On Coffee

Spending my last afternoon in Ecuador, as tomorrow, Argentina beckons. It´s been fabulous, and I´ve literally enjoyed every single day of this trip.

I´m feeling pretty good about moving on, though. Largely because I´ve just completed the final Ecuadorian must-do: bought a crapload of supermarket coffee at the local Tïa in old Quito.

It is, I assure you, not just any supermarket coffee. Cafe Minerva, which is basically Folgers for Ecuador, is, in my humble opinion, the most fabulous coffee in the entire known world. And I´m including the pricey gathered-by-monkeys-and-made-by-the-cup nonsense beloved by the coffee elite in the Bay Area. It´s dark, silky, and delicious, and it costs two bucks for a bag that makes 80 cups of the stuff.

I hit Tia with Stacey, who is perhaps the only person I know who loves coffee more than I do; I have vivid memories of our first Project year, when Stacey would show up for breakfast every morning with her own little French press and a snack-sized Ziploc of grounds from the States. Her response to seeing me literally embracing my four packs of Minerva was a good deal of skepticism, and the suggestion that I save space in my suitcase for Argentian cafe.

As Stacey chats on the phone a few feet away in this cabina, however, I fortify myself with more information in my defense. According to Wikipedia, Ecuador is one of very few nations that produces and exports ALL varieties of coffee, and has over fifty countries lined up for the goods. In 2001, Ecuador produced 63,720 metric tons of coffee. While the magical bean´s role in the economy has diminished in the face of increased revenues from tourism and immigration, it remains one of the main agricultural exports, after bananas.

And often, it is absolutely delicious. Today began with a cafe con leche, hand poured at our table as a perfect equilibrium of dark coffee and milk. The cups here are so small that another coffee mid morning is always a good idea: we had lunch at a fair-trade shop and my iced mochachino was about 2% milkfat short of a chocolate shake. I still fondly remember the cafe pasado (basically, aged coffee wine) we had in Ambato a few years ago, and every cup of Minerva I drink reminds me of my time staying with coordinator Gladys, who somehow always finds time in her insane save-the-world schedule to make soup for lunch and serve coffee at sunset.

Coffee is a ritual here: in Cuenca, the traditional afternoon snack is dark, sweetened coffee with humitas, which are like unfilled tamales. Anywhere with a large Colombian population has men selling coffee from a thermos into little foam cups. My Spanish teacher had very few materials, but a can of Si Cafe always took pride of place on his table.

It´s a longstanding joke among coffee snobs that countries like Ecuador export all the good stuff and drink the shit that´s left over. I´ve had too many truly good coffees in most of Latin America to believe that, but I am amused to note that many Ecuadorians truly love instant coffee. The ultimate confirmation of that came half an hour ago, when Stacey, finally convinced by my Minerva-worship to buy a bag herself, made me ask the check out guy if he liked this coffee. The answer came loud and clear: well, it´s delicious. But Nescafe is better.

Hello From Otalvalo: You Want a Blanket With That?

Greetings from Otalvalo, where the following are numbered among the many tourist attractions:

Extreme Sports, Sidewalk Edition : The walkways of Otalvalo are among the most perilous I have encountered so far, and I am including Calle Bolivar in Cuenca, which is a highly populated and heavily trafficked street which is CURRENTLY under full cement-truck construction. Random metal stakes jut out at odd intervals, no longer in use for connecting cables to poles. Huge gaping holes await the unweary, and dog crap is absolutely everywhere.

Sinfonia de Basura: Every night, the garbage trucks make their rounds, announcing their presence with tinny, ice-cream-truck music.

Let's Make a Deal: Otalvalo is best known as home to the largest indigenous market in South America, largely due to the presence of many talented weavers and artisans. Haggling is an art form here, as every Saturday brings hundreds of tourists to entice and exploit with blankets, weavings, and such. Since this is my fifth trip to Otalvalo, I've long sense made my peace with the bartering of the market, but this trip, I've noticed that even the restaurant folks are getting in on the act. When the waiter sees my plain water and attempts to raise it to a passionfruit smoothie, the charm begins to wear off a wee bit.

Fortunately, I'm not just in Otalvalo to poke fun at it. We are using this pretty little town as a home base for our work in Ibarra. Today was the first of a two day training and informational exchange: we met with dozens of early intervention workers and a handful of teachers and therapists. Tomorrow, parents and families will be joining us, and we will be making materials together to serve children with and without special needs.

It has been and continues to be satisfying work, and as we wrap things up for this year's Project, I am intensely grateful to play a part in it. Although the good salespeople of Otalvalo do remind me that, if I were to play 20 parts instead of just the one, I would most likely get more colors and a discount.

Quick Check In...

...and apologies for the lack of blog action. Much has happened, but it´s all been a wonderful blur of Project activity. My colleagues arrived last week, and we did a two day training for over a hundred people from six local schools in the province of Azuay: ´twas amazing. Now we´re up way north in Otalvalo, getting ready to do more or less the same again.

El Comercio´s recipe of the day involves crazy chocolate/cinnamon biscuits with a healthy dollop of blackberry preserves. I did not request and do not want the box of 10 bright red fine point dry erase markers that somehow snuck into my stationary bag. All of us, on seeing the box of confiscated items at the Cuenca airport, thought longingly of the adaptations that could be made with that much tape. The mountains around Otalvalo are gorgeous and amazing.

And that is all, for now.

Hail Mary Full of Explosives

One of the many thousands of reasons that I love Cuenca is that this city knows how to PARTY. Not the weed-smokin´ Montañita party nor the gringo-gropin´ Mariscal party, nor, for that matter, the pig roastin´/speech givin´ Huambalo party or cuy chompin´ Salasaca party. No, I´m talking about the kind of party that begins with a solemn mass and descends, over hours or days, into an absolute joyous riot of candy and fireworks, with ample stops midway through for traditional dancing, local bands, and random local families sharing their snacks with me.

This week´s main event has been the commemoration of the apparation of the Virgen of Carmen, who doesn´t seem to have made it past Palestine but is nevertheless deeply venerated here. One of the prettiest little churches, behind the flower market near the new Cathedral, is dedicated to Carmen and also houses a cloistered group of nuns, who spend their days praying, doing needlepoint, beekeeping, brewing weird traditional drinks, and planning cultural events for the parish. The drinks contain valerian and other mild mood altering substances: most of the events they put on involve towers of sweets and culminate in fireworks. I really want to meet these ladies.

Anyway, the Fiesta Del Carmen lasts somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 days, and for the past many years, the plaza outside the church has hosted dance troupes from across the country as part of the celebration. On the last day of the celebration, the community participates in an adorable little morning procession, with kids dressed up like nuns and angels riding on flatbed trucks and throwing flower petals. The highlight is a statue of the Virgen which is paraded around the town, trailing a huge white veil that the people walk beneath to symbolize her protection.

Thus pass the faithful days and rich, cultured evenings, but as is often the case, there´s more to reveal. All week long, the city pops at night with random fireworks, but from 11 or so on for the last two days, things really go nuts. A castilla, or tower, is built more or less in the middle of the street, loaded with little explosives and lovingly decorated with streamers and tape, waiting for the vaca loca to finish so that someone can set it on fire.

Vaca what, you say? The vaca loca, or ¨Crazy Cow¨, is a tin cutout of a spotted Holstein, mounted on a slender metal post. A truly insane person picks up the vaca loca, which, like the tower, is utterly saturated in things that explode. Someone lights a match, or does whatever one does when one wants to start fireworks, and the vaca loca careens through the street, scattering sparks and little rockets at completely unpredictable intervals as it goes. People rush the cow, the cow rushes the people, everyone screams and runs around like mad. I found myself cowering against the outside wall of the New Cathedral with a cluster of Cuencanas and a terrified blonde college girl.

Eventually, the vaca loca runs out of explosives and it´s time to set the tower on fire--frighteningly enough, the local guy who was explaining things to us suggested that this , not the cow, merited a few steps back. Things start popping from the bottom level, and the energy makes the wheels on a fiery pinwheel turn, then the sparks jump up a level and start shooting out in all directions. It was like a Rube Goldberg contraption, culminating in fireworks at the upper level spelling out ¨Viva la Virgen de Carmen¨ and a scattering of stars from the tip.


And thus, the good people of Cuenca celebrate the mum of Christ, meek mild and innocent as she always seems to be. I imagine the nuns sneaking peeks from the cloisters, snickering madly beneath their dark veils.

Pensamientos desde las calles

Just for kicks, I thought I´d share with you my mental processes this morning as I walked from Spanish class to lunch.

Since I´d just finished class, I felt the need to attempt thinking in Spanish. Since I´d been in a hurry that morning, my main thoughts were that I needed to find a newspaper before I went to lunch, and that I wasn´t sure where to find one where I was at the time. Since the main didactic method that Spanish teachers use to build fluency in their pupils is repetitive, slightly changing practice with the same structured phrase, my thoughts were thus, as I passed all the shop windows and daily life in quest of El Comercio:

I don´t want a fancy pink dress, I want to buy a newpaper.

I don´t want to buy telephones, I want to buy a newspaper.

I don´t want fried bananas, I want to buy a newspaper.

I don´t want to get my brakes repaired, I want to buy a newspaper.

I don´t want...wait, what the hell is that?...I want to buy a newspaper.

I don´t want an inexpensive funeral package, I want to buy a newspaper.

I don´t want a lunch of cow stomach with peanut sauce, I want to buy a newspaper.

I don´t want to buy shoes, I want to buy a newspaper.

I don´t want a restaurant named after a salsa-dancing monkey, I want to buy a newspaper. Hmm, what if I wanted to buy a salsa dancing monkey? Oh crap, I think I´d need to use the subjunctive for that one. It...hmmm, it would depend on the degree of certainty I have about whether the monkey dances salsa. If it´s a habitual action which is frequently experienced, it would be the ¨monkey salsa-dancing.¨ But otherwise, it would be ¨the monkey who may dance salsa.¨ It would...I think it would be like when you´re looking for an open internet cafe on Sunday night--you aren´t sure there is one, so it´s ¨lugar que esté abierto¨, not ¨lugar abierto¨ . I think the monkey is the same. I´d have to querer un mono que sepa bailar, wouldn´t I?

Dammit, I need a newspaper. A nice English newspaper.

La Receta del Día

We interrupt this blog to informe you that El Comercio´s recipe of the day for Tuesday, July 13th is canneloni stuffed with diced chicken and brains.

Más crispies, por favor...

I dined tonight at El Pedragal Azteca, which is the closest thing anywhere in Ecuador has to an authentic Mexican restaurant.

´Twas pretty good--actual papel picado on the walls, tamarind juice on offer, and a fairly tasty bowl of tortilla soup.

And, for entertainment value, the proprietors had made an endearing but hilarious attempt to translate the menu into English for the gringo clientele. Allowing would-be parents to order the ¨plate of children¨, and giving the rest of us oh so many chances to enjoy the ¨tortillas crispies¨. Very many dishes came with tortillas crispìes.

In fact, each meal began with a free plate of tortillas crispies, with salsa. It was truly amazing how much these laborously hand made chips tasted like Fritos--exactly, positively, like Fritos. If they hadn´t looked as they did (first, they hand make the tortilla, then they cut it into random, jagged semi-rectangles, then they fry the living hell out of it and arrange it on a platter), I would have been fooled.

It´s a better option, anyway, than the Colombian cafe which seems to import actual, orange Doritos for their $1.25 guacamole platter.

Who´s taking me out for Mexican food when I get home?