Feliz Cumpleanos Papa!

Today has been a very special day. Mostly because it is my fathers birthday, and although I wasn't able to spend it with him I had the next best thing. I am currently in Otavalo, Ecuador. Famous for it's Saturday markets, I am here to shop around a bit and enjoy the natural beauty of this place, montains, lakes, waterfalls. I have made a few local friends here, not counting the various Otavalian young men that insist on walking with me to my various destinations. If anyone asks I have a very large jealous boyfriend of 3 years living in Quito, we are going to be engaged soon and are very happy. The greatest friends I have made here own a store that sells mostly jewelry and figures carved out of Tagua "Ivory of the trees". I found a necklace there I loved on my first day in Otavalo, and the owners asked where I was from which became a question of why I didn't look American and an explanation that I belong to a tribu de indigenas en Estados Unidos. The couple spoke among themselves about how I am not a gringa and once again I couldn't help but be delighted by this distinction. Suddenly I was being offered coffee with lots of sugar and ritz-like crackers (which taste really good when dipped in sweet coffee) and we were somehow communicating despite my major spanish issues (which by the way I still can't speak spanish, but I can understand it way better) about indigenous identity, world views, philosophies, and about the history of Indigenous people here and what they suffered when the spaniards came. When it was dark and I needed to find my hostal (Hostal La Luna, far out of town up in the hills, but way worth it) my new friends negotiated a cheap cab price while I waited in the store. They told me to return the next day, and ofcourse I did.

As a side note, La Luna is an incredibly comfortable and beautiful hostal with a small farm-type feeling to it. Warm fireplaces and great music (oh brother where art thou soundtrack playing when I first arrived), and plenty of hammocks. My dorm is like a little cottage where I am the only visitor, so I have an adorable bed in the corner next to a window where bright blue and yellow birds peer in at me. The owners cute barely 1 year old daughter's name just so happens to be... Emma.

On Saturday I went on a short hike to a good view point above the lake where I could journal. While I was sitting up there I heard a strange striking sound until before I knew it a very old woman appeared, machete in hand out of the brush. I could only think of how much I was panting walking up the same hill and how healthy this little old woman must be. I explained why I was there in spanish, and she laughed and began a long story in Quecha before she moved on to the trees and brush to my right with her two dogs. When I went down to Otavalo I visited with my friends at the shop early in the day and later when I had coffee with them again. They told me about famous Indigenous leaders of the past in Ecuador, Peru and Chile and talked about how they think Chile is like the U.S. in that there are plenty of people who are very poor, but you would never know because they are invisible in the media. They asked what else I wanted to do in Otavalo and I said I had heard of Peguche falls. Elizabeth, the wife told me they were beautiful falls and her husband said we'll go tomorrow, meet me at 9:30.

So today I went to the falls with him and his little 4 or 5 year old daughter. It was like watching my dad and me, as he helped her balance when we walked along the curb and on the unused train tracks when we walked along there. He is really so much like my father in so many ways, a fisherman, an artist, knowledgable in natural medicine and in finding bugs and animals. I learned so much on that walk, it was a situation where I was sometimes surprised to remember there is a language barrier, because I could understand everything he was telling me about the different plants that he invited me and his daughter to touch, smell, taste. He would ask me what different bugs and birds where named in english, and in some cases I could give him both the english and salish names. The falls were beautiful, and my friend and guide pointed out the faces in the rock formations below the falls and later showed me a tree that has knots in the trunk that look like clenched fists. We walked back a different way than we came so I could see their home and visit the home of a Shaman he knows that just so happened to have a teepee up in this yard.

The most exciting moment of this day by far happened when we returned to their shop. I asked about the seeds used in necklaces I recognized in the store as being just like one I had when I was a little girl. The name of the seeds is San Pedro (perhaps from the same plant as the hallucigenic cactus) and they are small smooth and a white-gray. When I was a little girl I had a wild imagination and was terrified of the monsters and bad people in my room, my closet, outside my window, in the toilet, anywhere that I was alone. Fortunately, my wild imagination also created ways of protecting myself from these ugly creatures. I had utmost faith in little songs I made up to say before I used the bathroom alone (to keep the snake in the toilet from biting my tush) and in a necklace that I had from a winter dance or something, a necklace made of red beads and san pedro seeds. I chose this necklace to be my protector while I slept and when I got up in the night, beleiving that as long as I was wearing the necklaces the monsters couldn't see me as I slept. I remember that I had never seen the seeds before, and maybe that is why I felt they had special powers. I wanted to be able to explain these things I made up when I was a child to my friends, because I couldn't understand what he was telling me about the seeds. So I said the most that I could in spanish, that when I was a small girl I wore a necklace of san pedro when I slept, and my friend (my ecuadorian father practically!) said in spanish "yes, they are for protection" as he made the motion of hugging himself.

"yes, they are for protection"

And somehow I knew this when I was almost the same age of his little girl. Strange coincidences abound in travel, and who knew I would have to come all the way to Ecuador to understand one of the many strong beliefs I had as a child.

Another strong belief that I had as a child was that the world was drawn by the creator with a pencil, I remember telling my mom that the proof of this is the thin black lines you can see when you squint at objects. These were the pencil marks that the creature used to separate colors and shapes so that the world made sense visually. I was reminded of this train of thought while I was hiking and bussing in Costa Rica, along with thinking about the vast difference in perspectives created when a person is taught from a young age that animals where put on earth by God FOR humans to consume, for humans to master over, rather than what my dad taught me. He taught me that animals and plants knew humans were coming to earth and they made the selfless decision to offer their flesh, roots, berries so that humans could survive. I don't think that two people raised with these two separate ways of understanding the world could ever look out a bus window at the Costa Rican forest, or sit down to dinner, and see the same forest or the same meal. Totally different attitudes. Just a thought I keep going over.

I am going back to Quito tomorrow, and so I plan to spend the rest of the day reading my book and enjoying my countryside hostal. Had a really fun hitching a ride down to town in the back of a truck this morning and am looking forward to whatever means by which I will return!

Happy Birthday Moddy!

Viva Quito! and so much more...

The Stolen Empanada... This fried beauty was better than a lot of frybread I have eaten... and it was only 40 cents.
Can´t get this picture to not be sideways.
Viva Quito
Graffiti Competition
¨The only virgin in Quito¨is the joke around here.

Hello again! It´s been so long since I have posted that I am going to flood you with information. I am now in Quito Ecuador, staying with a friend of the incredible Jess, whom I met in the most boring biostatistics class in the world. Jess came to Ecuador with a public health study abroad program I have been thinking of doing for a long time (more on that later), and made many friends here. Now I am fortunate to meet those friends and see Ecuador from there perspective. I am staying with Ave (Estaban) and Rafa (Rafael), and they announced on my first night that I am the ¨Queen of la casa.¨ They are only the beginning of the incredibly interesting people I am meeting here. Ave teaches literature and philosophy at a highschool and makes short films, Rafa is going to university and recording great music, his current projects are a unique mix of rock and calypso (Joan - I will try and get a copy of some of his music for you). Ave and Rafa have one of those perfect roommate relationships where they get along and enjoy living with eachother, but have totally different groups of friends. This is good for me because I get to know a broader group of people here (met Rafa´s friend Pablo who works on reforestation projects, hopefully I will get to go plant trees and do a community education day trip with him to a community an hour north of Quito!!! Cross your fingers for me!). I also really get to LIVE here, to wake up in the morning, play with and feed the street dog we have taken in (the dog´s name is Trapo or rag and he prefers to sleep on my bed), have my glass of milk and pastry while listening to some of Rafa´s extensive music collection... life is good to say the least.

Currently Quito is a very busy place because we are right in the middle of Fiestas de Quito. Before coming here I had no idea what Fiestas de Quito was about, but now I know that it is a celebration of the (spanish) foundation of Quito and it is made up of much partying (on Chiva buses, that drive around with the saddest sounding bands aboard the top and people drinking below) and bull fights.

On the subject of bull fights: Cullen alerted me that these would be going on while I was here (he is somewhere in Ecuador or the Galapagos currently) and so I got some time to think about them when I was in Costa Rica. My first thought was ¨um gross animal cruelty.¨ Then I thought a bit about how PETA reacts to our ¨world famous¨ suicide race in Omak... I fully support the continuation of the suicide race tradition, so I considered the possibility that maybe I am being overly judgemental of a cultural event. But then I thought ¨you know, we don´t stab the horses in the suicide race.¨ So my final thought is ¨um gross animal cruelty.¨

I´m in good company with this thinking. I haven´t met a person here in Quito that likes the bull fights. That is mostly because I have been enjoying Quito Fest, a collection of heavy metal, rock, punk, ska, hip hop and rap concerts that are taking place in opposition to the bullfights and are openly questioning the celebration of the Spanish foundation of Quito after so many years of oppression and violence... ¨Soy una Indigena, Soy una Indigena¨...These lyrics being yelled into the mic tell me I am in the right place. Friday night, Saturday night, and most of Sunday I spent at concerts with all kinds of music and messages. Sunday was especially good, and the concert took place at a park with a great view of Quito. It was there that I purchased my first Quito souveneir, a button crossing out a dieing bull that says ¨Tortura, Ni Arte, Ni Cultura.¨ It was also there that I was dumbstruck by the unpredictability of my travels. I stood admist a crowd of Ecuadorians watching an incredible rap-rock group from France while a graffiti competition was going on over to my left and really just couldn´t believe that life works in this way.

Other Quito highlights have been: The food, the food, the food! I admit some things I have tried have been less than thrilling, like cow tongue on my first day and the whole fried fish I was served for lunch today (I realize now I was silly to think I was ordering fish and chips type fish). But at the concerts I tried Mote and this delicious potato thing that I don´t know the name of...basically a fried mashed potato exterior and veggie and chicken interior with THE BEST veggie salsa I have had, some variation of the agi or aji salsa served with every meal. I also had a sit down lunch made by Ave´s father, whom Ave says is probably even a better cook than his mother. Later when I was hanging out with Ave´s little brother we related on the experience of growing up with a family situation with a daddy that was more of what I, from a very young age, knew as a ¨Moddy.¨ A dad that does all the things that are more commonly considered to be mommy or women´s things in our society. He took care of me, cooking, playing, housework... Mateo (Ave´s brother) and I both agree that having a Moddy is really a great way to grow up in this world. I especially benefited from having a father that taught me that our history is full of women warriors, that women can do all that men can do and more, that there are no gender roles or rules, that I can be what Steve (selam, not my dad) referred to me as, ¨a ribbon-shirt girl.¨

So I got on a tangent. Overall message: the food here is delicious.

I really like getting to see peoples houses here. Right now I am in the house that Rafa grew up in, which is now more of an office building for a company that I believe has something to do with Rafa´s father´s work. I don´t really know details, but Rafa´s father (is, was, not even sure of that status) an amazing artist that did work in collaboration with Disney. Here in the house-office and in Rafa and Ave´s apartment there are some of the multi-layered illustrations used for his films. Now Rafa records music and does homework here. The house is really stunning to me, I think this might be what one would call a town house? I am really not familiar with many types of houses or their appropriate nomenclature, but this place even has a sauna. Wow. Another great house is the home of Dani and Victoria´s family. Winding staircases and interconnected multi level rooms with a room that is their mother´s pottery studio fully equiped with a kiln. Upstairs there is an elaborate miniture nativity-city of Beth. that their mother made with every single detail imaginable. Their father, Ave tells me, is a well known mime. It´s families like this that fascinate me. Dani´s cousin is going to teach me how to salsa, she knows how to do all sorts of different dances and is sympathetic to my cause. I am always asked to dance salsa at clubs in Seattle because I look latina... and despite Angelo Baca´s effort to teach me, my salsa skills are lacking entirely.

Speaking of looking Latina... I am not all that surprised that people in Seattle think that I am latina. It´s pretty much never other Latin@s that make this assumption, just people who wouldn´t ever assume that any person is Native American unless they are sitting next to a teepee. Well actually, no that´s not true, other Latin@s do think I am latina, but mostly when I am at settings that would aid that assumption (just to clarify).

What has been surprising is how many people in my travels have thought the same. Wherever I go there are people that either assume I am from there or have family there or have a latina background of some sort. This happens especially if I haven´t had a chance to show how ridiculously awful my spanish is, but even then people dream up these scenerios that maybe I grew up in the U.S. while my dad or family lives in ________ (insert Latin American country here). I have been told repeatedly that I just don´t look American, I don´t look gringa. In BlueFields I was described by a bartender as ¨A Spaniard girl who speaks english very well¨ when he was calling my friend Daniel, the bar owner´s son, to let him know I was looking for him. When I say that I am Native American (Aborigine/Indigena de Estados Unidos) it seems to make sense to people that I look so different from anything they consider to be American, that I am more like most latin@s because I am... and this is really a strange thought for myself... A Mestizo. We don´t have that racial category in the states, in the states I am mixed or more often by hyperdescent I am Native. When people ask ¨what are you?¨ in Seattle they aren´t interested in hearing about my Danish ancestry, they want to know why I am brown. This identity does give me a unique ¨in¨ that other travelers may not experience. Strange as it sounds I look like I could be from most places that I go, and when people find out I am not it inspires conversations about indigenous people in the US and indigenas whereever I am. I don´t remember if I said this before, but looking like a local has its perks. Like getting into see the Masaya volcano in Nicaragua for the resident price instead of the tourist price. Or just getting less harrassment from men and being viewed as less tourist-like. I may even be less of a target for theives, which leads me to another story...

Today was the first time I have had something stolen from me on this trip. I was on top of the world, I had made my way to the city center all by myself, wandered around, had lunch, found a very comfortable pair of jeans (if you think shopping for jeans in the US is a nightmare, come to Ecuador... it takes a great deal of time and energy... and money), and out of no where found what looked and smelled like FRY BREAD. I found fry bread in Nicaragua, though I didn´t try it, and I am not sure whether or not I posted the picture of it. I asked a young guy what he was eating and he told me it was an empeñada and let me try a piece of his. He explained what was in it and the two most important things, its Rica and Barato. So I bought one... it cost maybe 25 cents and was huge with sugar sprinkled on top and cheese somewhere in the middle. In my excitement of finding Ecuadorian fry bread I decided to take a picture of it before eating any more of it and I started walking down the narrow sidewalk with my camera in my right hand and the empañada in the left. Walking up the sidewalk was a man without a shirt, his head was down and he had blankets resting on his shoulders. He looked up at me and I could tell that he wasn´t going to move to make room for me so I swerved to the left to go around him and just as I did his hand reached out, fingers clawed, lightning fast and snatched away.... the empañada. I was in shock, upset over the surprise of what had happened and losing my treat, but mostly AMAZED that he didn´t steal my camera instead. It was closer to him, it could buy him much more food than the empañada, but he didn´t take it. I can´t make assumptions about what went into his decision making, but I am very thankful that I still have my camera and hope he finds more nutricious and fulfilling food tonight, whether or not this requires stealing.

Playa Hermosa

He´s just a lil guy!

playa hermosa!
Signs of good surf
I´m at the beach!



Tomorrow I will write. Tonight I want to get pictures up from my beach time. I am now at my hostel in Aljeula (near San Jose, Costa Rica) after spending time at a surfer stop called playa hermosa.

Me, the tree & the toucan...

There is an incredible tree outside of Santa Elena that I hiked to with three friends from the hostel where I stayed. What makes the tree so great is that some kind of parasitic vine type thing got to it and created a hollow center that you can climb up and up and up until you exit the trunk and are standing in a cluster of branches up in the tree tops. In my opinion this is way better than paying to walk on a suspension bridge in the tree - tops, especially after my friends headed back and I got a chance to journal up in the tree. Just as I was going to leave a beautiful toucan landed in a branch to my left, INCREDIBLE. It was one of the Kelle billed toucans with all the bright colors on it´s beak. I didn´t take any pictures of it, I was afraid of scaring it away. But I did take time for a shameless self-portrait photo shoot before climbing back down, enjoy!

It´s a long way down

Climbing up, view of the hole you climb through to get onto the branches

The tree!

Jake took this picture of me climbing out of the tree

View from the tree

Before the night hike where I saw 5 sloths, 4 of which were mom and baby duos, a tarantula, tiny frog, strange bugs... and so on.
The hike before the hike, getting closer to the falls

Anna, Ida & Emma swimming in the falls!

Santa Elena Reserve

Very thankful for this day

This was her favorite page in my journal

Painting flowers next to the bucket of dulce leche she is selling.

Thank you Montenegro family for treating me to the concert at the National Theater of Nicaragua and the incredible dinner and flan de coco after, you truly are my Nicaraguan parents and I promise to return!

Thank you Blanca Lucia for the bracelet and the impromptu spanish lessons!

Thank you Marlene for the bananas and water for my journey, and for the conversations by candlelight on the porch with your daughter when the power went off for the evening.

Thank you carol for writing the note in spanish to the bus driver so he knew that I was going to Monteverde and not San Jose. I felt like a kindergardener with my bus number pinned on the back of my shirt, and it felt good.

Thank you woman on the bus from china, we both had limited spanish, but you knew enough to help me through customs.

Thank you little girl selling dulce leche at the bus stop that came over to watch me paint, you brightened my day and I hope you have a paint set of your own some day, the flowers you painted in my journal are beautiful.

Thank you young man and your mother for buying me a sandwich and coke and being patient with my limited spanish. A wonderful thanksgiving meal. I didn´t have small enough bills or even the right type of currency to eat.

Thank you everyone on the bus for making sure over and over again that he needed to stop at a place where I could transfer to monteverde.

Thank you Huber for the exciting drive to monteverde, the best hitchhiking experience ever.