Que bonito is Carnaval

I have decided to try to keep a running log of the events of Carnaval, which seems to be an exciting time in the world of Tolte. Carnaval includes the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. An important difference is that here in Tolte, we don’t have enough people for a parade. It appears that in most of Ecuador, Carnaval is celebrated by splashing your friends and neighbors with water and/or flour, and sometimes foam or paint. Since the weather is usually pretty misty and cold, I have some trouble grasping the desire to experience this, or why it’s considered fun, but there you go. Time to tune up my cultural sensitivity.

Thursday, February 16: The school day ended early in a massive water fight, leading into the school vacation which runs from Friday to Wednesday. I did take most of one water balloon, but it didn’t seem enough to change my clothes over. Well, mostly—I did go and get a different sweater.

More exciting events occurred during the evening, because Carnaval is also trago season, and some pretty serious drinking was going on last night. This led to a fight which half of Tolte ran up to watch. One of the young guys cut another with a bottle, although the cut was (fortunately) not too deep. The fight was stopped, but the drinking continued. This was fortunate for me, as I needed to recover from a sad and stressful skype call. As soon as I emerged from the call, I was offered a few rounds of trago. I can’t say it helped, and it left more sort of queasy, but I did appreciate the fact that I wasn’t alone. I helped to carry one of the revelers home (people seem to love it when I do this), and was still in bed by 10:30.

Friday, February 17: School is closed, which is always tough for me because I don’t have a lot else to do here, and I’m still recovering from my skyping. But the sun is shining, and the first thing I did was wash my clothes, which were actually dry by the afternoon, something that hasn’t happened in a couple of months. Then I put on my rubber boots and went looking for work. Once again, I ran into Diego, on his way once again to try and rescue his little truck, which couldn’t make it up the muddy, slippery hill yesterday. We still couldn’t get it moving, but he did invite me to pick up an azadon and go weed the cornfield with him. His mother, one of the best local herbal medicine practitioners, gave me some running commentary on the uses of various herbs and weeds as we hacked them up (though she did save quite a few). She recommended ortiga, stinging nettle, as a tea for my chronically irritated digestive system. I’m tempted to try it. Later, I did use ortiga on my lower back, which always takes the worst of the azadon. It certainly didn’t make anything worse, but it did prevent the continued work from leaving me pretty sore in that area. The weather continued bright and sunny, but not uncomfortable, as we worked along—again, the nicest day in almost three months. I even got lunch out of the deal, which is always a plus, and was nicely distracted until after 2, when I went home to get ready to open the computer room for the Friday afternoon moviefest. No, it’s not educational, but it’s a helpful prize for the kids’ reading time in the library.

Saturday, February 18: This is my big chance. An organization that promotes community based tourism, Maquita Cushunchac, better (and more conveniently) known as MCCH, has started a program of granjas integrales, or holistic farms, with the goal of making them points of interest for tourists. They were hoping for 20 participants; I think we have 11.  I have attached myself to this project as much as I could with the hope of doing some farm planning and soil conservation work, as in the old Peace Corps days. But I’m also armed with new Permaculture knowledge and thousands of stored pages of organic gardening information that I hope will be helpful. My main ideas are to encourage the farmers to plant on the contour, maybe even build bench terraces, and rotate their crops and farming activities. Fruit trees are popular and profitable here, so those won’t be rotating, but maybe I can either use them as contour lines or integrate them in some other way into the total farm plan. If I can get a couple of farmers to try my ideas, I think it could be very helpful in terms of whatever my next job will be, and that’s not as far into the future as it once was.

I got to see two of the pieces of land I planned to see, and one I didn’t, so I think that went pretty well. I walked down with Joaquin to the piece of land that he already has planted in fruit trees. His major problem is a fungus that has attacked just about all of his trees, probably aided by the fact that they are planted too close together. I’m not sure how much I can do for him, given that fruit trees are pretty permanent and can be easily moved. I encouraged him to try organic methods of fungus control, but I think the situation is probably too much in need of an immediate remedy to be solved that way without a significant economic loss. Organic farming works best when you start from the ground up, and this piece of land is already sort of locked in.

I went on to see Juan’s piece of land nearby—at least I hope I did, because he wasn’t there, and I was working off neighbors’ directions. This is more interesting, because it isn’t totally set. Part of the land is in fruit trees, and part in row crops. About three quarters of the space is very steep, and should all be in trees, but the remaining quarter is fairly level, and could be laid out nicely on contour. When I see him, I’ll let him know.

The last piece of land belonged to Jose Manuel, secret guitarist and owner of the nearly tropical piece of land I saw during the Fiesta de Tolte. This land, too, was already plants in fruit trees, and is pretty well set, though he has similar plant disease problems to Joaquin’s. But I suggested that we could lay out irrigation canals on the contour, and he thought that sounded pretty good. We’ll have to see how that goes.

So today produced nothing tangible, but I think there’s a little interest, and some level of taking me seriously in this role. I think people have it pretty clearly in mind that I’m the English teacher, and can’t quite grasp that I’m actually trained to be something else. But this is the best I’ve done in the agriculture world since Costa Rica, I think, and there’s a chance something good will happen.

I finished the afternoon/early evening off watching Mario teach folk dancing to the school kids. This has been my most successful idea for something for an AVANTI grant winner to do, probably because Mario is a good teacher, folk dance expert, and just generally responsible. It’s certainly none of my doing, but I’m glad I suggested that this is what he do. The kids are surprisingly into the dances—it’s not like square dancing in gym class when I was a child. One of them has the potential to be a real tourist attraction—he’s a fifth grader who’s about the size of a second grader, very cute, and is probably the best of the kid dancers. During the school vacation in July and August, I have the feeling that he could be stealing the show down at the train station. In a selfish way, I was relieved to see that Mario also felt compelled to call a meeting with the kids about their behavior. I’m not the only one they misbehave for—though I’m surprised they misbehave for Mario, who is the same sort of cool young man as the classroom teachers they do behave for. I’ve been here almost six months, and I’m still not sure how to get the moving in the same direction. This might be more of a problem in dance than it is in English.

Saturday, Feb. 18: The day started with a good, though somewhat slippery, run through the muddy streets of Tolte. I had hoped that yesterday’s bright sunshine would dry the roads out a bit, but it rained overnight, and things were sort of sloppy. But my running has improved, and I’m glad I decided to break social convention and start doing it. Although people find it unusual, they seem to feel that it’s a good thing to do.

A pause now for news of something gross. Sensitive persons should skip the following paragraph.

As I’ve mentioned, the rainy season weather here is cool and damp. I have noticed mold growing on all sorts of things inside my room, including things I have not touched or soiled in any way. The air is just that soggy. The topper was this morning, when I noticed some mold on my pillow case. I took the pillow case off to wash it, and found that the pillow itself was loaded with block mold. I sure hope ‘ve been sleeping on the other side of the pillow, which was not as bad. I think I’ll try to buy a new pillow in Chunchi today.

Chunchi promises to be exciting today. The Tolte team is playing a soccer game, and there will be Carnaval water fights all over town. I’m going to try to stay dry, because the weather is cloudy and chilly. But I’m going to take my chances and find out how things go.

And now that I’m back from Chunchi, I can say that I took a fair amount of water, shaving-cream like foam, and some colored powder smeared on my face, because I wandered up and down the streets of Chunchi with the futbolistas. The game never happened because the other team failed to show up, which was a shame, because it was going to be on a real field with grass instead of the “indoor” games on the small cement plazas. So off we went, armed (wel,, not me, I just can’t quite be that way) with these big cans that spray foam, up and down the streets of Chunchi. Just as Halloween in the US, girls take the worst of this sort of thing, but I saw some girls dishing it out pretty well. As I said, I took a certain amount of everything, but it wasn’t too bad, because I didn’t get soaking wet and the sun did break through mid-day. I never did get lunch, but I did get a new pillow, which might be more important. I also drank a few shots of trago with Augustin, always a dangerous game, but I managed to avoid total inebriation. Of course, people are drinking beer and playing with water up the road. I don’t think I’ll tell you whether I attended or not.

Monday, February 20: So I’m not going to say whether I attended, but I will say that I felt a bit queasy this morning. And this was not great because I had more appointments to visit farms for conservation planning today. The first one was with my friend Mesias at 8 o’clock. At 7:49, I headed up to the road to his store, but Don Juan, in a highly festive state, was going the other way. He grabbed me and insisted on taking me to his house, which is in the opposite direction. Along the way, he bought some trago. I have to say that the smell alone as it was being poured out was almost too much for me. He wanted me to drink some, but I just had to refuse. I felt like the bank examiner in WC Fields’ “The Bank Dick.”

At Don Juan’s house, he insisted on giving me mote con cuero (corn with fried pigskin) for breakfast. I can’t say I ate much, but I did the best I could. Several of his children live in Cuenca, but they were home for Carnaval, and the atmosphere was certainly festive. Many people here live apart from one  or more family members, and it seems to be very hard on them. More on that later.

Anyway, by the time I headed up to Mesias’ place again, it was 9, and he wasn’t there. In a scene out of my Peace Corps experience, he had forgotten and gone to Gonzol, a town on the way to Alausi, and wouldn’t be back until late. This was not a critical problem for me, as I had other farms to see, but I had been sort of counting on him to direct me to Josefina, who is someone I know less well. But I decided to go ahead down to the “hacienda” anyway. This may have been a test of whether the universe is still taking care of me as it did on the day I had to deliver the bottle of trago to Joaquin. And, of course, it is.

In a fit of bravery, I decided to take the trail described in the episode title “Acrophobia.” I have now gone up and down that path a couple of more times, and I figured it was time I handled it alone. Everything was going fine until I came to a small landslide that more or less blocked the trail. I hesitated to cross it, because I wasn’t sure if the rocks would start rolling or not. But going back up and around seemed out of the question, so I sort of crawled around the rock pile until I was back on the path again, and then things were fine. I had been told that Josefina was in a particular spot that is along the road, after the trail ends. So imagine my astonishment when I looked up and saw her and her sons hoeing weeds out of a pea patch on a piece of very steep land above my head. If I hadn’t taken that trail, I never would have found her. And she, too, had forgotten that I was coming. But she gave me her youngest son as a guide to the land she wanted me to look at, and I got to complete the appointment.

Even better, as the boy and I were walking along, I ran into Baltazar and Philomena, whose land I was supposed to look at on Tuesday, which I was afraid might be complicated by Carnaval. They seemed very interested in my suggestions for farm planning, and I have an appointment to see them Thursday evening to come up with a design. That level of commitment is a real thrill, just one step removed from putting pick and shovel into the ground.

We continued along the road and I got a look at Josefina’s land, which also has a pretty strong slope. She is already using a kind of contour ditching for irrigation, but I told her son that I’d like to use a level to lay it out in a more refined way, with a known grade. My friends in Costa Rica really liked using terraces because it made irrigation a lot easier and more certain, so I’m hoping I can sell that aspect to everyone here as well. And I do mean everyone, because I also took a look at Belena’s farm, which I have seen several times before, and the idea of terracing also seemed the obvious solution there.

I had heard that Jose Manuel’s land was downhill from Belena’s, so I walked to the bottom of her farm to see if I could figure out where it was. Don Lucho was down there spraying something from a backpack pump—I suspect it was herbicide. I was considering asking him where to look when Jose Manuel himself came walking by, and took me directly to the spot I needed to see. (Was the universe taking care of me, or what?) The lower half of the land is planted in fruit trees, but the upper half is row crops and a very small fish pond that he wants to expand. Again, I explained how terraces could help, and suggested that he expand the fish pond along the contour, instead of downslope, so that it would hold more water with less digging. He seems very eager to do work of this kind, but he is always saying that he doesn’t have enough time to do everything he wants to do. I did explain that I only have a few months left here. We’ll see if this work gets done during that time.

I had promised myself that I would take the main road back home, but Jose was carrying a big load of corn back to his house, and I sort of felt like I had to go back the way I had come. He had hoped to get a ride, but there were no cars, probably because of Carnaval. So he hoisted what had to be at least 50 bulky pounds on his shoulder, and walked the trail that still scares me with it. The resulting display of physical endurance was little short of amazing to me, perhaps outdoing the remarkable feats of strength performed by Mr. M.I. of Colliersville, NY. When he got to the landslide, he simply walked over it. I sort of crawled in his footsteps. Later, one of his daughters carried her four-year-old over the same spot, perfectly upright. All I can say is that I just do the best I can.

I got home and changed for a Carnaval party at the home of Don Sauce, also known as Luis, Fredi’s father. This was a big family event, because (if I understand the family relations correctly, and I’m not sure I do), his brother-in-law Alfredo, who appears to be the baby of a family with maybe half a dozen sisters, came home this week from England. He had been there eleven years, and his mother and one of his sisters had mentioned to me how difficult this was for them and for him. As I mentioned before, this business of having a family member far away is especially difficult in a place where such a premium is placed on family ties. Anyway, Alfredo’s mother was just about glowing. It was nice to be there.

As you might imagine from the story of Ramon’s homecoming in November, there was fritada to be eaten and vast amounts of alcohol to be consumed. I was given a pass on trago, but I still had to deal with a fair amount of beer. Also, in another Carnaval tradition, we all had our faces smeared with cornstarch, so we looked a bit like clowns (me probably a bit more than most). I kept waiting for the Carnaval singing to start. I had brought my guitar along and had a pretty clear idea of how to do the Carnaval music. Some time playing along with the Carnaval music playing on the stereo helped. But I didn’t really get to play until a couple of groups of Carnavaleros came by. This is a sort of trick-or-treat tradition, where groups of kids or adults come to your door and sing Carnaval songs, and receive food (and liquor, if they’re adults) for their pains. I had been showing some of the kids, and Alfredo’s sister, how to play Carnaval music on the guitar, when Luis finally broke out a little electronic keyboard and we got down to business—sort of, because everyone was pretty inebriated by then. Luis and I have played together before, but haven’t done so recently. I picked up what he was doing right away, and then we had some classic Carnaval singing, with lyrics ranging from the religious to the ribald. Unfortunately, we didn’t last too long—food and drink soon knocked almost everyone unconscious, but not before Luis’ compadre told me a detailed story of how he travelled illegally to work in the United States. It was pretty frightful, and indicates the level of desperation involved for the people who make the trip. It doesn’t give me a clear idea of what to do about the immigration problem, but it does make one wonder about a country that is so much richer than its neighbors and shares so little with them.

As I wandered home, a came across Mario and the other Fredi, and Fredi’s brother Guido, (in from Cuenca because Fredi and Guido are sons of Don Juan), who were drinking trago and playing the guitar. I played with them for a while, including a few songs in English, just to top the evening off. The air was pretty chilly, but it was nice to sing in the dark. I talked with Guido a bit about life in Cuenca, and he invited me to visit him there. Maybe I will—as we know, Cuenca’s pretty cool, even for a stranger.  It might be cooler with someone who knows his way around.

Carnaval, February 21: The day got off to a quiet start. I guess everyone is recovering from yesterday and preparing for today. I got up and did some laundry, because although it’s still quite cold, the sky is bright and my clothes might actually dry. I ate breakfast with Narcisa and Jose, and Narcisa invited me to Belena’s house for lunch. That should be cheerful, and should still leave me plenty of time to get wet and go singing tonight, if I can find a crew to sing with. I also need to find a rope to hold my guitar up.

During the morning, I tried to scout a crew to sing with. Diego likes to sing, so I stopped by his house to see what his plans were. He wasn’t there when I got there, but his sisters and sister-in-law chatted me up while everyone got ready for hog slaughter and butchery, one of my favorite pastimes in Tolte. Because I had an invitation to lunch, I didn’t stay for the butchery, but I did lend a hand in the slaughter, which, as usual, was not as quick as one might hope. I stayed long enough to see the hair blowtorched off the poor beast, and then headed towards Belena’s house. Along the way, I had some trago pressed upon me by a guy I once met from Iltus, who was riding with a bunch of friends to Nariz del Diablo. Their arrival in the plaza produced a hilarious water fight—the women of Tolte, particularly those from near my house (which is near the plaza) really gave them a bath. Right after that, Francisco drove up with about twenty teen-aged (and would be teen-aged) boys in his truck, and a case of beer on the front seat. While I was drinking the beer he thrust upon me, I took my own shower, which was enough to mean that I had to change my shirt and sweater, but I toughed out the wet pants.

In case you think that all this drinking and the rural lifestyle has no consequences, I’ll report the following disturbing incident in vague terms. Remember that there is no police force here, and domestic problems are generally perceived as personal, not social. A very drunk woman came down the hill toward the truck, where she found her husband, a man old enough to know better and one of the famous drinkers of Tolte. She seemed to be complaining that he hadn’t taken care of the animals, and trying to catch his arm to drag him home, when he simply slapped her to the ground. People seemed to feel badly, and helped her to her feet and so on, but no one (including me) actually did anything. I do feel guilty about this, but I don’t have the stature to be the conscience of Tolte, because as a gringo most of my ideas are suspect—or the strength to confront the offending husband, a man who truly resembles Popeye: smallish, but extremely tough and strong. I report this so that you can understand that Tolte is not Shangri-La, or some place I have invented, but a real rural community with the attendant problems produced by alcoholism, limited education, isolated poverty, and a traditional culture. Of course, any suggestions as to what I might do in the aftermath would certainly be appreciated.

I went home and hung up my wet clothing, and headed for Belena’s house where I was expected for lunch. Don Juan was there, in even worse condition than he had been yesterday morning, along with his wife, and Narcisa and some of her sisters. Don Juan is apparently their uncle, a relationship I had kind of suspected but wasn’t clear on. Massive amount of food were served, starting with chicken soup loaded with a big piece of chicken, and followed by cuy and chicken with potatoes and rice. Chicha and trago were also being offered. I really didn’t have enough appetite for the situation, but I was certainly impressed with the way Narcisa and her sisters put away their food. I’ll say this: I’ve never seen a woman in Tolte turn down food or complain that too much was served. They tuck in with a will. In some cases this is because farming certainly gives one an appetite, but not all of these women are farmers. I suppose it goes without saying that women here tend to look somewhat more maternal than they do in New York. Don’t forget that they’re also tremendously strong.

Not too long after lunch, I heard music from the little adobe building where Luis plays with the pick-up band of which I am a some-time member. Figuring that this would be a good chance to get my musical evening started, I picked up my guitar and headed over. I guess that six months of hearing local music has made it easier for me to understand what is happening when they play. For example, I realized that Luis generally only plays in the key of F minor, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. It is also rare for a song to have more than two or three chords—four is probably a maximum. I also found that after listening to Luis run through the melodies on the keyboard a few times, I could pick them out (more or less) on the guitar. Juan Carlos loaned me a neck strap to play the guitar standing up, which turned out to be a great help later in the evening. I guess we did about two hours before Luis went home and Juan Carlos and  I went up to Mesias’ store to find a singing group.

The singing group wound up being five or six people, all young men except for one old gringo. The weather was a misty drizzle, and made me think a bit of “A Christmas Carol.” The first place we stopped was at Narcisa’s house, where I eat lunch. I was a little unsure how she would take the sudden appearance of half a dozen drunken revelers at her door, but it turned out that she was tremendously amused by the sight of me playing guitar with this group. She was a generous Carnaval host, too, handing out Zhumir (trago manufactured under actual distillery conditions, quite a bit milder than the real thing) and cuy con mote. We also passed by Diego’s family’s house, where I had helped to kill the pig in morning, and were treated to some of the animal (cooked now, of course). The big party, though turned out to be right near my house, in a little adobe house below the level of the street that belongs to the grandmother of two families’ worth of my students. I had passed it every day, but never been inside. All I can say was that it sure looked like a fiesta, twenty or thirty people packed into a tiny space drinking and singing bawdy Carnaval verses back and forth between men and women. Belena turned out to be especially good at this—she definitely had an edge in experience over the members of my group. I played the guitar for this activity until my fingers got numb, and then played some more. I’m certainly glad that I managed to pick up the Carnaval music before Carnaval was over. I really felt mixed into the middle of a Tolte house party.

Again, I feel compelled to mention that all was not entirely festive in this fiesta. Late at night, when almost everyone else had left, the mother of two of my students talked to me about her concern for her cousin, offering more evidence of domestic violence in Tolte. She also talked about how her husband had been in Spain for the past seven years, but in contrast to most of the situations I have heard of like this, he has abandoned his family in Tolte and has left her alone to support four children ranging in age from 9 to 13. I can’t really imagine how she gets by. I know she worked as a cook in Cuenca for a couple of months, but seems to be back to farming in Tolte since about a month ago. As always, this is an adventure for me, but a real hard life for many of the people who live here.

And that was Carnaval in Tolte, 2012 edition. In some ways, it really was even more festive than the Fiesta de Tolte, maybe because it was for Tolte alone, instead of all of the surrounding communities. There is a kind of wild joy in all of the soaking with water in the cold weather, the smearing of everyone’s faces with cornstarch and colored powder, and the massive consumption of food and drink. There's a verse in the Carnaval song that says, "If Carnaval were to die, the world would end." It’s Mardi Gras without the upholstery, combined with Halloween and Thanksgiving. And Easter is only 40 days away.