Sunday, JULY 13

Right now I would describe myself as a bit sad and sick. But not desperate sad/sick. No, more like competent sad/sick. I feel like I'm learning things- about other kinds of lives, about a modesty of existence, and a pounding appreciation of my own life. The sadness is just a little typical loneliness and the sickness is your usual phlegmy, fevery, sore, one bloody nostril cold/flu (which I think was exacerbated by my trip)--

My Trip
3 hours of incredible bus-ride scenery: the further north we got, the more the mountains became exotically desertish--towering, intimidating things, rising in sheer cliffs with a sporadic sprouting of spiky cactus-like tufts. As we made our way even further north (back into habitable land), the Andes I'm now used to began to reemerge (patchworked with distant farms. rivers cutting swiftly through the valleys).

The market in otavalo is a real tourist draw-Dutch, American and German I spotted. It stretches for blocks and blocks in all directions--al paka rugs, fresh vegetables, artesenal jewelry. Beggars and hagglers. Semi-chic hostels, cutsey stained glass lamp posts and restaurants catering to Americans lined the streets.

And yet--a mile up the mountain where we stayed, I found an entirely different life.

I went with my friend Andrea, an Ecuadorian girl my age who has lived as an illegal immigrant in Switzerland since age 9. Christina, (daughter of Rosita--the native Otavaleñan artisan at our center) agreed to accompany us and give us shelter in their family home for the night. It was great to get this opportunity, although Christina's presence managed to seriously dampen my mood (as is pretty consistently the case). Although my age, she has the indolent eyes of a middle-school girl, with the detached, sneering coolness to match.

Anyway, a five minute walk across some abandoned train tracks, up a rutted dirt path, and past a chained pig and sheep nuzzling, we arrived at their mountain-perched family home. At least ten people appeared to live there in this concrete structure with concrete walls, ceilings, floors, and a concrete hole in the floor where the cold shower water runs off. Our room was empty, but for a wooden bed frame with a thin straw mat and some blankets.

With a some gentle probing and coaxing, I managed to get a bit of information out of Christina about the life there (the only time i felt any spark of warmth). Prompted by the Quitchuan sign in a church we were in, we began talking about how Rosita speaks Quitchua fluently (while christina has only a basic grasp). This led to a discussion of Rosita's growing up and times past in the mountains of Otavalo. It is obvious that Rosita is still really tied to Otavalo, as she religiously wears the traditional garb--a lacy, colorfully-embroidered blouse, gold-bead bangles, and black velvet triangle-toed sandals. (Christina, on the other hand, religiously wears American semi-punk clothes). Yet, despite Rosita's obvious devotion to her roots, she hates to visit this home that she left 17 years ago. In response, Christina told me that this entire tourist sector used to be a forest before the various forces of globalization and modernization reduced the traditional homes on the mountain to just the outskirts of this new, relatively sleek center of town.

Yet, despite this marginalization of sorts, these "remote" mountain structures seem to have maintained family and community to quite a degree. Although some of the houses had "for sale" signs, these turned out to only pertain to family members. Outsiders are not eligible to purchase. From here, I learned that the the entire mountain was dotted with Christina's extended family! There was not a house I could point to that she would not respond "aunt" "uncle" "cousin" or "grandmother."

Despite my occasional questioning, I never quite got a complete grasp of what the life there is like. I was taught an interesting lesson about the handicaps of my perception: when we first climbed up into this world, I thought 'oh, maybe part of the reason Christina seemed hesitant to take us has to do with the poverty--stray dogs and scraggly chickens, dilapidated-looking shanty buildings and unfurnished concrete structures like the one we stayed in.' And yet, the longer I was there, I began to get the impression that it isn't really thought of as a life of poverty. Several people described the life as beautiful and tranquil and, sitting on the stoop, watching the sun go down over the layers and layers of dusky mountains, it seemed that way to me, too. I began to think that, sure, it can probably be be a pretty trying life in these hard, un-heated mountain homes, but that maybe in a way, the house-structure is just a sort of vehicle for this "beautiful and tranquil" life of (from what I gathered) family, farming, child-rearing, artesenal work, and soccer.

Of course this is still a crude and ignorant perception , as I was only there one night, but what I learned most concretely is that I really don't know. I enjoy that sort of ambiguity of perception.

We went back to the market that night- to a row of rowdy tents filled with flaming meat and sizzling dough. I got two empinadas and a cup of hot, syrupy blueberry for a mere 70 cents. I noticed that there was a showing of Cocalero, a sundance-acclaimed account of Evo Morales's election process--his platform, advisers, public meetings, etc. It was incredible to get such an informal look at this guy whose policies I've been studying for a year. There was footage of him getting haircuts and jumping into a jungle river in his underpants. With (requested) Spanish subtitles to accompany the audio, I understood almost everything. Alas! The showing was outside in a courtyard and it got so cold that I (in my triple-layers) began to shiver, so we went dancing.

I would say there were some fun parts to the dancing excursion--I love latin dancing, for one, and there were a couple of breaks from the loudspeaker music where a band of men in traditional costumes played some incredibly lively sets--with rapid, percussive guitar, harmonious wooden flutes, and something that appeared to be a ukulele. By 2 Am, my health had rapidly deteriorated and I was exhaustedly coughing at a table. At this point I was turning down a fair number of dance requests until this particularly persistent suitor nagged me to my feet. He proceeded to sufficiently disgust me for the night with his dirty dancing and fake syrupy sweet compliments and requests. I ended up sort of yelling at him and storming off. Luckily, I ended on a good note with a black, dreadlocked Otavaleño boy who kept his distance in a way that would have made any middle school dance chaperon beam.

I sickly trudged back at 2:30 with the girls, and the three of us collapsed onto our straw mat. My condition has steadily worsened. In the bus ride back, they showed an INCREDIBLE documentary about the colombian cilvil war's effect on a little town called "La Sierra," from which the movie takes its title. I don't know how the documentary crew managed to establish such a rapport (to use my anthropology terminology) with the interviewees, but it is the most close-up and honest films I have ever seen. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Needles to say, I did a bunch of extended sobbing while watching it, further inflaming my throbbing head.

Here i am in my Quito bed, having slept solidly from my 3PM return until 8PM, despite the relentless screaming of children outside my door. Now i'm going to sleep some more.