I don't know what I thought life would really be like before I came here. I think I imagined living in the jungle, waking up to monkeys walking over my roof, and hearing the buzzing of a million insects every night. I imagined knowing my entire village, peeing outside in a latrine, and becoming a generally enlightened person as a result of the whole experience.
None of that has happened. I am in a wealthy town, a "Posh Corps" town, where the average resident drives an SUV and where the majority of the teenagers own Blackberries (which cost about $600 here). A town of 20,000, which can feel suffocatingly small at times, but where I know that most people still don't know who I am. So, it's small enough that everyone pretty much knows everyone elses' business, but big enough that at the end of two years, most people still won't know me.
I pee in a toilet, although above it there is a "window" with absolutely no covering to the outer world, so that all slugs, mosquitoes, ants, cockroaches, moths, and even rats can come in at will. I've seen each of those creatures in here at least once.
The hardest part about being here for me isn't the insects or the rats or even the crying baby that lives next door that keeps me up at night. The hardest thing for me is dealing with the people.
Now, there are tons of wonderful things about the Latin culture. Many people have huge hearts and are incredibly generous. They love their families fiercely and stick together like Pat Robertson supporters to Republican candidates. Brothers and sisters hang out at school, which is so alien to me. My sister and I, like proper American teenagers, avoided each other like the plague at social events. We never went to parties together or had the same friends. Here, siblings chill together after schol, go to parties together, go shopping together, and even have the same group of friends. Mothers are incredibly attached to their children. Families gather every weekend for a big, long lunch, including soup and a big main plate that almost always includes rice and some kind of meat. They sit and talk and laugh for about two hours, go off to take naps, return at 4 for a cup of coffee and a piece of bread (called the entrecomida), scatter again, and return at 6 or 7 for a small dinner. It's a beautiful and calm life that the people here seem to have, a life centered around the togetherness and joy of family.
The bad thing about the culture is the rigidity of gender roles. Many women in this town (more from the older generation) are taught that their most important duties in life are that of a wife, mother, and homemaker. The house should be neat at all times, and beautifully decorated. The floors should be swept, the bed made, everything organized neatly, the shirts ironed crisply. Failure to keep your home beautiful reflects horribly on you as a woman. It means you are a machona, a man-woman, a woman who doesn't know her place.
As you all know, American women aren't taught the same thing (at least, not the women where I live). We are encouraged to play sports, to develop ourselves. This Olympic Games, the majority of the US medal winners were women. We are encouraged to get good grades, play a musical instrument, go to college, get a good job, get an apartment. Women in their mid twenties should have a fabulous life- full of freedom, full of friends, family, social activities, fashionable clothes, and dates. Some women get engaged and married at 23 or 24, but so many more wait until they are 29, 30, 34. There is no rush to marry- why should there be? Weddings are expensive, freedom is enticing, and we want to know that we have found The One before we get married.
My mom was a feminist, and never taught us to stay at home once we got married. Working and having a life outside of kids and a home is a value I absorbed as a little kid. Because of this, knowing how to iron perfectly or make tons of food never has been my top priority- they've been skills I've picked up slowly (and painfully) along the ride.
This I've been having major problems with my host family. I get criticized almost daily by my host mom, who says that I am lazy for not cleaning more and that I will not be able to find a husband if I don't learn to be more of a "woman." When she says "woman," she, of course, means a Latina woman, who values family above all, and stays at home to care for her kids and her husband. This idea is so foreign to me. I'm so stressed by the constant criticism, the constant nagging, to be a "better woman." When you throw in the crying baby next door, the puppy that poops all over my host, and the general loudness of living on the same street as both the market and the dance hall, it's too much to deal with. It's driving me crazy and making me stressed out. I feel like I cannot escape the loudness of life here.
So, I am trying to move. Hopefully, this week I can find a new apartment to live in, one that is both cheaper and quieter. Cross your fingers for me, because finding an empty apartment is pretty difficult here in Zaruma. I don't know how I will explain this all to my host family, but I've come to realize that they aren't my real family, so it doesn't matter. I will be a horrible volunteer if I continue to be so miserable and so stressed out.
So, deep breath, one, two, three, LEAP! Who knows how this saga will unfold.
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