Category Archives: Ecuador

When I went to class last night, the atmosphere on the street was pretty exciting. There were a lot of cars honking the “fuera Lucio” rhythm, which is what it would sound like if you honked, “this is Quito!” They continued the honking for the entire two hours of my class, and when I left at 8:00, I saw even more Ecuadorian flags waving out of car windows than I usually do. While walking up Colon toward America, I encountered a couple students of mine looking into a small restaurant at the TV, which was showing footage of the march that had advanced toward the city center. On TV, there were thousands of people in the streets, dressed in yellow, waving flags, chanting and singing. It once again reminded me of a sporting event. The whole atmosphere, in fact, was what Madison would be like if the Badgers had just won a game that secured their participation in the Rose Bowl. You would see a lot of traffic, cars honking, Wisconsin flags waving, groups chanting and jumping up and down.

It’s exciting, revolution. On the radio, when I got home, I heard a woman who called in and spoke passionately about how the people direct Lucio, he works for them! If only such passionate popular protest could come to pass in the States, with people in the streets, banging pots and shouting, “fuera Bush.”

When we first came here, our WorldTeach director informed us that we might experience a president ousting while we were here, and she expressed her opinion that the country just needed to stick with a president for a while, good or bad, to avoid the instability a regime change causes. This morning, however, one of my students, Hector, used an interesting analogy. He said, if you get into a taxi and the driver is crazy and dangerous, you say, “ok, that’s enough, let me out here,” and you get another one. If the next guy is the same, you do the same. If you’re smart, you will continue getting out of the dangerous cabs until you find a qualified driver. Whether or not there is a good candidate lined up to replace Lucio doesn’t matter; if someone is incompetent and criminal, you get rid of them. They did this in Argentina seven times until they found a good leader. The current guy is excellent, and Argentina has stabilized a lot.

I’m with Hector. Why stop trying to improve the situation of your country of birth?

In class, I’ve been covering “sickness” vocabulary, like headache, sore throat, aspirin. The unit is called “What’s the Matter?” As I was explaining the difference between “disease” and “sickness,” I thought up a few examples of diseases: cancer, Parkinson’s disease. Then a student blurted out “diabetes” in Spanish, which is spelled the same way as it is in English, but pronounced differently.

Now, I need to interject here with an aside. As soon as my student said “diabetes,” I got an image in my head of a specific Simpson’s episode in which Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel, opens a door and introduces his cousin or sister, I forget. She is really overweight and is working out on one of those abdominal wheels. You know the kind? Where you kneel on the floor and push out on a wheel with a handle on either side, and then you have to pull yourself back up using your stomach muscles. Well, she was using one of these things and every time she lowered herself, she ate a bite of cake that was sitting on the ground, placed just at the end of her wheel-roll trajectory. “This is my ree- ward,” she explained. Cletus introduced her as “Dia-Betty.”

Back in the classroom, I began telling the students how the word “diabetes” was written the same but pronounced differently. “It’s pronounced die-a-bed-ees,” I said, the image of Dia-Betty in my mind. And it wasn’t until the next day that I realized I had just told them how to pronounce Dia-Betty, but not diabetes.

*Warning: long post.

Last Wednesday was the “Paro Nacional,” the nation-wide strike, organized by various politicians who opposed Lucio Gutierrez. Mayors of Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca, as well as the “prefectos” of each province did most of the organizing. Wednesday itself was mostly a failure – there weren’t as many strikes or people striking as they hoped. However, Wednesday did succeed in kick-starting something.

When you’re done reading, read this disclaimer written by Eileen for worried parents.

In the morning, not many busses were running. Schools were cancelled, and about half of the city’s employed actually went to work. The result was a quiet street when I left home to begin walking to school, keeping the possibility open that perhaps I’d be able to catch one of the few busses going down La Gasca. It was a nice morning – cool, but sunny. And with less traffic, you could actually smell something other than car exhaust for once – a hint of pine wafting in from the nearby mountainside; a sweet mysterious scent that I attributed to some type of tropical foliage since it reminded me of vacations in Florida and South Carolina; the wonderful odor of green grass, which is so infrequent a smell here in Quito that it fills me with a desire to lay face-down in a yard and knead handfuls of it like a cat being stroked; and dirt, just straight, natural, earthy dirt – the kind that covers small children who play all day in it, and whose shamelessness in being covered with it is enviable. I nearly purred as the sun warmed me on my walk, and the sheer novelty of mid-week peace in Quito brought to mind spring – spring as experienced in Wisconsin, full of hope and contrasting the weary drabness of late winter days.

I walked with Will, Angie and Eileen to a mall known as CCI sometime just after noon. Nearby is the Supreme Court and we were hoping we’d be able to see some demonstrations in front of the court. I knew the area, so I knew we’d have wide expanses of sidewalks, parks, and boulevards in which to position ourselves a safe distance away. As we approached, however, all the signs pointed to a disappointing lack of action. There were no crowds of people, no riot tanks parked on corners, no clouds of tear gas floating on the wind.

So we went to lunch in the Mariscal (gringo land) and then walked toward La Patria Avenue hoping to see at least some crowds. We weren’t disappointed this time. When we got to La Patria, the street was shut down and there were various groups sparsely populating the empty road. We walked one block up La Patria and were soon faced with a crowd of people running toward us, so we turned quickly onto Amazonas and saw five tear gas bombs come flying through the air at the crowds on La Patria. Eileen kept her distance, as did Will, but I stayed close to La Patria with Angie until it became apparent that we really shouldn’t be standing there anymore. By then, the police had launched a canister of tear gas onto Amazonas. We ran away from La Patria through a cloud of it. I think all four of us got it pretty bad.

We walked briskly up Amazonas (nobody was running, and we figured the police would mostly stay on LaPatria), and as we approached the first block north of La Patria, some shouts warned us of an incoming tear gas bomb. We all covered our heads; the canister landed ahead of us; and one of the protesters picked it up and threw it over a building. At this point, I spotted a group of police standing in front of a court on the street intersecting Amazonas. Four of my former students were among the group, dressed in their gray, urban camaflauge. I approached them and talked for a while about whether or not they’d be allowed to return to English classes.

Just then, a bus arrived, wanting to get through the crowd gathered on Amazonas, but they weren’t too eager to allow them. I heard several very strong insults being thrown at the bus driver: “verga,” “chucha” “putamadre.” At this point, my police had to walk out to Amazonas to clear the path for the bus. Most people fled just upon seeing the police approach. We hung out for a minute or so until I could properly say goodbye to my former students. I introduced them to Eileen, Angie and Will, explaining at one point that Will really wanted to learn Spanish. Cesar, one of my best students from the police days, said, “first lesson: ‘fuera Lucio’”