Slave to Comfort

I'm not going to do it... I'm not. I don't care if women look at my feet all the time - especially when I'm at a party. I don't care if little girls tell me that I look like a man. I don't care if I am instantly recognized as a "gringa." I am not, except on very rare occasions, going to wear high heels.

I like walk, a lot. I do it all the time. And I have always been picky about my shoes. They have to be sturdy. They have to be made of quality material. And above all, they have to be comfortable. I think that women's high heels are probably the most uncomfortable article of clothing ever invented (or actually developed because from what I've read they were originally worn by rich men so that they could walk through sewage-strewn city streets and not get their feet dirty). Throughout my life I've owned maybe two or three pairs - which have usually sat in my closet, gathering dust. Here in Ecuador, it seems that high heels are pretty much required, daily attire for most women. Although I've never done an unbiased scientific study, I suspect that a large percentage of the shoes you'll find in the average Ecuadorian woman's closet are high heels, with perhaps one or two pairs of flats or tennnis shoes thrown in for variety.

Whenever I go out on the town I see women everywhere tottering along on these little mini torture devices for the feet. They do everything wearing high heels - working long hours on their feet, carrying their kids, shopping, walking across town. The other day I was with a woman actually put on a pair of high heels to walk around a huge mall (after changing out of a pair of flats she was wearing while driving). This love affair with high heels makes no sense to me, especially in a city where most people do not have cars so they have to walk or take the bus to get anywhere (and if you've ever tried to stand on a packed, lurching bus you can imagine how difficult it would be to do it on stilts). And on top of that the sidewalks (when they exist) are often broken, uneven, and filled with mud, or worse.

I understand that many people (women as well as men) consider high heels to be attractive, and I agree that they can look good in the right circumstances. But when I've looked closely at the shoes that women here are wearing on a daily basis I see swollen, wrinkled, pinched feet stuffed into frayed, often mud-splattered contraptions that seem like they are going to fall apart at any minute. Just the sight of them makes me feel off balance and makes my feet hurt. Visions of ritual mutilation, or the ancient practice of foot-binding, come to mind.

There are a lot of little things that I do (many of them enjoyable) to try to "fit in" a little more in this culture, but wearing high heels every day will not be one of them.

Guayaquil

Last week we took a road trip to Guayaquil in order to renew my U.S. passport. This time we decided to take a different route than we did on our previous trip last July. We went north to Cuenca and then west to the coast.

On the way out of town we were treated to another beautiful view of Loja:

The road to Cuenca is currently undergoing major improvements, and some sections are very nice and easy to drive. Other parts are in various stages of construction. We had to wait a few times in long lines:

But overall the drive was much better than the other route. Neither Christina nor I had to take motion sickness medicine.

Along the way we passed this car whose occupants seemed to be enjoying their trip, despite having to ride in the back of the truck:

Before Cuenca we passed the town of Saraguro, which is the ancestral home of the Saraguro tribe. Many of the residents wear traditional outfits - long skirts and wide hats for women and black, knee-length shorts for men. However, the native peoples of Ecuador do not like having their picture taken. I tried to take a picture of a group of women but they quickly turned away. After that I felt guilty and decided to respect their privacy. At any rate, anyone interested in seeing the traditional outfits can do a Google image search for "Saraguro" and find lots of photos.

Once in Cuenca we weren't sure of the best way to the coast so Lucho called a friend of his for directions. I was a little skeptical when I looked on the map and saw that he was routing us through a very mountanous area. I was not looking forward to driving on a curvey, pothole-filled road, but we checked with a couple of other people and we were told that it was the best way to go. Once we got on the road we saw that it was in pretty good shape, and then we were treated to the amazing scenery of the Cajas National Park. We passed through a huge U-shaped (glacially-carved) valley, which was filled with small alpine lakes and ringed by dramatic, rocky mountain tops. It reminded us a bit of Yosemite. I took a few photos that don't really do it justice:

If you look closely on the right hand side of the photo below you'll see a llama staring out over the lake (it was the perfect photo op):

After Cajas we went downhill to the coast. The views were probably amazing as well, but we couldn't see a thing due to heavy fog. We finally arrived in Guayaquil around 8 p.m. and the first thing we did was order a big, greasy Domino's pizza.

The next day we made it to the U.S. Consulate in time for my appointment and after waiting in a freezing-cold (air-conditioned) waiting room I was seen by a very nice young guy who processed my passport paperwork without any problem.

We ended up spending 3 more days in Guayaquil, enjoying the many shopping malls and restaurants, and swimming in Lucho's uncle's pool (Christina especially enjoyed the pool). One day we drove to the beach in Salinas:

On the way we stopped for lunch at the Farallon Dillon Hotel, a quaint little place that includes a lighthouse, a maritime museum, and a somewhat pricey restaurant with a beautiful view of the ocean. On the way back to the car Christina noticed this little lizard crawling around on one of the outdoor sculptures:

All in all it was a great trip. We got our "big city" fix and saw more of Ecuador's beautiful sights.

Being French

Lately I've been trying to figure out how to describe what it is like to live in Loja as a foreigner. Back when I was Peace Corps volunteer I used to think that it was like being forced to walk around town wearing a bikini. That was because everyone stared at me all the time and I got a lot of unwanted attention from men. Now that I'm a bit older, plus the fact we have a car so I don't have to walk or take the bus as much as before, I don't get that kind of attention as much. I still get stared at, but very rarely do strange men hiss at me or try to start up a conversation with me. But there is still no way that I can "blend in" to the society here. I will always be a foreigner; my hair, my clothes and my accent give me away.

However, being a foreigner in Loja is nothing like the experience that Lucho had living in the U.S. For him, when someone noticed he was from another country and treated him differently it was usually a less-than-positive experience. He was always mistaken for being Mexican, and there are unfortunately many people in the States who hold negative stereotypes of Mexicans (and most of these people can't tell the difference between Mexico and Ecuador anyway).


Being a foreigner in Loja is a little different because when people notice that I'm from another country it can be either a positive or negative experience. That got me thinking that being a foreigner in Loja might be somewhat like being a French person living in the States. That's because in the U.S. there are both positive and negative stereotypes of the French. Some people romanticize them, and others hold a more negative view (remember "Freedom Fries?"). It's the same in Ecuador with us "gringos". Some people appear to put me on a pedestal, and treat me as if I if I were extremely beautiful or intelligent, and others obviously don't trust me and think that I have some kind of ulterior motive (I might be a CIA spy or out to steal their children or something). Then, there are other, minor things like discovering that the nice lady at the corner store overcharged me by 10 cents, or suddenly realizing that someone is staring at me (this happens ALL the time - I've gotten pretty good at looking back at people with no emotion on my face).

Of course most people treat me normally, as they would anyone else, but every once in a while I become aware that I'm getting the "gringo" treatment. It can be frustrating at times, but who hasn't been treated differently at some point in their lives based on inaccurate or unfair perceptions?

Yogurt

A couple of months ago I discovered a method for making the best yogurt I've ever had in my life. A friend gave me a jar full of little white things that she called "lombrices" (worms), and she told me that they are used to make yogurt. Here's a picture of the little "worms:"

Making the yogurt is really easy. Just cover the worms with milk and let them sit overnight. The milk ferments and turns into a watery type of yogurt. Here's what it looks like the next morning:

Then you use a colander to strain out the worms (which are rinsed and used to make another batch of yogurt for the next day) and mix the yogurt in a blender with fruit and a little sugar:

Breakfast of champions!

The resulting yogurt is muuuuch better than the store bought brands. I attempted to learn more about it online, but had no luck. If anyone out there knows something about this type of yogurt, please leave a comment or send me an email.

A weight loss method I would not recommend

When I moved here last year it took me a while to get used to the high altitude. Loja, at an elevation of 2,100 meters (6,890 ft) above sea level is much higher than Sacramento, which is only 25 ft (8M) above sea level. For the first 4 or 5 months I didn't work out at all. Just walking Christina to school every morning and climbing up 5 flights of steps to get to our apartment was enough exercise to keep me in shape. But slowly my body began to acclimatize to the altitude here, and after a couple of trips to Quito and Guayaquil - where I sampled much of the local cuisine - my waistline started to expand a bit. So I finally broke out the exercise DVDs that I had brought with me and began to work out in the mornings. Things went pretty well, and I was able to shed some of those extra pounds.

But last month, for various reasons, I was lazy and didn't work out as much as I should. I started to notice that my pants were getting tighter and tighter. Uh oh. Not good. Time to get back into the habit of working out again. I started to drag myself out of bed a little earlier and follow my exercise routine again.

Then a couple of days later I woke up with a little upset stomach. "Must be something I ate," I thought, figuring that it would pass soon. I thought back to what I had eaten the day before - fish for lunch, pizza for dinner, brownies for dessert - not a great combination. But as the day wore on I felt worse and worse, and I found myself spending, er, a little bit too much time in the restroom. The next day I still felt bad, and I even had a slight fever. That was strange. I can't remember the last time I've had a fever, but it must have been when I was in high school. I never get sick for more than a day. This time I felt so bad that I couldn't even watch TV or read a book. All I could do was lie in bed and feel terrible. I decided that being sick really, really sucks.

I kept thinking that I would get better, but by the third day I realized that it was probably time to seek some medical help. After submitting the required samples for analysis, I was diagnosed with a stomach infection and amoebas (a type of parasite). According to my doctor, it was probably caused by something that I ate. I have had amoebas and giardia before (especially when I lived here before as a Peace Corps volunteer - at that time I wasn't as careful with what I ate and drank) but they never affected me in this way. And since then the drinking water treatment technology has improved dramatically in Loja, so I'm not sure what happened. But at any rate, after an antibiotic and some anti-parasite medicine I was as good as new. It felt sooooo good to be well again.

So after 4 days of eating nothing but chicken broth, white rice, and saltine crackers I found that I had lost some of the flab I had gained over the previous month. I'm glad that my jeans fit me again, but I think that I would have preferred to have lost the weight the old-fashioned way. Being miserable for the better part of a week is not the way to go.