La Mitad del Mundo: May 15 (late though)

I lazily walk into the kitchen in my pajamas one night:

Mi papá: What a nice life, spending the whole day sleeping.

Yo: No, I was studying, but in bed.

Mi papá: Ahhh…studying Kama Sutra.

That short conversation summarizes my host dad perfectly. Every few sentences are punch lines and everyone chuckles but me. Mi mamá will usually ask me if I understood his joke and either explain it to me, or say, “Good, it’s better you don’t understand.” I feel uncomfortable around him because most times I don’t get why his words make sense because I don’t understand what he’s saying is a joke, but I think I would still feel uncomfortable (and maybe even more) with him if I could understand what he says.

One night mi hermano hurt his hand badly by horsing around in the house and had to go to the doctor with mi mamá. He was screaming and crying in agony, the kind of noises one would make if his finger got cut off—more of horror than of pain, and more than a 13-year-old boy would ever be willing to admit. Mi papá, expecting dinner, came home after mi hermano y mamá had left, but mi hermana was the only one there and dinner hadn’t been started. He started yelling, “What happened to dinner?” at mi hermana repeatedly, though it was certainly not her fault dinner wasn’t served the second he got home. Qué machismo was my thought. When mi hermano returned, mi papá bellowed some very bad words as he whipped both mi hermana and mi hermano with a belt. Whimpering, the kids shuffled to their beds to cry.

I grew up never being hit in my life and never witnessing it, so it was surprising to see this form of punishment when my life has been so different. Therefore, in my perspective this is a terrible thing to do when it may not really be as damaging as I perceive it, but my child psychology professor said that hitting children should never be used as a form of punishment because it creates fear and besides, negative reinforcement is not as efficacious as positive reinforcement. Mis padres don’t ever applaud them for behaving well or encourage them to study. They usually do their chores when asked, but they still get yelled at once in a while, but last week was the only time I’ve heard them get hit. It should be mentioned, though, they do a lot more chores than my siblings or I ever did. I don’t know if hitting children is a SES thing or a cultural thing, but I haven’t heard my friends’ say anything like this about their host families. Hitting occurs in the U.S. mostly among low SES families, so I imagine it is the same here.

I can’t believe society has not progressed enough to realize children matter. Learning and developing human beings deserve love and respect no matter what foolish things they do. However, abuse of all forms is widespread. Children who have been abused are more likely to abuse their children, and the cycle perpetuates. In my world, expecting parents should be interviewed or tested on their knowledge of the child psyche before their baby is born, and if they fail, they should take a child-raising course because really the only way to stop forms of mild abuse is to prevent it. Child services won’t take a child away from the parents if the kid has a few welts on his behind.

My friend here in Ecuador said that Ecuador is similar to how the U.S. was in the fifties, and she’s more correct than she probably thinks. I went to a Mother’s Day performance at the grade school in Lumbisí and in two of the performances the children wore blackface and some had fake big lips dancing unskillfully to traditional dances. It was unsettling to see something I’d seen in history class on old film in front of my eyes and no one looked the least bit outraged. What was strange as well was that there were actually Afro-Ecuadorians there who performed traditional dances too. I didn’t understand why they had to have mestizo children do it when there already were qualified people to represent their own culture. Apparently, most Ecuadorians don’t see it something as obvious to estadounidenses as blackface is as racist. I don’t know how Afro-Ecuadorians, 5% of the country, feel about it though. Ecuador never had the Civil Rights Movement and doesn’t see racism as a problem or even existing probably because Afro-Ecuadorians never stood up like African Americans did in the U.S. or have the same numbers they do in the U.S. Granted, indigenous Ecuadorians command much more respect than our indigenous people.

The way blacks are regarded in Ecuador seems to be how Native Americans are treated in the U.S. Black people in Ecuador are a small percentage, like Native Americans, and indígenas have larger numbers than Native Americans. Also, the Native Americans never had a movement like the indígenas did. While I see Ecuador as extremely racist toward blacks, the same can be said about the U.S toward Native Americans. This is just a thought—and it may be a little insensitive to compare these groups, but it seems that a minority group needs to unite in large enough numbers to protest injustices for repression to be mitigated.

One night while the group and I were at our program coordinator’s mansion in Cumbayá, (she owns a signed Guayasamín painting fyi) I was sitting with my black friend, her friend, and her mom, who was visiting Ecuador for the week. All the host moms were cooking humitas, a corn and cheese traditional dish wrapped in a cornhusk, and one host mom kept looking at April’s mom. April’s mom commented loudly about it, and the mom’s daughter who knew English replied, “She just likes your dress.” My friend’s mom didn’t believe that and voiced her sentiments amongst our little group, but wanting to be overheard. The Ecuadorian daughter retorted, “My mom’s not racist” which started a little argument that neither got too heated nor resolved. It was ironic that Afro-Ecuadorians were performing later that evening at the program coordinator’s house.

My friend wrote a paper on the different experiences between students of different races studying in Ecuador, and from talking to her, my experience is very different from hers due to race. We both have gone to the university on weekends to use the internet, but she has only been stopped at the entrance to be questioned. Kids in Lumbisí ask us questions related to the U.S. or English words only when she’s with me. Ecuadorians stare at us both, but for separate reasons. My friend has the ability to blend in more, but blending in as an Afro-Ecuadorian means she’s associated with criminals—better hold on to your stuff. Me, I can go tanning all I want and never blend in, but at least no one mistakes me for a lower-class citizen. I’m not condoning racism in the U.S., but from what I can tell, racism is more palpable here. Ecuadorians aren’t hyper politically correct like most of the U.S., which can be a good and bad thing, but when my friend told me a black student left Ecuador early because he couldn’t handle the racism, I’d take political correctness.

Living in a developing country is like taking a step back in time; sometimes it’s refreshing, but sometimes it’s not. I usually glamorize past eras, but looking at a developing country is like peering into a little window to an inchoate U.S., like the easy example of piles of garbage along the highways, litter on the sidewalks, trash on the beach in Ecuador now, which all was the same in the U.S. some years ago. It’s not a completely true comparison because this is a different culture and things like technology still reach it (so it really couldn’t look like the 50’s), and no country should strive to emulate the U.S., and maybe some things here are even eons better than the U.S. (gasp!)

For better or worse, living in a different country for four months allows me to see its ugly side, but I’ve seen a lot of physical beauty—last weekend I went to a rose plantation and a hacienda built on ancient Incan ruins. I have finished classes and taken all my exams, so this week is being spent taking salsa classes, taking informal lessons in Spanish with my friend and a Spanish teacher, pining for Jeremy, glancing at my GRE book, and thinking hard about my last four months.