This place is weird. Sometimes I come home from school, completely frustrated with a smart-mouthed student, or a teacher who doesn't want to work with me, or simply not being able to understand jokes in this land of fast, coastal Spanish.
But in the last week, things have been different. It's like the universe cosmically shifted and started dropping down good day after good day. Maybe it's like the wave of life- right now we've entered the warm, calm waters, with the storms brewing off in the distance. But I can't help falling in love with Zaruma.
For one thing, the smallness of the town doesn't yet feel claustrophobic. At this point, I usually see a student/teacher/storekeeper/family member that I know on its tiny narrow streets. Sometimes someone yells my name across the street and asks where I'm going. "Andreita! Donde vas?" is a common question.
Second, and I half love this, and half am opposed to it, is the extreme nuturance by the female teachers at my school. While the male teachers range from dignified, old-school grandfathers who wear bowl hats and offer advice, to young, non politically correct rabbelrousers, the female teachers are pretty united in their joie de vivre and their motherliness. The older women, I think, see me like a young daughter lost in a sea of unfamiliarity, and try to express their approval of me by doing things like buying me manicures, getting me milkshakes, and inviting me to their houses. I appreciate, and am astounded by, the hospitatlity of these people, who have known me for a little over a month. Their huge hearts and willingness to help others is incredible. The slow pace of life here means that people have time to stop and get a coffee together, to visit their family more, and to give money to the homeless on the street. It also means more time for chisme, or gossip, which they say is the national pastime of Ecuadorians. But I'm starting to dig it. Unlike DC, where we rush rush rush from one activity to the next, the slowness of life here means more time to live instead of checking off to-do lists.
It's probably just a surge of good luck, but I've also had two wildly fun weekends where I got to hang out with interesting, kind, young people, both Ecuadorians and PCVs. Last weekend, we went swimming in a nearby river. This one guy brought his Cocker Spaniel and kept throwing it from the river bank into the water, and watching it swim back to him, soggy ears and all. The local priest and a group of high-spirited seminarians were there, too, playing some catch game with a soccer ball and posing for pictures on a rock. The priest later gave us a ride home through the dusty and bumpy streets of Porto Vello.
This weekend, we went to the dance contest for the coronation of the neighborhood queen. Yes, here in Zaruma, queens, or reinas, are a very big deal. Every neighborhood has a queen. The school has a queen. The town has a queen. The province has a queen. These girls are usually 16 or 17, and, to be selected, must be the most beautiful, and well-clothed of the bunch. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be especially charismatic or smart...the main point seems to be how beautiful they are. The queens, once elected, get to do things like go to other towns to represent Zaruma, and get to sit in the front row of important town events.
Anyways, it started pouring so they moved the umbrella-less queens to under a tent. A singer crooned "I will always love you" while the mainly-male crowd listened. The inebriated men in the crowd started to dance and sway, which was all the dancing that I saw that night.
Then we started dancing, in this big circle of people in the midst of paired up dancers. It started raining and people cleared off the asphalt, but we kept going. It was just one of those magical, everything is ok and we're all one kind of nights that only dancing, rain, and good people can bring out.
Tomorrow starts exam week. And Thursday marks my sixth week here. After the strange turn of events this past month, there is literally no telling what will happen next.
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