell off his horse. He must have hit his head pretty badly, because he died a couple of days later in the hospital. Sometimes I don´t understand this place.
Notes:
- I want to give a plug for my college buddy Mike´s blog that he and his wife are doing from their new home in China. You can check it out at http://smithsinshanghai.blogspot.com/ or follow the link from my blog homepage. Nice title, eh!
- Jimmy Ballgame, I´m sad to see you go. I just read the the Cards traded Edmonds to San Diego. It´s going to be strange not seeing Hollywood out there "Cadillacin´ It" (Mario P´s words), but like I said Rasmus, Ankiel, and Duncan are the future.
Kid - We´re here today with Jay. Where do you live?
Me - In La Libertad.
Kid - Do you have any siblings?
Me - Yes, two.
Kid - What are your parent´s names?
Me - Richard and Mary.
Kid - OK. Now for some more music.
Not exactly Charlie Rose, but still, I can always say that I was interviewed on Spanish radio.
The next night I went to a Wedding in town. I was actually excited to go because this is the first Wedding where I was friends with the couple. The bride is part of the woman´s group in town and the groom works at the grade school. Also, I teach their eight year old daughter English. Yeah, kind of strange getting married with an eight year old, but down here that is pretty common. Weddings are expensive, so a lot of times people will live together as a married couple until they can save enough for a blowout (this can take some time).
The other Weddings I have been to have all been Catholic and were pretty much the same; a lot of booze and dancing, but this one was very different. The couple is Protestant and they don´t drink. Instead of toasts and drunks walking around forcing shots on everyone, they played games and asked trivia questions about the Bible. It seemed everyone in their church stood up at some point and said a prayer for the couple too. One guy explained why they don´t drink and said that 60% of Ecuadorians are alcoholics and also that 30% of American are. I´m not sure about that, but why let facts get in the way of faith. Anyway, the Protestants started dancing later in the night (I say dancing, but the really were just bouncing around). The did this to religious music for almost an hour, and then when everyone was exhausted, the band slowed the music down and started talking about Jesus´ love for us. All the people stopped dancing and immediately started hugging each other and crying. Even the little kids started to. Some of the people even fell to the floor and were almost in convulsions. One more step and they would have brought out the snakes.
Between the two types of Weddings, I don´t know which I prefer. It´s like if I had to vote in a Democratic Primary. I´d have to go with the candidate I disklike the least.
On Friday the grade school had their Christmas Pagent. Other than a sign the said "Feliz Navidad", the program had nothing to do with Christmas. It was a beauty pagent for girls from all the grades. One event was a traditional dance. The picture from the top of the post is the neighbor girl in her outfit. (Note: I finally changed the picture from the "Mama Negra" post to one that I took) She finished third and I said that maybe she´d win next year, but apparently this is the last year for these pagents. The Government is banning them because in other towns the parents will get into fights if they don´t like the results.
Saturday and Sunday were big party days in town. We had bullfights in an arena that was constructed in the center of town. (If you want to see what this looks like, go to YouTube and search under "torros del pueblo Ecuador") These weren´t bullfights like Hemmingway wrote about, but instead just a bunch of drunks from town with blankets trying to mess with the bulls. I went to watch on Sunday and was kind of disgusted. The first bull got it´s ear and a horn ripped off chasing a guy into a fence. Also, most of the guys in the ring would just stand 50 feet away from the bull, yell, throw bottles at it, and then run away if the bull moved toward them. I saw two drunk guys get gored (one pretty bad) and found out later that a 20 year old on Saturday was in the ring and fell off his horse. He must have hit his head pretty badly, because he died a couple of days later in the hospital. Sometimes I don´t understand this place.
Notes:
- I want to give a plug for my college buddy Mike´s blog that he and his wife are doing from their new home in China. You can check it out at http://smithsinshanghai.blogspot.com/ or follow the link from my blog homepage. Nice title, eh!
- Jimmy Ballgame, I´m sad to see you go. I just read the the Cards traded Edmonds to San Diego. It´s going to be strange not seeing Hollywood out there "Cadillacin´ It" (Mario P´s words), but like I said Rasmus, Ankiel, and Duncan are the future.
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