Observaciones Más Intangibles

I apologize to my readers if this post is a little less polished than usual, and wish the best to my editor.

Having a maid is weird—it is weird to me not only that her job obligates her to enter my room freely and touch all my things and do stuff like wash my underwear, but also just the idea that someone is so openly acknowledged to be of lower class, I guess. There is no reason that she has earned my respect any less than her employers have, and if anything she is the one who does everything so I feel like I should respect her more.

The distinction in verbal conjugations between you formal and informal exacerbates my distress, by emphasizing that I am speaking to her as though she were beneath me, using the familiar form with her knowing full well that she will use the formal tense with me. I hate the formal tense. I accept using the formal tense with people who are older—that is a good rule—and I understand for example, when I use the formal conjugation to address the musicians and they use the informal conjugation to address me, because I am just the dumb intern whereas they have earned my respect through their musical prowess or whatever. But with the housekeeper, who is older than I, it is just silly because I have done nothing to earn her respect and honestly she has earned my respect plenty--only after passing a few hours in the kitchen making empanadas with her when she began to call me 'tu' did I feel as though I had truly earned her respect.

Half the time when I am trying to figure out whether to use the formal or informal form to address someone I wait and see how they address me—but then I realize that just because they address you one way or another doesn’t mean that that is how you should address them, but that would just make so much more sense—why should you respect someone more than they respect you?

On the other hand, I feel like that the fact that everyone here knows when and how to use the two tenses, and also that every person with way less education than I have been fortunate enough to receive can perfectly execute the subjunctive and understands it on a deeply fundamental level is a kind of intelligence that we in the United States have not been raised to possess.

A phenomenon that I do find awesome is that all of the musicians call each other Maestro. It is quite common that people call each other based on their position of work: abogado, economista, asocio, qualquier cosa. But it is totally rad that all of the musicians running around calling each other Maestro, and all of the administrators call the musicians and each other Maestro as well. This must have positive effects on their psyches.

The orquestra is super diverse, with people from all over South America, Europe, Russia, and North America—the director is from Armenia (his count-offs are funny: un, dos, tres, qvattro)—and it is crazy that they are all here speaking Spanish! Half the time even when I meet someone from the US or another English-speaking country we still speak in Spanish!

The ages of the musicians vary a lot too: there are people in their late teens, a solid contingent of 20-somethings, lots 30 and 40 year old ish people, probably a few that are like 50 or 60, and one violinist who is over 80! What! And so everyone just sees you as a musician and not a foreigner or a youngun or anything, which is both terrifying and liberating—I am used to being treated like a student, where people cut you some slack, which is nice, but they also expect less of you.

It is not considered impolite to ask someone how old they are, or for everyone (including men) to discuss womanly issues ¬with anyone. It doesn’t bother me, but it still surprises me every time. It is also always the youngest ones who tell me that I am jovencita: someone will ask my age, and I will respond, ‘twenty-one,’ they are like ‘oh my god I am so old’ and I am like really how old are you? And they respond, ‘twenty-three.’

In addition, there are like 9 pregnant women in the orchestra, which I find pretty remarkable. It is super interesting the way they treat women, because on the one hand they definitely have plenty of preconceptions about the strength and physical abilities of a woman (which I do my best to challenge), and all of the women of the older generation do lots of cooking and don’t work (which is another reason that it is weird to have a maid, because if the maid does all the household work than the woman literally has nothing to do; bueno, retired old men also don’t have that many obligations) but on the other hand, there are tons of women in the orchestra and nobody thinks at all that they might be inferior to the men. The women are pretty evenly distributed throughout the instruments: while the first violin and viola are both men, the first cello is a woman, and the tiniest girl in the orchestra plays timpani and cymbals, and no one says a word about how it might be strange for a woman to be playing these instruments.

In general, they are much more accepting about physical characteristics that are obvious. For example if someone is Chinese, it is very common to refer to them as ‘chino’—there are no negative or otherwise connotations associated with this, it is just a manner of describing people. They also are very upfront about calling someone gordo—telling them that they are gordo or that they look gordo. And if someone is like ‘oh man I look so fat’ rather than being like, no don’t worry you look great they are like, it's okay, you just had a baby.

Everyone is obsessed with soccer, and have soccer paraphernalia in their cars and EVERYWHERE. All of the staff at the Orquestra wear polos embroidered with the OSG logo, but then a bunch of them also have the shield for their soccer team (the most popular one is Barcelona, which is yellow, and a lot of them wear bright yellow polos for this reason) embroidered there right next to the official logo, which at first I thought was part of the official uniform. But it is not.

No one can type! They all type with like one finger on each hand, and also the keyboards are a little bit different to make it easier to do accents and whatnot, and sometimes when I try to type things I end up opening six programs and doing things that I do not mean to do. And for the life of me I cannot figure out how to make the @ sign. If I haven't emailed you, now you know why.

I am pretty sure it is not the law to wear seat belts in the back because no one does and half the cars don’t even have them.
Also sometimes when you park your car you leave it in neutral and then these randos on the street (because there are always randos on the street that sit there and watch your car and then when you drive away you are supposed to give them a small tip) push the cars around so that it is easier for the next person to park/ more cars can fit. So then you are just walking down the street and there is a dude pushing the cars around and you are like WHAT.

Esto es ECUADOR

Dance and fútbol—it runs in the blood de los Ecuatorianos. So Alex Barnard and I learned during our awesome weekend pasando por Quito, during which, in addition to doing all the typical touristy things, we rode 25-cent buses all around town, ate pan de yuca y yogurt on a street corner, danced salsa at a discoteca with two native Ecuatorianos, and watched the world cup over un almuerzo de llapingacho, mote, plantains, and jugo de mora. Photos will be more expressive than words:


From his roof you can see the entire city—I am sorry I do not have a picture of this view from the night with which to illustrate the universally awe-inspiring image of a city whose merrily twinkling lights approximate the stars in the night sky.



Centro Histórico



Plaza central. I am really kind of obsessed with plazas. I should probably move to Europe.



Buckingham Palace, Ecuador style



The Equator is as exciting as he makes it look



View from El Teleférico: Elías says that what is truly important in a picture is not the subject, but el fondo--definitely the case here.



Amigos across the world :o)



SO MUCH SKY



Quito from above

My favorite place in Guayaquil

se llama La Santería. There you will find everything you could hope for: three canchas de fútbol bien grandes, an attractive patio, enormous TV screens that broadcast the most popular sports channels (mundial—no te dudes), and a super ambient bar walled by islandy bamboo stalks fit for a tropical paradise dream and lit by those super trendy paper star lights.

My second favorite place in Guayaquil is an alley that borders the school half a block from my house, next to an eccentric residence whose menacing cement walls are adorned by such signs as “Inmobilia Civescia—Sociedad Anonima” and “Bonsai Store.” The path is not elegant or well tended, but it is long, seguro, and secluded from traffic (although cuidado at the ends of the block where it opens out into the street), and that is enough for me.

En La Santería there is glory—I play for the women’s world cup-esque tournament that the Fútbol Club organizes, pursuing with my orange-jerseyed teammates world domination (we have already taken, for example, Argentina 2-0). My modest alleyway knows nothing like that; it is host only to the amused chatter of the ice-cream truck men (except they are not actually trucks, but red bicycles) and maybe a few catcalling schoolboys. But I do not see them at all, my eyes glued to the ball as I run drills and pass al pared, as the seasonally inappropriate rain mixes with the sweat on my forehead.

Through el balón, this is how I am experiencing Ecuador.

And like any good plato de comida típica, my fútbol experience consists of diverse components para ser completa and quintessentially Ecuatoriana.

They told me later that when I had accepted their invitation to play, no one believed that I actually would. But, uncertain and inexperienced, there I stood on the field after that night’s rehearsal (mira, ves: an orchestra of musicians who love to play sports—this is my world) for the first of many Tuesday’s experiencing what would become the highlight of my week, each time surprising them with something I could not do the time before.

The Tuesday nights on the small field of the Sociedad Italiana Garibaldi, to which the chamber orchestra that I am conducting belongs, are all about defying the boys. Saturated with their—would I call them prejudices?—the beliefs de su cultura (but who isn't?), exemplified by their insistence in paying for me the first day despite my vigorous and indignant objections (since everyone has to pay to play on the field, but girls do not pay for things ever), los muchachos were tickled to find out that I was not afraid to kick or be kicked, to fight them for the ball, to fall, making sure, as I was instructed, nunca caer sólo. And the first time that I jumped to block a goal kick with my chest, the shouts of ‘Que bestia!’ (my new favorite frase), resounded throughout the land.

The girl's tournament is casi el opuesto. Their game is characterized by the fuerza and confident security that comes of knowing they have nothing to prove, and the transformation from attractive, professional receptionist, carefully made-up, clothed gracefully in a flowing blouse with neatly arranged hair and high high-heels, to an athlete that can truly ¡Bótala! is mindblowing, jawdropping—inspirational, to say the least. The girls play smart, they play hard, and they do not preocupar that you are a delicate woman: when the crowd shouts ‘Pégala!’ they are not afraid to do so. Playing with them is much more intimidating than playing with the boys, and I would be lying to say that I was not relieved to be a benchwarmer (sin bench) for the first game. After two of our players got red/double yellow-carded, however, notwithstanding my defensively-oriented protestations, I was ordered to play midfield, where I tried my best to interpret and execute everything that Ana yelled to me from the sidelines, never dejando running and doing my best to channel all that is Kaká. Ana’s assurances “estás perfecto,” as much as I doubted their veracity, meant more to me than most things could.

The alley is a place of allure and mystery, where, always unsure of how seriously to take my friends’ cautions about not walking the streets, I am not sure if I am as safe as on the Davis greenbelt or at risk of getting assaulted at any moment. Lined by a cement barricade, from doors in which people sometimes enigmatically come and go, it is both comfortingly secure and menacingly aloof. And, of course, there is nothing like losing the ball over the roof (Sandlot, anyone?), pressing el timbre, and explaining to the household staff that your ball está en el pecho—I mean, techo (look it up)—and asking would they please see if they could find it for you, to make you feel like part of a community.

But the real magic happens late at night, atrás, sóla, dancing with the ball on the typically Latin-American patio, under a sole light bulb that can only touch a tiny piece of the dark, velvety sky, caressed by a gentle breeze in the soft, lightly humid, dulcemente warm and refreshing Ecuadorian climate, que huele a la perfuma nocturna del Caballero de la noche (jazmín)— this is fútbol, this is Sudamérica, this is how you fall in love.