market value?

undoubtedy, one of the most interesting, cultural experiences you could have upon getting to ecuador is going to the market. even if you are staying in a hotel withou a kitchen and have no need for groceries of any kind, your time in ecuador will have been incomplete without having checked out the market. just walking through the aisles is an experience for your senses. there are bound to be fruits and vegetables you have never seen before. the fruits are stacked ten feet in the air, on top of each other, sectioned off so that from afar, you see a squre of red, green, orange, purple, etc. and the whole thing represents some sort of psychadelic experience - not even to mention the smells! plus, the markets are usually manned by indigenous ladies who have at some point in their long history decided to wear each and every color in the rainbow each and every day. you can find the ladies sleeping nearby the food or else swatting flies away.

 

as a visitor to the market you may pick up one of the fruits that you may have never before seen - for example, the babacao. this is a fruit that looks somewhat like a papaya, but is white and chalky on the inside and in order to make drinkable juice out of it, heaps and buckets of sugar needs to be added. not my favorite. still, interesting. when you pick up the fruit, you will without fail rouse the interest of the sellers and within five seconds, she will come to you or scream at you from where she sleeps, something astute like, 'what are you looking for'. just looking brings a frown so you move on to the next stall and get a 5 or 6 second glimpse at another exotic fruit before the lady there begins to ask you what you are looking for and if youre lucky, providing a laundry list of the things tha tyou may be looking for. but, as a visitor, it is all part of the experience. you may wind up buying somethin glike a babacao just to cut it open and smell it and if you are charged $.50 it is no thing to you and you will go back to your home country and say to your friends that hte ecuadorian markets are very cheap and very colorful.

 

as a shopper, things get a bit more dicey. knowing that you make $.67 each month and that you are actually getting paid more than most ecuadorians makes you a bit more sensitive to the fact that it is quite impossible that a head of broccoli costs $.40. so, a number of tactics need to be employedto combat this friendly ripping-off of foreigners. one such tactic is to hide somewhere near to the stall from which you want to buy, wait until a local buys something, and note the price. then, when it is your turn to buy, dont be swayed by the vendors talk of your product being bigger, newer, fresher or otherwise needing to be more expensive. this tactic is often thwarted by nearby endors asking you what you are looking for if you are lurking. this draws atention to you and the vendor you wantd to buy from will often wind up overcharging the prson they are selling to, thussparking an argument between the two and causing time to waste. you will usually wind up going toanother stall.

 

at this other stall, you will try to buy a bag of naranjillas. naranjillas are related to oranges. they are green on the inside and orange onthe outside and until yesterday i had taken for granted the fact that if you buy naranjillas, you will only be able to use about half of them because the rest will be bruised beyond use. kind of likeif you buy raspberries, some are guaranteed to be moldy. usually the price you will be charged for things in a bag is either $.50 or $1 depending on the size of the bag. the price is so universally quoted that it seems true and not a rip-off. still, $1 for something seems like quite a lot. think about it: a dollar for a bag of 4 avocados basically means that each avocado is worth 1/4 the price of avocados as thy are sold in the most expensive city in the richest country in the world (new york). ok, but then if you take into consideration that the salary i am making is approximately 10 times less than what would be made in said city, then that scales the price of each avocado to $2.50 each - and this in a place where avocados grow on trees. no. cant be. yet, as a foreigner, $.25 per avocado is the cheapest price you can get. and these are usually the small, bruised ones.

back to naranjillas: this local fruit (not sold even as close as peru) will cost $1 per bag. in a bag, there will usually be about 13. 7 usable. but, they are organic, so fine. not organic in the whole food kind of way, where organic means price x 10. but, organic in the sense that you are buying from the grower and they are making 100% profit.

 

anna and i have taken to paying a weekly visit to supermaxi. this is a supermarket the type you might expect to find in the suburbs. massive and sells everything. here you can buy canned goods, boxed good - all things that are not produce. there is a produce section. however, used to thinking of the market as a good deal and nice experience, the produce section has usually been ignored. until yesterday when i saw that supermaxi carried a bright orange fruit, about the size of my palm, with a thick orange skin. as i moved closer, i realized that these were naranjillas. i was able to pickeach one out and fondle it before putting it into a bag, and inthe end, i bought 10 of them for $1. however, these were ten usable naranjillas that looked as though if you were to throw them against a wall, the wall, not the fruit would break. quite genetically modified of course, but quite pretty and sturdy. having juiced one of them this morning, i can tell you that the markets organic version has nothing on the supermaxi version. sure, there probably are good naranjillas at the market, but of course these would not be sold to foreigners. and, if they were, it would be at a ridiculous price that you would have to spend about half an hour bargaining down to a reasonable price that would still be a rip off.

 

so the wheeling and dealings of the market vendors is costing them business. i would like to go to the markets to buy my produce because i find them to be interesting and i like the idea of buying from the growers, however, i do not like the idea of having to argue for every little food item i need and then still not getting a great deal. supermaxi, you see, has prices listed for all of their items.

and then, there was this exchange yesterday:

me: (looking at potatoes)

vendor: what are you looking for?

me; do you have sweet potatoes? (keep in mind that there are over 300 types of potatoes available in this region - i know that yams are not technically potatoes, but still...)

vendor: ?

me: they are potatoes, but they are orange on the inside.

vendor: you want an orange?

me: no, a sweet potato.

vendor:?

me: they are like potatoes, but they are orange on the inside.

vendor: oh, you want a papaya!

me: thank you, but no. (i walk away, aware that i will not be allowed to look any longer.

other vendor within earshot: what are you looking for?

me: just looking

 

internal messages

the only problem with cedei isnt really a 'problem' at all, but a conflict of interest. you see, the new director, wants to professionalize cedei, and given her experience as an administrator in the new york city board of ed (or is it department of ed?), she has lots of knowledge and plans to back up her vision. however, the poulation of workers that are there are generally not here, or getting paid enough, to carry out elaborate pedagogical philosophies. we are mostly here to see ecuador - yes, to teach, but in a different environment than what we would be accustomed to in our home cities: one in which we can have fun with the students, have them speak english and feel as though they are getting the most out of their $1million per class or whatever it is they pay for our services. then, since we work only 15 paid hours per week, we wish for the rest of the existing time during the week to not be taken up by laborious planning, stressful worrying, painful work chatter, professional development devoid of either development or professionalism, and responsibly early nights. instead, we want to take a few minutes to plan - make some copies of a worksheet, after calss to go out here and there, and then on the weekends to go visit great towns and cities in ecuador as much as possible.

in any event, i wish the best to the new director in implimenting her plans, and to the future cedei teachers in attaining a fair salary for the amount of work they may be expected to do.


i end my work week on thursday at 845 pm. this past weekend, having already planned to not leave cuenca in favor of enjoying what there is to enjoy here over the weekend - aka - live music at cafe eucalyptus, good food at cafe moliendo (which, admittedly, is there during the week too), and the joy of not having to take a bus (there are other good things to do in cuenca during the weekend, but it would have been too much of a digression to get into. if you want, i can dedicate a future entry to these things). at about 842, i began feeling abnormally chilly. yes it was cold out, but i was cold from the inside, yes my head was hot and i could feel my eyes watering and nose running. at 846, snot poured out of my nose pushed only by the force of gravity. the three block walk home was interminable and my teeth chattered like the firing of automatic weapons. my bones began to ache and i quickly developed a gangleon of some sort in my wrist. by the time i reached home i needed only to curl up underneath my blanket and sweat. this was my general state this weekend until today, monday, when i woke up feeling spry, my nose damn near crusty from being so dry, and my pillowcase drenched from my bodys final outpouring of feverish sweat.


this from-the-time-responsibility-ends-until-the-time-responsibility-begins-again sickness is something my body has developed over the years. in most circumstances, it has proven to be a very useful mechanism. for example, i spent very little time absent from school while growing up. i have not had to miss much work as ive gotten older, thus being able to use my sick days as vacation days, and avoiding debilitating non-paid days. however, the fact that my body would adhere to these rules in cuenca, while im working for cedei, and basically on vacation is a bit alarming. it means either one of two things. 1) that my body is just used to allowing me to tend to my responsibilities, or 2) that my body has internalized the professional visions of one linda. the first option is just a matter of habit, while the second is far more disturbing - making me some sort of company man: yikes! you see, in this situation, were i sick during work, i could either just not go and get someone to cover for me and miss out on about $.03 on my paycheck, or i could go in sick and teach words for sickness, like, sick, sweat, snot, tissue, sleep, phlegm, green, yellow-green, ache, etc. being sick on the weekend means that i will be sitting in cafe eucalyptus drinking water and lemonade, wearing a sweatshirt and a fleece with a ball of toilet paper to be used as tissues sitting next to me and with my head on the table while everyone else dances and asks whats the matter with me.

ps: check out more 'peru' photos on my yahoo page...

the principles of principal

so this weekend, we decided to go with a couple of friends to a place called principal. principal is a place just two hours from cuenca, although i suspect that if the road was paved even half of the way, it would only be about a 30 minute busride. principal is the closest peace corps spot to cuenca, and there is a working relationship between the peace corps and cedei. this working relationship goes as follows: the one peace corps volunteer has asked that cedei donate a few teachers each weekend - perhaps particular teachers each weekend - as volunteers to teach english. in return, the cedei teachers would not have to pay the $5.50 that it costs to stay in the only hostel in town. for the teachers, this is good because they get to stay for free in a tiny rural village and enjoy the scenery and tranquility while helping out the people in the way that they can. this is good for principal because the one peace corps volunteer who does live in principal has made it his mission to help the town by boosting its tourism industry.

we went as tourists - that is - we paid the $5.50 and sat around and did hikes. other people from cedei were slated to come by to teach for free, so good for them. when we first got there, it was plainly evident that we had not been to a place like this yet in our south american travels. the streets were unpaved and being that we are suddenly in the rainy season - or shall i say that it just rains all the time here in ecuador - so the streets were composed mainly of mud and the most effectively stylish footwear were rubber boots that come up to your knees. principal is a town of 1200 and most of the people farm for themselves. for this reason, roosters populate the streets, blackberry and tree tomoto trees decorate each backyard, and the mountains around the town are left green, lush, and uncultivated. all larger places that are surrounded by mountains use the mountains as a means of urban sprawl, thus rendering the mountians interesting to look at at night what with all the lights rising into the air, but not as naturally beautiful during the day. the other industry was panama hat making. any woman you may have seen walking down the street, or sitting on her front porch-like area, would be madly weaving panama hats out of straw. whether she was on her leisure time, or she was carying a ton of wood on her back, if her hands were free, she would be weaving a panama hat. we ran into a couple of friendly ladies, weaving hats while walking down the street. they explained that since there used to be a lot of gold mining taking place in the nearby river that once fully mined was no longer a viable source of income, most of the men in the village had left for the united states to find work. she joked that the united states was made of silver. she wore the traditional dress of the village: a neon pink and colorful wool skirt, a knit sweater, two long braids, and her teeth rimmed with gold. she weaved while carrying a blackberry vine on her back that she would plant in her back yard. this, as with most villages in ecuador, is a vilage composed mainly of old men, women and children - the men in their prime having migrated to the u.s. the villagers survive on money sent back, and on the money they make from weaving panama hats. the woman we talked to lamented that she would only make $2 per hat, and that it would take 2 days to make one hat. also, that when she did sell the hat, it would be to an intermediary who would then sell the hat in the larger markets nearby for triple the price, at least. part of matts (mat being the peace corps volunteer) motivation for bringing tourism to principal was so that tourists could buy the hats directly from the women of the town. the lady asked if we knew matt, and then began to recited the names of the other peace corps volunteers who had been in town for the past 10 years or so. there was also megan, jeremy and david. we said that we had once met matt, but didnt really know him.

we walked on to other parts of the town - which did not take long - and passed by a school where children were playing soccer in the yard. as we walked by, they ran to the fence and began saing, 'hello', counting to ten, and any other english words they knew. they asked if we knew matt and if i could get their soccer ball down for them. somebody had kicked it onto a nearby patio. i jumped and got it down and the kids all cheered. then they invited us to play soccer with them. they all played in their rubber boots and i played goalie so as not to exert too much energy. they were very excited about it all and shreiked the whole time.

to eat, we had to, hours before, ask one particular woman in town to cook us something. there is no restaurant in town and this woman needs at least 5 hours of worning before she can serve anything. so, we sat down at her table at around 7, joined by matt and the two cedei teachers who had made it to principal to teach. the other three had bailed at the last moment. we ate and i remarked to matt that he must be doing a good job here because everyone knew him and seemed to like him a lot. he said that he had been trying to boost the tourism of the town and that he really wanted it to be written up in lonely planet. there is another town called jima which is equidistant from cuenca (though you only have to take one bus there), where another peace corps volunteer works, that was written up in the new version of lonely planet. in my humble estimation, i felt that if principal were written up in lonely planet, then perhaps the resulting onslaught of people into the town would be too much for the town to handle. for example, there are no restaurants. there is much hiking to do, but only one guide. only one hostel. soon, everyone might be offering up their services. other people would be offering up their homes as restaurants. other people would be offering up their homes as hostels, and other people would be offering up their services as guides - qualified or not. these people would make disproportionate amounts of money (dinner costed $2.50 - there were 7 of us, =$17.50. the hat weavers make $1 per day) and everyone would want a piece. how long would it be until this nice village where everyone says hello to the tourists, welcomes them to the town, and makes panama hats becomes a place like huacachina in peru, where you walk around feeling like a huge money bag and the locals literally climb over each other and push each other out of the way in order to run up to a tourist to shove a menu full of mediocre food options under their nose. of course im not saying that the people of principal dont deserve to make money if they want, but im just saying that as is, people were not laying in the streets starving - each family had a plot of organic fruits and veggies and a good sized rooster patroling the grounds. their income might not have been much, but they were surviving. is tourism sustainable? is touism a thing that would actually increase the standard of living for the people there? or would it create an upper class of tourists and people in the tourism industry that would occupy the good land of the town, pushing the rest of people to the outskirts where they would no longer have any means of income because their land would not yield as much, the property value would rise exponentially, and they would be left to then become the lower class who were laying in the streets starving... i dont know.

the dinner started out with a blackberry juice and popcorn with ají. then moved on to chicken with mashed potatoes, broccoli and carrots - all taken from the ladies back yard. she used to work as a cook in a restaurant in quito, and was therefore qualified to run this 'restaurant'. the food was delicious and we had her pack us lunches for the hike the next day. the lunches costed $16 for 4 of us. expensive, but she made us 4 chicken sanwiches each and a huge bag of popcorn. she also made us breakfast and it costed $2 per plate. the guide made $12 off of 4 of us for the 9hour hike we did in the rain and mud. interesting, but i wont go into it. beautiful, but i will eventually put pictures of it up on the yahoo page. also, anna got roped into teaching for free in principal, but i wont go into that either. we drank illicit rum, but dont tell the new president: here in ecuador, not only is voting compulsory, but drinking is banned during the weekend of the election (oh, also, election day is on sunday and is treated as a holiday so that people can vote - unlike certain places where voting is during the middle of the week while people are working so that people who need to work and cant take off to go vote are thus discouraged to vote) so that people can make clear-headed decisions. but since we werent voting, we figured that nobody would mind if we foreigners snuck some rum into our hostel room...
all in all it was a great experience to be there and made me think of the tourism industry and what it does to places...

the butler strikes back

so this weekend was interesting, in a sense. what i will not mention here is the part when i played basketball, had a party at our house that ended in commotion and tears for some who were especially attatched to their belongings, planned lessons, took naps, finally hooked up my mp3 to a good stereo thus hearing my music broadcast properly for the first time in three months, went hiking, took more naps, had a couple of my fruits moved in the refrigeratior without my knowing - thus leading to a bout of territorialism, made a large pot of turkey curry, and got a haircut. what i will discuss is how it all started out with a sort of epilogue to the whole dancing scenario:

so, i managed to drag myself to the sals lesson, which turned out in the end to be a merengue lesson. for those unaware, merengue is much easier to dance to than is salsa. therefore, the lesson was not so bad. i did alright, and was even complimented on my performance by some observant young ladies. this compliment took place at a party soon after the dance lesson. you see, many of the teachers at CEDEI live in a specific house called, Cordero House, as it is located on Cordero Avenue - and it is a house. there are often parties there, and the first of the promised lot happened on friday, soon after dancing lessons. there was much laughter and discussion of the dancing lessons, as everyone was slightly unsure about their performance. there were impersonations - necessary ones, as many people did flop about like having been electricuted. some danced as though running a marathon (not in a late 80's post breakdancing kind of way, but like running), some ignored the instructions of the teacher and turned helplessly around in circles. these versions needed to be impersonated. over time, it was determined, and voiced, that there were no very funny impersonations to be done of me - my dancing having ben passable. it was even noted that i had stayed on beat during the lesson. impressive. then, anna, ever eager to have me defend myself to a group of people, began to speak of less graceful dancing episodes invloving me, her, and her toes being stepped on. ok, fine. not that it has never happened, but i was very cautious to point out the reality that these instances are not the norm, and are in fact rare. then, as though a last ditch effort at keeping up the lie inside her head (the one that states that i am not an amazing dancer), anna began a vile impersonation of my favorite dance - the aforementioned wiggly wangles (in a previous post). though i could see that this scenario would end with me performing the appropriate version of the venerable dance, i could not suppress my disgust at the atrocity. 'no, no - i dont do that.' i said, partly in defense of myself, but partly because of the principle in opposition to the bastardization. of course, the next logical response from all those not involved in the quickly forming private matter, was to request that i set the record straight by showing the proper version. usually i would not be made to dance if i didnt want to - but i felt that this was a situation where my identity and self was being attacked, and, the response from the crowd would settle the issue once and for all (the response of the dutch girls as per the aforementioned previous post having been discarded). so, i treated the crowd to a performance of the wiggly wangles. after the initial awe, it did not take long for one of the specators to join in with their own rendition - and soon after another. in fact, within a minute, each and every person standing in the kitchen was doing the wiggly wangles. before long, we had such numbers and momentum that the next logical step was to take the wiggly wangles to the dance floor, where a few people were spinning and twirling in a salsa stupor. once the wiggly wangles showed up, however, the ballerina-like dances stopped, and the wiggly wangles spread like a ray of sunshine. i daresay that this was the worst moment of annas young life.

dancing cats

so cats are ok, but i have reverted somewhat to my original belief, which is that why would people spend money to own cats? ok, they are fine. but they dont really give you the bang for the buck. if you bought a cd, for example, and it only played when it wanted to, you would probably consider it broken. if you bought a pair of jeans and they ran from you every time you went to put them on, you would probably return them. of course cats are independent and can be cute, but then again so are mice. mice dont really want to play with you and they can be little and adorable, but you dont keep them as pets (ok, people who do are weird). so with cats - they purr, they vibrate, they have funny looks on their faces, they are soft - but, they really dont feel like playing most of the time. they only want their food. they are very cute when they want food, but when they dont, where are they? having cats is very much a one sided relationship.

that said, they are still nice to have and they make the apartment fun - even though the owner of the cats/apartment doesnt like having the cats in the house and so leaves them out back. we can only, illicitly play with the cats when she is not around. also, they are always hanging out right next to the door ready to terrorize and spill everything that is not nailed to the ground.

i keep getting ripped off for things here. well, im very paranoid and i accuse people of trying to rip me off when really they might not be. usually i would not care, bt being that i am getting paid approximately $1 per year for my much sought after services, i have to be vigilant about getting a good price for things. like garbage bags. i went to one place to buy 10 garbage bags and they tried to charge me $2. the horror! the problem is that the people here make blatant liar faces when they tell you the price. they cut their eyes, they pause, they do everything wrong. are people here just naturally honest? i dont know.

another thing that is coming up a lot here in the world of latin american living expats is the proliferation of slasa dancing. this is unfortunate. ok, well most of the women i work with have a grand old time when going out. being foreign, they attract a lot of attention, so when at the salsatecas, they usually get scooped up in no time by an ecuadorian willing to teach them the appropriate amount of moves that will a) be a fun time for all and b) have the foreign girl impressed enough to either a) go home with him, b) make out with him on the dance floor, or c) recognize him and choose him next time at teh salsateca in hopes of further pursuing a or b. but fine, good for them. great. im not here to hate. all im saying is that given the scene (the rest of the foreign guys (and this only counts for single people, of course) get to pick up the stragglers, aka those left un-scooped by the snazzy salsa guys), anna and i often find ourselves having arrived with great company, but soon abandoned. also fine. anna is great company. no problem. however, my company is simply not enough for anna. she wants to be a part of the twirling, sweaty salsa scene - and, though ive explicitly told her that if she wanted to, she should dance with one of the snazzy fellows (though without the extracurricular, of course), she has declined on occassion after occasion in favor of my dance partnership. where does this leave me?

well, here at cedei, there are free salsa lessons offered. i am meant to attend these lessons. not that i dont think salsa is fun to watch, and i definitely like the music, but the dancing of salsa is the dance equivalent of big-plate/little-food restaurants. if you are hungry, you want a big huge plate of meat and potatoes, or some such thing - not some artfully decorated appetizer. salsa dancing is the artfully decorated appetizer, so manicured and choreographed away from the natural movements your body might make when hearing good music. i say. being so rough and rugged and hardcore as i am, all those little hip and foot movements may not be good for my image. but, i guess salsa lessons must be done.

if you are still having trouble picturing me dancing salsa - make sure you picture it with me wearing tight clothing. you see, sending things to ecuador, for whatever reason, is very expensive. therefore, i could not get my usual clothes delivered. still, i needed clothes that were not filthy traveler clothes and so i relied on the old navy of ecuador, called vatex. problem was, with most ecuadorians being approximately 5 feet tall, finding clothes that fit me was no easy feat. i was forced to settle many times and even when something did fit me, it does so in such a way that while dancing salsa - clumsily at that - i will most likely have further cause to be concerned about my image.





im kidding of course. im the man. and cats are cute.