As I sort of thought, I didn't keep up with this, and now tomorrow morning I have a plane to catch. And you know, all in all, I'd rather stay a little longer. I'd like to keep on meeting people, get better at Spanish, go and see the places I still haven't gone to.
This trip has been very difficult at times. I won't go into details about that-some of it was the normal abnormality of being in a foreign place, some of it was extraodinary. But all told, it was great. At the end I met up with a friend from home, and ended up in a strange coastal village far away from where I lived as a Peace Corps Volunteer. We came to Quito together, up a terrifying, spectacular mountain pass, and then he spent today introducing me to a Quito I could love.
So, what do I know now?
I know how deeply important individuals are to me. The relationships I had with my PCV site friends are as strong as ever. Stronger, because now I can be honest about things I felt I had to glaze over when I had an official position-like, that sometimes, it was really difficult to live in Ecuador. They cried when I left, and I cried when I left. And the whole time, I missed my family too.
I know that if I start really disliking a temporary situation, a good meal will likely straighten me out long enough to figure out what the real problem is.
Rest and action, company and solitude, work and laze, nature and city-balance is key.
Letting go of needing to control is the hardest thing. But it's the path to freedom and it's easier with a friend.
And. I need to make some changes.
(Chocho ceviche is delicious.)
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Ecuador
Today was my first whole day in Quito-it´s been relatively uneventful. Mostly, I bought things. Sunglasses, a spanish lesson, 5 liters of bottled water, a cheap cell phone, scissors, 4 mandarinas, a new shirt with long sleeves.
It´s a little strange not having to count every dollar, like when I was in Peace Corps. Tomorrow, like magic, my PTO will be deposited.
In a lot of ways, this country is far more convenient than the states. Everywhere street vendors, phone cabinas, cheap internet, snacks of varying quality. I asked the man behind the desk at the hostel where I could buy scissors to cut cloth. The store was a block away. Or maybe I¨m just idealizing things here. Afterall-I have lots of luxury here.
In Seattle, I sort of felt like going home, like I had learned all this fascinating information in Vancouver that I wanted to put into practice right away. But as soon as I got on the plane, I completely changed my mind. Partly because the experience of a flight that is 75% ecuadorians has more in common with a bus ride than you would think. There were two incidents, just in the seats around me, of people deciding to sit where they wanted, not where they were assigned. Which resulted in some polite drama that turned into less polite drama, with lots of people not directly involved interceding. And in the middle of the scuffle, two passengers who knew each other but apparently hadn´t seen each other in a long time spotted each other and there was a lot of cheeking kissing and exclaiming. All in all, a pretty great start.
I started talking to my quite gregarious seatmate-we were lucky enough to have an extra seat between us. She is 62, and works with an indigenous women´s group that makes artesania-they do some natural dying with cochineal and some other substances. She invited me to come and visit, and I hope I can squeeze that in. The only thing is that the group is near Ambato, which means I would have to take a trip down a stretch of highway I´d decided never to traverse again. But if there´s a reason.
My seatmate got up to go to the lavatory, and then I heard my name-it was E, a guy I was in Peace Corps with, who happened to be on the plane with me. Such a great coincidence, and once we landed, I got to see the people who were picking him up who were from the Peace Corps office. So it was something like coming home. You know, in a way.
I´m staying at a hostel which is somewhat outside of the tourist district. It´s nice, and the bed is comfortable-which is good, because I´m tired from all my travels. My strategy for today, and probably tomorrow, is to venture out for a couple of hours, and then come back and rest. I´m a little dehydrated-I was cautious about water last night, and after a couple of long flights, and some time on the beach in Miami, I definitely felt out of sorts this morning. But as I said-it´s wonderful to be here. Quito is a long, narrow city hugged by mountains. It has terrible traffic, and the street signs are all black because of the exhaust from the buses, and it´s constantly under construction-there are lots of holes in the sidewalk, so you really have to be careful. This is not a country plagued by lawsuits.
After Quito I will go to Mindo. And then the coast, and then Cuenca, and then my old PC site. I look forward to eating pan de yuca from the bus vendors.
This morning was sunny, then this afternoon it rained hard and even hailed for a bit-this is because it´s winter here.
Well. back to the hostel. Tomorrow I´m going to the Parque carolina to see about running. We´ll see how that works out. I´ve researched it, and apparently single women don´t have a problem if they are running on the track there.
If for some reason you want to call me my number is 069609867. But it´s up to you to figure out how to use it. I think I can accept calls without charge, but I can´t call out unless I want to pay a lot of platita.
It´s a little strange not having to count every dollar, like when I was in Peace Corps. Tomorrow, like magic, my PTO will be deposited.
In a lot of ways, this country is far more convenient than the states. Everywhere street vendors, phone cabinas, cheap internet, snacks of varying quality. I asked the man behind the desk at the hostel where I could buy scissors to cut cloth. The store was a block away. Or maybe I¨m just idealizing things here. Afterall-I have lots of luxury here.
In Seattle, I sort of felt like going home, like I had learned all this fascinating information in Vancouver that I wanted to put into practice right away. But as soon as I got on the plane, I completely changed my mind. Partly because the experience of a flight that is 75% ecuadorians has more in common with a bus ride than you would think. There were two incidents, just in the seats around me, of people deciding to sit where they wanted, not where they were assigned. Which resulted in some polite drama that turned into less polite drama, with lots of people not directly involved interceding. And in the middle of the scuffle, two passengers who knew each other but apparently hadn´t seen each other in a long time spotted each other and there was a lot of cheeking kissing and exclaiming. All in all, a pretty great start.
I started talking to my quite gregarious seatmate-we were lucky enough to have an extra seat between us. She is 62, and works with an indigenous women´s group that makes artesania-they do some natural dying with cochineal and some other substances. She invited me to come and visit, and I hope I can squeeze that in. The only thing is that the group is near Ambato, which means I would have to take a trip down a stretch of highway I´d decided never to traverse again. But if there´s a reason.
My seatmate got up to go to the lavatory, and then I heard my name-it was E, a guy I was in Peace Corps with, who happened to be on the plane with me. Such a great coincidence, and once we landed, I got to see the people who were picking him up who were from the Peace Corps office. So it was something like coming home. You know, in a way.
I´m staying at a hostel which is somewhat outside of the tourist district. It´s nice, and the bed is comfortable-which is good, because I´m tired from all my travels. My strategy for today, and probably tomorrow, is to venture out for a couple of hours, and then come back and rest. I´m a little dehydrated-I was cautious about water last night, and after a couple of long flights, and some time on the beach in Miami, I definitely felt out of sorts this morning. But as I said-it´s wonderful to be here. Quito is a long, narrow city hugged by mountains. It has terrible traffic, and the street signs are all black because of the exhaust from the buses, and it´s constantly under construction-there are lots of holes in the sidewalk, so you really have to be careful. This is not a country plagued by lawsuits.
After Quito I will go to Mindo. And then the coast, and then Cuenca, and then my old PC site. I look forward to eating pan de yuca from the bus vendors.
This morning was sunny, then this afternoon it rained hard and even hailed for a bit-this is because it´s winter here.
Well. back to the hostel. Tomorrow I´m going to the Parque carolina to see about running. We´ll see how that works out. I´ve researched it, and apparently single women don´t have a problem if they are running on the track there.
If for some reason you want to call me my number is 069609867. But it´s up to you to figure out how to use it. I think I can accept calls without charge, but I can´t call out unless I want to pay a lot of platita.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
It's very rare that I find myself in a situation where I interact almost only with women for days on end. The last four have been such a situation. Aside from the yoga teacher I had yesterday, it's been women I've talked to, learned from and looked at. We compliment each other a lot. We tell a lot of stories. We are subtly competitive with each other. There's a lot of talk of relationships of all kinds-in this crowd it was a lot about children, usually grown children. But there was naturally a lot of talk about passion and creativity-over and over, I heard "I wish I had more time, so I could really do this." Just about everyone in the room had another, usually unrelated job. One women drove a school bus, one is a graphic designer, a retired nurse, a retired school teacher, an office worker. I really, really enjoyed myself. It was sad to say goodbye today.
Today was all about indigo, which is fascinating. There's no other natural source for true, pure blue coloration-it has to be indigo. You'd never guess from looking at the plant, which is a lot like alfalfa, that it would be possible to get deep blue out of it. Really, I could go on and on about it, but I know I'll lose a bunch of you who are here for the travel stuff. Sorry-I haven't been touring around much.
We made two different kinds of indigo vats-and both of them smell a lot like swamp water. Which is not truly offensive to me.
Tomorrow, I'm going to drop my bags at the train station and spend the day exploring.
Today was all about indigo, which is fascinating. There's no other natural source for true, pure blue coloration-it has to be indigo. You'd never guess from looking at the plant, which is a lot like alfalfa, that it would be possible to get deep blue out of it. Really, I could go on and on about it, but I know I'll lose a bunch of you who are here for the travel stuff. Sorry-I haven't been touring around much.
We made two different kinds of indigo vats-and both of them smell a lot like swamp water. Which is not truly offensive to me.
Tomorrow, I'm going to drop my bags at the train station and spend the day exploring.
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
The thing that started me planning this trip was the workshop that I'm taking this week. Somehow, I found out about MAIWA, and the fact that a fairly comprehensive natural dye class existed back in May. I got really interested in it, and also discovered that it filled up extremely quickly. Opening day for enrollment was a tuesday back in July, a day that I happened to be off work. It started at 10 AM pacific time, so right at noon, I got online and signed up for it. I was kind of amazed that I got in, even with the diligence.
The fact that it was in Vancouver was actually a plus. I'd always been vaguely curious about this city, and it seemed like it would be pretty easy to fly into Seattle, and take the train up the coast, thereby seeing two Pacific Northwest cities in one trip. And I like have a purpose to be somewhere, so having this class was perfect. Then, just for the heck of it, I looked up multicity plane tickets, and found that it really wasn't much more to fly to Quito, too. So I asked for October off at work, and now here I am.
The class started Monday. I like to go out for coffee in the morning when I'm traveling, and I like to go to the same place everyday, to set up a little routine. So I took the bus to commercial street, and found a cafe with outdoor seating and tables made out of sections of tree trunk. They had a little free library, most of which was kind of bad, but I did find a book about the making of one of my favorite movies, Water. I'm saving that to read in Ecuador. I walked over to the studio around 945. It's in a warehouse building. Downstairs is crammed full of artisan furniture and textiles, mostly from Asia, mostly India. Upstairs is the studio for classes. There was a huge table set up, covered with shawls and clothing and tapestry that had all been naturally dyed. There were also my fifteen workshop mates-all women, all ages, lots of different backgrounds. Everyone is really nice and interesting-although, we've only known each other three days, and that doesn't reveal anyone's true nature that much.
I don't want to bore you with the details of our class, but it has been very worth it to take it. Monday we had a slide show of all the various dye plants and their uses, and then we learned about tannins and mordants. Tuesday we dyed silk, cotton, hemp, wool yarn, linen, etc-I think we ended up with 64 different combinations of dyes, every color except blue. It was a lot of steamy work, but it was also completely fascinating. Today we divided up the samples we made yesterday, learned about shibori and started planning the projects we'll finish tomorrow. Tomorrow we're learning about indigo, and dying a whole lot of different projects-I should really be stitching, not writing this.
The woman who is teaching is the owner of MAIWA handprints and the founder of the MAIWA foundation, which works with artisans to preserve and revive skills in the textile arts. She is very dynamic, and someone to admire-she seems like she travels constantly, presents all over the world, and runs a complicated business. And she knows so much about natural dyes and textiles, development work, etc...it's really been a blessing. I don't want to go to far into it, but one thing that stands out is how bad for the environment new textiles like bamboo and soya are. It's really misleading, because they've been marketed in a way that makes people who want to do the right thing think that they are. But the process to turn bamboo into something you can knit with uses a lot of chemicals, and essentially turns it into a synthetic.
Oh! So much to say! And so many stitches to make! Good night!
The fact that it was in Vancouver was actually a plus. I'd always been vaguely curious about this city, and it seemed like it would be pretty easy to fly into Seattle, and take the train up the coast, thereby seeing two Pacific Northwest cities in one trip. And I like have a purpose to be somewhere, so having this class was perfect. Then, just for the heck of it, I looked up multicity plane tickets, and found that it really wasn't much more to fly to Quito, too. So I asked for October off at work, and now here I am.
The class started Monday. I like to go out for coffee in the morning when I'm traveling, and I like to go to the same place everyday, to set up a little routine. So I took the bus to commercial street, and found a cafe with outdoor seating and tables made out of sections of tree trunk. They had a little free library, most of which was kind of bad, but I did find a book about the making of one of my favorite movies, Water. I'm saving that to read in Ecuador. I walked over to the studio around 945. It's in a warehouse building. Downstairs is crammed full of artisan furniture and textiles, mostly from Asia, mostly India. Upstairs is the studio for classes. There was a huge table set up, covered with shawls and clothing and tapestry that had all been naturally dyed. There were also my fifteen workshop mates-all women, all ages, lots of different backgrounds. Everyone is really nice and interesting-although, we've only known each other three days, and that doesn't reveal anyone's true nature that much.
I don't want to bore you with the details of our class, but it has been very worth it to take it. Monday we had a slide show of all the various dye plants and their uses, and then we learned about tannins and mordants. Tuesday we dyed silk, cotton, hemp, wool yarn, linen, etc-I think we ended up with 64 different combinations of dyes, every color except blue. It was a lot of steamy work, but it was also completely fascinating. Today we divided up the samples we made yesterday, learned about shibori and started planning the projects we'll finish tomorrow. Tomorrow we're learning about indigo, and dying a whole lot of different projects-I should really be stitching, not writing this.
The woman who is teaching is the owner of MAIWA handprints and the founder of the MAIWA foundation, which works with artisans to preserve and revive skills in the textile arts. She is very dynamic, and someone to admire-she seems like she travels constantly, presents all over the world, and runs a complicated business. And she knows so much about natural dyes and textiles, development work, etc...it's really been a blessing. I don't want to go to far into it, but one thing that stands out is how bad for the environment new textiles like bamboo and soya are. It's really misleading, because they've been marketed in a way that makes people who want to do the right thing think that they are. But the process to turn bamboo into something you can knit with uses a lot of chemicals, and essentially turns it into a synthetic.
Oh! So much to say! And so many stitches to make! Good night!
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