AWOL! Em and Chris in South America

A few more pictures – here!

So, first things first. You do not “celebrate” Carnaval in Ecuador, you play Carnaval. Up until the Sunday that we went to Gualaceo I don’t think Em or I had really caught the spirit of the holiday. In the days preceding the actual holiday weekend Ecuadorians we know asked us if we had played Carnaval yet and ask us what we were doing to do for the weekend. Em had plans but they kinda fell through because everything was booked in the places that we wanted to go to. So we would give a blah-I-don’t-really-know response and they would look at us like, what’s the deal, it’s Carnaval! Up until that point we (well, Em really) had only participated in Carnaval as targets for water bombs (foreigners and females are the preferred targets. So if you’re a foreigner and a girl, you’re quite popular). Needless to say Em wasn’t too thrilled with the whole thing. Though, she should have felt honored. One of her students was sad because she had not been the target of a water bombing at all.

So the plans to go to the coast, or possibly to Banos had failed. Em heard that there was a big celebration, parade, etc on Sunday in Gualaceo, a town about an hour away. We decided to go there with a few other CEDEI teachers. There is a CEDEI campus in Gualaceo, a perfect place to stash our stuff to keep it from getting wet and as we were to discover it also had a balcony overlooking the street where the parade would be. Oh what fun that would prove to be…. but I digress. Saturday we hiked up to Turi, a little pueblito overlooking the city taking the many, many, many steps that wind up the mountain from Cuenca to Turi. We had been up there before with Ludi and family, but there is a bit of a sense of accomplishment when we were looking down and could see far below, the point where we had started. Also, we know the city a lot better so the view was more interesting this time, with many land marks that we easily recognized. When we got back home, we went in search of some dinner but everything around us was totally deserted, it was like being in a ghost town. Apparently, people leave Cuenca for the holiday either to the coast or to farms in the countryside. While we were passing by one house we suddenly were surrounded by a barrage of water balloons, none of which actually hit us. We must have made the kids’ day though, because we were probably the only people that walked by all day. It was that dead.

Sunday rolled around and we hoped on the bus with three other people (Gretel, Lee, and Tom) to Gualaceo. Our welcome to the town was water being squirted into an open window in the bus. Most people were wise enough to keep theirs shut but there was one chink in the armor and a few people got wet because of it. There were also some boys on the bus with water bombs themselves, and they were throwing them out of the bus at other people. With their last one, they accidentally hit their own window frame and got themselves totally wet. Nice shot. That was just the beginning. Basically we were entering a water-war zone where anyone is a possible target. Amazingly we made it to CEDEI without major incident and were able to stash our stuff high and dry. The city had wisely turned off the water before the parade to keep things kosher. But, when without water, the people arm themselves with these cans of spray foam (called “spuma”). So really, you’re never safe.

The parade was….interesting. There were a couple clever floats, but as far as the whole production was concerned, it wasn’t anything amazing. But it was unlike any parade I have ever seen before. Your standard parade, you basically sit and watch while the people run, walk, dance, ride their way along. If you’re really lucky, some candy is tossed your way (well not anymore, someone might lose an eye, lawsuits might get filed, environments might be damaged, people might get cavities, or worse, enjoy themselves….yeah). This parade however, audience and performers alike all had the cans of spuma and it was the strange war between the parade participants and the parade watchers. The participants got the worst of it because they had to dance, sing, parade, whatever while spraying the onlookers. The onlookers had the easy job, they just sat on the sidelines and did their best to make soapy snowmen of the performers. Nobody was immune, even police officers would get covered. It was truly awesome.

After the parade, the water came back on and all hell broke loose. CEDEI has pretty much the highest balcony in the area and a nice strong water supply up on the balcony. We had picked up some water balloons earlier and so we commenced to bomb pedestrians below and other balconies. I think us boys went a little crazy but it was a lot of fun. It was like being a kid again. The best targets were open back trucks of marauders that would be hitting other people. We would get them in turn and there was nothing they could do about it. A little later we got what was coming to us. The whole group of us went down to river where the main bash was going on. On the way we got soaked by people in balconies and people by the river with buckets of water. Poor Thandi hated every second of it. She doesn’t mind getting a little wet, but being attacked by water was just too much for her. The rest of us had fun though, it really was just like being a kid again, a whole city full of grown up kids.