October 4: Day Two

Inside the New Cathedral

The flower market

El Centro

One of the beautiful old buildings near El Centro

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Location: Mama Isa's house

Time: 9:20 PM

Weather: Cool, not cold, very clear. Partial clouds during the day but strong sun for the majority of it, which really heated me up quickly.

I woke up this morning at 8 and had breakfast with Mama Isabel. She made a wonderful fried egg fresh from the back yard, french fries, instant coffee (blech--not what I had the first time I was here), cantaloupe, and rolls, even though I had no time to dig into the rolls because we had to be at the Fundacion Amauta at 9. We dashed out of the house, swung by Tia Olga's to pick up her and Antonia.

The Fundacion Amauta is like a very large house. I am reminded of Clara's house in The House of the Spirits because the hallways twist and turn and end in tiny rooms or nothing at all. It has a very large indoor courtyard in the center with a glass ceiling. Most houses that I've seen so far have this feature with openings at the top of the wall to let in a breeze, since Ecuador is mostly very pleasant through the year. Supposedly the rain is unable to get inside the building because the furniture is pushed right up against the walls and is unblemished. The Fundacion has a small kitchen, several tables, a computer lab (which have Spanish keyboards that require you to press “control” “alt” and “2” to type the @ sign—very confusing), and several tiny offices and class rooms. A lounge area upstairs is filled with couches and sunshine. Too bad B.W.'s sterile classrooms don't show as much artistic inspiration.

Our walking tour of the city was all in Spanish so most of it was lost on me. We walked to the New Cathedral and saw the Old Cathedral across the street. It is the oldest church and was the tallest building in Cuenca when it was built in 1559! The New Cathedral is massive. Think the National Cathedral in D.C., but bigger. The alter is gold, the building mostly pink Italian marble. It also houses the famous of Cuenca: mayors, powerful people, and poets underneath the tiled floors in catacombs.

Outside the Cathedral is an explosion of color. A flower market selling everything from Calla lilies to roses to Birds of Paradise to daisies. I've never seen so many flowers in one place. All are very cheap and very beautiful, being sold by women wearing traditional garb. Close by is Cuenca's cheapest market place and center for artists. Everyone: expect gifts from San Fransisco Market this Christmas.

We at lunch at Tia Eulalia's (or “Tia Lalita” for those of us who are unable to pronounce her proper name properly) house. Sunday lunches are a family affair, I suppose. Lalita's son Jose II, his wife, his two children (one baby boy named Jose III and a little girl whose name I can't remember), Abuelo Jose (I), and several cousins came to lunch. One of the cousins, Adrian (I think) is married to the only black person I've seen in Cuenca, Letti. All are very nice. Abuelo Jose is one of those darling old men I just want to snuggle up to and listen to his stories of the past. He is absolutely adorable.

For lunch, we had cool potato soup (delicious), roast pork chunks, mashed potatoes, rice, corn kernels, salad with peas, white wine (“Salud!”), and lots of ahi. Ahi makes even the rice delicious. I ate more than I could have ever thought possible. Then we had dessert it was a yellow cake with a course texture and what seemed like pudding seeping from it and sweet, creamy fluff on top. It was very cold, as well. I'm not quite sure what it was, but it was divine.

A topic of conversation was about how Americans want hamburgers and french fries and Coca-Cola all the time and that most don't like to try Ecuadorian food. We, I think, are the exception. The only thing I've tried and disliked so far is the bananas we ate at the Macaw Hotel in Guayaquil. A banana is still a banana, no matter what country. Blech.

We all talked in the living room for a while until our brains hurt from concentrating too hard on deciphering what our families were saying. Nate's room was a blessed escape from the steady stream of Spanish. Nothing is as frustrating as hearing your name come up in conversation or have someone ask you a question and have absolutely, positively no idea what is being said.

I often think, conceitedly, that because I am an English major, I have a better handle of the English language than most of my peers, and that my verbal communication skills are above average. All it took was two days of not understanding a single thing to realize how lost I am in another language. Latin was great in assisting my SAT score, but its practical abilities were lost since the Catholic church switched to English.

Mama Isa and Tia Olga took Antonia and I to walk the route to the school from my house. It's quite simple, really, and it only took 15 minutes at a normal/slow pace. Go up the hill of Cacique Chaparra, turn left at the top of the hill, make an immediate right onto Calle Larga and follow that until you hit Hermano Miguel. Presto! You're on the road of the school. Calle Larga is the street for bars, discotheques, restaurants, and large houses. The street before Hermano Miguel is called Bakers' Street because of the many panederias (bakeries) on it. We stopped at one on the way back from the Fundacion and peered inside the huge brick oven, still warm from the day's baking. Mama Isa bought about 8 rolls with cheese for under a dollar. Quite a few delicious-looking cookies were calling my name in the glass case near the front of the store. Since it is on the way to school, I just might have to stop in every now and then. You can't beat the price!

The four of us plus my cousin Maria and one of Tia Olga's granddaughters attended mass in a good sized church in town. Catholicism is a totally different beast than the evangelical church I am used to. Basically, I played follow the leader the entire hour: stand up, sit down, cross yourself, stand up again, repeat after the priest, kneel, cross yourself, repeat. I spent the time attempting to comprehend the Spanish story of woman's creation written in the bulletin.

Mama Isabel and I had a dinner or beef with tomato and onion (very strong—not my favorite) and rice for supper. The silence was very awkward until I began to ask for the names of objects in Spanish: tenador, cuchilla, plato, mesa, puerto, vaso, ventana, basurra, etc., etc. I helped her wash dishes and immediately went to bed.

Bed time has been around 10:00 every night. I must be getting old.