For some reason, this disappeared, so I am reposting it.
A somewhat active week, outside of the classroom. The week marked the beginning of the second half of my school term. Luckily I am not taking credit hours, so exams were not given and grades provided. Otherwise I may have been one sad student. Self assessment would attach a B+ for effort and a C- for result. I still remember that first class, when my professor came in, and after the opening Buenos dias and Como estas, I did not recognize another word for the next 15 minutes. It has gotten better since, but I still have this feeling, like a deer running through the forest with a pack of wolves behind. Except they are not behind, but around me. I am bleeding in the haunches, and if I stumble once more, its over. Was it Satchel Paige who said, “don’t look back, ‘cause they might be gaining on you”?.
Outside of the classroom this week I was able to get into the mountains. A friend of my Cuencano father is both a veterinarian and a professor at the Universidad de Cuenca in the agricultural department. The university has a farm in the mountains outside of Cuenca and gave me an invitation to see, which I gladly accepted. I did not brush up on my metric conversions, so I do not quite know the elevation, but since Cuenca is above 8,000 as a starting point, we had to be above 10,000 feet. The road up is not too indifferent from the forest roads in Colorado. Were it not for the exchange of vehicles at the university to four wheel drive, I am not so sure we would have arrived, due to rains that have been occuring daily. Amazing to find little hamlets along the way. Not totally desolate and isolated, but certainly difficult to imagine a daily trip up and down. Expecially since so few here have personal transportation. Economy size pickups are frequently packed with passengers in back.
Equally amazing is the common sight of newly constructed houses in all kinds of places in Ecuador. Despite the poverty of the campos, these new homes, certainly in excess of 3,000 square feet, with three or four stories, with beautiful mountain views, are often empty. They belong to Ecuadorians working in the states, who build these homes with their American earnings, which easily surpass what one could make here. Such homes, have been reported to me as costing between 60 and 70 thousand dollars, for those curious. We passed several along the way.
Once at the top, I met several students prepping some cows for a weekend festival in celebration of the Foundation of Cuenca. Next I visited and watched the milking operation of the farm. Despite my Texan heritage, my personal observation of cows being milked was nada. But, I am proud to say that I got milk in the can, after only my second squeeze. Fortunately for the cows, however, the operation is not totally manual. They do have milking machinery. I will say that the process, particularly with the rains in the mountains, is not clean, and it is not a job that I would want to depend upon. Popo, nickname of the veterinarian, was there to inspect a couple of the cows. One had some type of infection causing a “leak”. He administered the appropriate treatment and shot and we returned to town, fully packed with students and adults. Fortunately the weather was exceptionally good during the afternoon. As soon as we returned to town, however, the rains began again.
A couple of days later, on the weekend, I did my best to see as much as I could during the Fiesta celebrating the Foundation of Cuenca. There are events everywhere, in town and on the edges. Crafts, music, dance, art, races were everywhere. Saturday morning I watched my first parade in many years. I watched about an hour, and missed far more than that before I arrived. From my observation, it consisted mostly of high school students, but there were some universities represented and several children groups as well. A few small adult groups, but it certainly was mostly student participants. Bands and dancing groups, dressed in colorful costumes only added to the brightness of one of the few sunny days I have seen since my arrival. The costumes and colors were as varied and as multiple as one´s imagine would allow. Guessing only, but I would say the course of the parade was easily a mile and one-half. With the sun, the full costume dress, the stress of not missing a step or a beat, the thousands of spectators that lined the full distance of parade, no wonder how few showed smiles. But, there was that occasional champion who did try. And all did wonderously in their performance.
The parade had group after group representing the large number of schools in the city. I have not yet discovered how the school system works here, but there are schools throughout the city. One is only a few steps away from my school, and for the last month there has been the frequent sound of drums in their patio, bum bum, bum bum, bumbedee bumbedee, bum bum. I now understand it all, as tambores were the dominant instrument, and indeed most of the groups I saw were totally drum. And, they were good. There were two particularly that had me looking for a dance partner, but alas, no. Several years ago Paul Simon had a record where many of the songs were backed by drummers, many from South America. These two groups reminded me of those. The beat moved up from toes to top. How so many could learn drums is amazing. In the hundreds, thousands, of percussionists. Easy to understand the latin rhythm, where it starts, where it takes you. With my class hours, are four gratuity free salsa lessons. I do acknowledge some difficulty, and therefore my appreciation of the students and their street performance is truly sincere. I think too many of us have steel rods inserted in our backbones.
Besides the bands and the dancers, were the required presence of floats and selected princesses. Among the crowds were the hawkers of foods and drinks, parasols and hats. I was fortunate to have a small square of viewing access, squeezed between umbrellas and viewers. Pressed in with all the others trying to get a sight, or photos, no wonder I did not feel the hand somehow get my billfold. How, I have no clue. It was in a front pocket, zippered and my rain jacket squeezed in. I am glad they only took the billfold, containing around $35, and put back the jacket. It cost me $60 at REI. I do not carry cards, license or passport, so only money, and a few numbers and references were inside. If anyone gets a strange South American phone call, you may be able to assist in discovery. That was pretty much the only damper in my day.
I followed later in the day with a watch at the finish line of a competition race of local firefighters. Then later at a nearby park I watched an outdoor concert, one of many around the city this weekend. I have seen Andean music before, but never an electric performance. Quite enjoyable. Other music groups both preceded, and followed the groups I observed. All presented some aspect of music associated with the country and gave a different perspective of the cultural variety found here.
Cuenca trabajando para ti.
¬
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