¿Como se dice: I'm not a doctor?

These last few days have been pretty wild! On the upside, I've gotten to experience, up close and personal, a side of Ecuadorian culture not readily available to tourists.

It all started Wednesday morning at 3:50am, when my host mom and her daughter woke me up in a panic. Her mom had been sick since I've been here, and apparently that night she had taken a turn for the worse. So its really early in the morning, I'm disoriented, and they're both crying and asking me if I could give her mom an injection. In Ecuador, you don't need a prescription to buy a needle or IV medication, so she wanted me to go with her to her mom's house to put some random stuff in her vein. Like I said, it was early, I wasn't thinking clearly, so I panicked and agreed.

Bad idea, right?

We walked together to the house, where she led me to the room where her mother is laying, and sent her brother off to buy the supplies at a 24 hour pharmacy. I don't know if words could describe this scene... The room was really dark, only lit by those cylindrical religious candles, all with different saints on them. It also looked like the family had gathered every Catholic icon they could find to adorn the room: tons of Virgin Mary and saint statues, pictures of the Pope, a poster of The Last Supper, Bibles, a mug with 'Our Father' written on it, anything you can imagine. The mom, this little old lady, was hunched-up on the bed, completely covered with blankets so that only her face was exposed, and on the bed with her was another woman who was rubbing the her body with a baby Jesus figurine. The room couldn't have been larger than 10X10ft and was stuffed with family members, most of whom were kneeling around the bed praying the Rosary. The other family members were standing around holding Catholic icons and prayer cards either crying or muttering prayers. Needless to say, this unnerved me a tad bit, and I was awake enough by this point to realize I was in WAY over my head.

So when the brother finally gets back with the needle, they gave me the stuff and I started opening the packages and filling the syringe. Luckily someone suggested that we take her BP first, which was low, something like 70/40. The same person then asked if it was too low to give an injection in the vein, to which I said "YES!" I then invented this total BS reason about why it would be really bad to give a shot to someone with low BP, and successfully evaded giving the her shot. At this point it was like 5am so I hung around for a few more minutes, said a prayer with them, and got the hell out of there.

I then went home to go back to sleep and unfortunately she passed away later that morning.

Now the first thing that surprised me about her death was how quickly everything took place. The Wake was that same evening, which I didn't attend because I had gone to work and didn't even find out she had died until the next day, Thursday, which, surprisingly, was the same day as the funeral. So everything happened, literally, within 26 hours.

*A little aside, Mom, you would have been proud that I upheld your tradition. I made a big platter of tuna fish finger sandwiches and got them to the family before any other food had arrived.

Anyhow, I was able to attend the funeral, which I thought would be a typical Catholic funeral to which I was accustomed. HA! How naive! I should have known something was up when it wasn't even in a church. Here they have funerí as, which are basically small buildings specifically for the purpose of hosting funerals. It was a Mass, but I'll highlight the major differences I noticed:

~~> The music all came exclusively from an electric piano. Not that I have something against electric pianos, but instead of someone actually playing it, there was just a person who played the songs already programmed into the piano. It made it a little hard for the people to sing to, but no one seemed to mind. My favorite song was definitely a hymnal set to "Hey Jude."

~~> In the middle of Mass, the Priest asked for a show of hands of who wanted to take the Eucharist. Out of the 100 or so people there, only 15 put their hands up and took Communion. I'm assuming the Priest's reasoned waste not, want not?

~~> During the Homily, my host mom, wailing, left her chair (no in this place pews) and threw her self on the casket, crying. No one seemed to think anything of it, including the Priest, who kept on talking.

~~> After Mass, men carried the casket all the way to the cemetery, which was about 7 blocks
away. There wasn't a police escort either, and we walked through the streets, blocking cross-traffic, with three cars following us, waiting for us to get to the graveyard.

When we arrived at the cemetery, there wasn't an interment ceremony wither. Also, this cemetery wasn't green and pasture-like like ours in the USA, it was all cement structures that you place the caskets into. So the men just hauled the casket into the pre-assigned slot, and the cemetery workers immediately placed a tablet over the hole and mortared it closed. Although it was pretty dramatic, after talking to William, I think I got off fairly easy. One time he went to a funeral and when they arrived at the graveyard, they had to all wait around while the family members dug the hold in the ground. Overall, however, it was pretty traumatic.

So traumatic, in fact, that one of the deceased lady's daughters was crying so forcefully that she couldn't catch her breath and passed out. They called an ambulance and she's in the hospital right now.

All in all, I think I acted pretty cool throughout the whole thing, despite the fact that I had NO CLUE what the hell was going on. The only error I know I made was when I signed the guest book. I miss looked-up the word for pray (razcar) with prey (cazar) and wrote in there, "Sorry about your mother, I'm preying upon your family's loss."

Hopefully they wait a while before looking in there...

FOOD!

I think this week I'm gonna share with y'all a little about the food in Ecuador. For those of you who don't know, Ecuador is divided into three regions, the coast, the sierra (where I live) and the jungle. Each region has its own unique cuisine, and I'm only talking about the sierra, as that's all I have experience with.

Starting the day we have breakfast, which is really a sad event here. If there is one thing I miss about home, its the huge breakfast feasts we had at our house. I could kill for grits, eggs, sausage with biscuits. But oh no, not here! The normal thing to eat is 1 hard boiled egg or a piece of bread with little cheese. This is usually served with a delicious homemade juice and coffee. A common juice is tomate de arbol (tree tomato) which does not really taste like tomato at all, but it is red and thick. For me, the juice is the only saving grace at breakfast. But here comes the really tragic part about breakfast: always served with instant coffee. Although Ecuador produces some of the world's best coffee, they generally export it all the USA, and drink the horrible powdered stuff. Needless to say, one of my first purchases here was an espresso macchinetta (my French press didn't make it here all in one piece). So that's how we (unsatisfactorily) start the day.

Moving on to lunch and dinner. Both are generally the same, although there is a long lunch hour here and its generally the larger of the two meals. Lunch is always started with a soup of some sort, which for those of you who know me well, know how much I adore a good soup. They usually aren't too hardy and here are some of the best ones according to my taste:
*Creama of papa- basically cream of potato soup
*Encebollado- made with various fish flakes in a light veggie stock
*Sopa de locro- a heartier stew with meat, veggies and unknown yummy spices
*Sopa de quinoa- quinoa is an oat, smaller than Quaker oats, but with a stronger flavor
*Rebanado de verde- Very typical. Its made with large, green, non-sweet bananas

Then comes the second platter. Its always served with white rice, and usually some potato variety or yucca. I never really cared for plain white rice much, and now I can't stand the site of it. I have eaten more here, in these few months, than in my entire life! But I digress. There're usually limited vegetables served, although I do get carrots or beets every now and then. Lastly, here are some of the better main dishes:
*Guatita- bits of cow stomach in a potato, peanut sauce
*Fritada- fried pork served with boiled mote (similar to hominy)
*Bolones- the green banana smashed into balls, stuffed either with a bit of meat or cheese then fried
*Salchipapas- french fries served with deep-fried hotdogs

Unlike Mexican food though, Ecuadorian food is generally bland and not at all spicy. Luckily, however, every meal comes with aji. Now this is possibly my favorite thing of all Ecudorian food! Its a spicy sauce made from blended tomates de arboles, aji (the native hot pepper), and cilantro. I go through bowls of this stuff every meal!

As far as acquiring the ingredients to make these foods, most people do their fruit and veggie shopping on market day, so they are usually fresh, not canned or frozen.. Market day in Riobamba is Saturday, and its a crazy free-for-all; an attraction in its own right! There are vendors crowding the streets, shouting their prices and selections, trying to outdo their neighbors. Also, haggling is expected, something which I've gotten progressively better at. One of my favorite things is to buy everything from the same lady then ask for a yapa (gift) to guarantee I'll return to her next week. So far I've managed to get for free a tomato, avocado, bunch of cilantro, 5 ajis and a small bunch of bananas. Not too bad for a white boy!

And that's a day in the life of Ecua-food!