trick-or-treat, ecuadorian style

for halloween, the program group decided to rent a chiva, which is an ecuadorian-style party bus, open without windows, and space on the roof for us all to stand/dance/hang out with the live band. we drove all around the clubby-touristy area as well as the historical downtown, and even had a dance contest in the deserted plaza of the san francisco church. quite fun and unique. during the festivals of quito the first week of dec. apparently everyone gets on chivas every night.
however, the kids digging through trash and watching us, wide-eyed, dancing in the plaza, was a sobering dose of reality...i don’t want to forget...

halloween is not really celebrated here; there were a few people dressed up in the clubs and roaming the streets, but it definitely wasn’t a big presence. the program director told me that a few years ago everyone would get dressed up and close down the streets and dance, but then the president asked them not to, because its not an ecuadorian tradition but rather just u.s. influence, and that they should celebrate the ecuadorian seal instead. (oct. 31 is also ecuadorian seal day…whoohoo!). another interesting effect of globalization...

nov. 2 marked “el dia de los difuntos,” celebrated similarly to “el dia de los muertos” en mexico, but with some marked differences, for the different indigenous cultures here. even before the spanish came here and made everyone catholic, the kichwas of the sierra would celebrate their ancestors during this time of the year because they believed that the cooler winds brought their ancestors spirits.
nowadays, they bring traditional foods, like guaguas de pan (bread shaped like kids) and colada morada (a purple fruity drink made with dark corn flour) and eat it while sitting on top of the graves of their relatives. they pour some colada morada over the graves to share with the dead.

for my andean religions class, we went to calderon, (a town half an hour outside of quito famous for their marzipan figurines!) to observe the cemetery, which has a large indigenous population that still eat with their dead on this day. there were so many people there, to the extent that it was hard to walk around. the street outside the cemetery had become a festival, with all kinds of vendors, and even a ferris wheel!
in the u.s., no one wants to walk over graves, out of respect, but here, everyone was walking over everyone else’s graves, leaning on tombstones, and even walking around selling ice cream and lotto tickets! it was shocking, but actually the whole atmosphere was pretty liberating...like how death should be celebrated.

there was mass out in the open air, and during the homily, the priest explained the significance of the symbol that had been constructed on the ground in front of the altar. in the middle was a guagua de pan, which represented each person, recently born. we travel down the spiral of life, growing physically, mentally, and spiritually. the path is filled with the things that strengthen us (the foods of this area, part of the indigenous sierran identity), as well as flowers and thorns (to represent the beautiful and the difficult that we all encounter). and the spiral doesn’t end, in the same way that our life doesn’t. after death, our life just changes and “se pierde el infinito.” (this is beautiful and i feel like it doesn’t quite translate). and the rays that come from the spiral represent the forces of the universe, which keep the planets in orbit and form the earthquakes. the rays are made of corn, and in the same way that it is key to the andean identity and is their primary form of nutrition, the forces of the universe, and God’s love, is our primary form of nutrition. que tan linda!