corny-val

now, when i came here and found out that there was going to be a carnival, i got somewhat excited. i immidiately thought of brazil - the music, the costumes, the parties for 2 weeks or so. i thought of trinidad - the music, the dancing, the parties for two weeks. i thought of new orleans - the music, the parties, the parades, the girls flashing everybody, even the perseverance new orleanans have shown in maintaining their carnival celebration in the face of their cities devestation. i even think of venice, with their masks and costumes. i thought of all these places and i felt pretty lucky to be down in south america during this time. however, by the time i traveled to colombia and found out that they too have a carnival celebration like that of brazil, trinidad and new orleans i was just jealous.

i was told long ago, like in september, that carnival here in ecuador, and especially here in cuenca, involved throwing water baloons at people. i was told that this was part of the catholic tradition of purifying yourself, which is i guess what all of this carnivaling is about in some way or another. fine. so, i asked people, "well, what about the parties and parades? are there a lot of parties and parades? wow, the water baloons must go well with the parties and parades, right?" and each time, i received a quizzicle look and a response like this: "no, we dont really have parties. carnival is more of a family celebration here. each family has dinner together and cooks a pig. but then you have to watch out because as well as throwing water, many people throw pigs blood in baloons. sometimes urine." and this response is not presented with the slightest bit of embarassment, an apology for being slightly uncreative, nor is it presented as a good reason to get out of cuenca during carnival. it is always presented with a sly little giggle. and then, "carnival is only 4 days long, but people start throwing water two months in advance." so of course what this means is that for 1/6 of the year in cuenca, you can walk down the street and get hit with water.

there is a graffitti written on a wall near where we live: "carnival is our culture, those who dont play should get hit with a stick." also, many of the tourists you speak to say, "you cant get upset about carnival, its cultural." however mr/ms tourist, i ask you: if it were a true cultural activity, would people throw water at you in secret, or would they be proud of having done it and doing it? one girl i saw get water thrown at her ran up into the building she supposed is came from to approach the thrower. one group of teenage boys i saw throwin water at someone from a bus threw the water and then ducked so that no-one could see them. one woman i saw had some water sprinkle on her and she immidiately started bawling out the offending person, who turned out to be a nun watering her plants on a balcony. a cedei teacher was walking down the street and had a water baloone thrown at him from a car speeding in the opposite diection. the baloon hit him square in the face and basically ruined his weekend. this is cultural? or is it just mean spirited actions of teenage boys? lets compare it to the venerable mardi gras tradition of girls liftin their shirts in the pursuit of beads. in this cultural tradition, you have the beads, which are worthless except during mardi gras, you have girls who would normally not lift their shirts while standing on their balconies doing so, and everybody is happy.

anna and i were walking down the street the other day and a man from behind us called out to anna and told her that she had something dirty on her back (*i forgot to mention this on the phone yesterday...). sure enough, she had some pink substance on her backpack and running all down her legs. i was wiping it off of her and then i too felt something wet on the back of my pants. sure ehough, i too had the pink substance. it looked like strawberry yogurt and smelled like glue. we are not yet sure what it was, but we are assuming it is carnival related. what fun. we looked around and everyone was acting normal on the street. we did not know who to blame or where the stuff came from. even the guy who alerted us to its presence had vanished. it was like vietnam. we didn know who our friends or enemies were but then of course just in time came the local alcoholic, stumbling towards us, warning us that there are a lot of thieves in cuenca. yay carnival. and since it is a family celebration i dont even get to eat pig! we asked our spanish teacher, who is from cuba but who has lived for a long time in cuenca, why they dont celebrate here more like in brazil her answer was simple, ¨because they dont dance as well as they do in brazil.¨