Last night we rang in 2011 ecuadorian style. We started off with a feast of traditional ecuadorian (and some gringo) fare, then moved to the streets. In Pifo, new years is one of the biggest holidays and all of the families dress up life sized staw effigies called año viejos (old years) with masks, clothes, and mementos of last year. These are all burned at midnight to wash away bad aspects of the previous year. We dressed ours up as Alex, the 13 year old of the family we´re staying with, complete with a faux computer to break his addiction to world of warcraft. After cruising around and looking at all the clever año viejos we went to a friend´s house for more food and drink. While there, everyone was sitting around a big table having a long, laughter-filled conversation (which neither of us could follow due to our slim grasp on spanish). Once it was explained to us that all of the guys would be partaking in another new years tradition, all of the girls ran off to plan our outfits. Suddenly, I was being put in a real leggy dress, sunhat, and lipstick. Apparently, a thing guys in town do is dress up as old widows of the año viejos and dance through the streets pretending to cry and pester people for money because they can´t feed their children due to the fact that their husbands just got burned alive. So, as if I didn´t stick out like a man wearing a dress and bad lipstick enough already, there I was, dancing to pan-flute music played by what looked like a child in a cape in front of the whole town, shimmying the stuffed-animal-fake-boobs in my dress for spare pennies. I do have to say though, that I think Ecuadorians have new years figured out.
Today, we´re doing absolutely nothing in accordance with the Ecuadorian belief that whatever you do on the first day of the year, you´ll be doing for the remaining 364. So, we woke up at noon and four hours later, we still haven´t gotten dressed and all we´ve been doing is sitting in the sun reading, doodling, playing with dogs, and looking at the beautiful chickens. So far, 2011 is looking pretty good.
Starting this Monday, we´ll be taking the hour long bus ride from Pifo to Quito for spanish classes every day. We´ll do that for maybe a couple or three weeks and then head to the coast? Not sure yet. Looking to get our language skills in order before backpacking so we don´t wind up wearing a dress and sunhat without at least having some say in it first.
-Scott
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