I haven't written in a while... my bad. To be truthful, I've gotten so into the regular flow of things here, nothing seems unusual anymore. The people, their traditions and styles, even the grand city of Quito itself, all seem to blend into the normal way of living. Because of this(and my fairly empty pockets) I have found it hard to talk about my happenings in and around Quito. I have settled into a regular pattern of balancing friends and school and fun. It's strange to think that only three-and-a-half months have passed since my arrival, but I can just feel how things are going to be so different upon my return to the States. Back in North Carolina, at the International Study Abroad Orientation, they warned us of being so acclimated to a new culture that going back to the way things were would be difficult, strange, and even somewhat alien. I didn't believe a single word of it... you are who you are, right? But within the time I have passed here in South America my thoughts and opinions have changed on many issues. A lot of the people reading this may not understand how this can happen to a person's mindset in only such a short period of time, but believe me, it does. I don't want to go further with any of my personal views on life here compared to America or anywhere else in the world; it is my opinion that opinions should be kept to one's self. Rather, I would like to discuss some of the cultural factors that have altered my perception in one way or another.
The most standing issue in Ecuador, and South America in general, is the role of the genders. In the States we're all equal. Maybe not in everyday life, but the people understand that everyone should have the same opportunities. Here, it's a different matter. In the Latin American world, one very famous term separates men and women into a very strict class division, if you will. That word is "Machisma" (Muh-Cheese-Muh). It may look a little familiar, sort of like "Macho". But while we ascertain that a "Macho-man" is probably either one of the Village People out for a night on the town or just a rude steroid junkie, the meaning here has a lot more significance. Machisma is the position that men take in regards to their female counterparts. It includes being the man of the house, knowing what is best for women, and demanding, more or less, that women realize their place as the lesser being. It is absolutely sickening to see how the women are treated, and what little effort their is to combat it. Besides a good group of students at my university, one of the only liberal universities in South America, their is hardly a soul who even tries to point out the harsh reality of gender discrimination. I have seen men literally pulling their wives or girlfriends through shopping malls, men eye-raping women like they're only purpose is to present themselves as eye-candy, and even men who will grab women in certain areas as they are walking by. This is horrible, but unfortunately it is not the sad part of the story. The worst part of it all is that the women accept it like it's the next day's sunrise. It's nothing out of the ordinary, just the way that women are supposed to act. In recent studies of HIV/AIDS transfer, it was concluded that now the largest percentage of people who have STD's or HIV is the common housewife. It doesn't make any sense at first... why are housewives becoming the largest demographic that carries these contagions? It was found out that the cause of this extremely rapid growth rate was due to the fact that a large portion of husbands in South America have mistresses who also carry the diseases. The husbands sleep around, and in a predominately Catholic society where condoms and other forms of sexual protection are taboo topics, the husbands then bring the diseases home to their wives.
Staying somewhat in the same category as gender-relations is the almost as prevalent issue of homosexuality. It turns out that due to my alternative lifestyle (I'm a hippie, sort of), I have befriended someone with an alternative lifestyle of his own. He has turned out to be one of my best friends so far on this trip, and I am thankful that it is so. He is, as you have probably guessed, a tad bit on the flamboyant side. I just lied, sorry, this kid is honestly a walking rainbow. But he has helped me understand some of his problems that he has to deal with on a daily basis. Within his first week here a homeless man, a person with barely a piece of cloth on his back and no food in his stomach, thought it in good timing to call my friend "Maracuya" as he walked by. Maracuya literally translates into "Passion fruit", but carries the same connotation here as "faggot" does in the States. Seriously?? The homeless man obviously has never heard the phrase "don't through stones in a glass house," but it still astonishes me that he blatantly showed no respect for another human being. My friend has had to meet guys on an online chat room here because most other gays are still keeping their secret to themselves because of the ridicule and shunning they will face in public. The craziest thing I have heard though, and this is no lie, is the story my friend told me of one night here in Quito. My friend had met a guy online, gone out with him a few times, and after a fruitful night of drinking merrily, decided to take things a bit further. Neither could return back to their own house... kids do not move out of their parents' houses until they are well into their twenties or even their thirties... so my friend and his new beau decided to find a motel. They drove to one and were rejected by the clerk because it was two guys trying to rent a room and not a guy and a girl. So they left and drove to another. Same story. And it happened one more time before finally just one of them rented the room and the other snuck in an hour later. How crazy is that? Three different hotels lost business that night simply due to the fact that they didn't like gays. Welcome to Quito.
These two topics are huge human rights topics, but they do not bother me on a large scale, most probably because I am a straight male living in a society dominated by straight males. But there is one issue that bothers the Hell out of me, and I briefly mentioned it in the last paragraph. The issue is the level of dependence children have on their parents. There are maybe, and I say maybe with extreme emphasis, a handful of students in my university of 5,500 that do not live at home with their parents. Kids do not normally leave home until the nights of their weddings, and this is no joke. The majority of the international students, myself included, live with host brothers or sisters that would not be able to tie their shoes if their parents were not around to do it for them. My host brother, a thirteen-year-old young adult, asks him mom to pour him water from the gallon jug when he is thirsty. If he wants seconds at dinner, mom gets it for him. He does not have a single household chore (very similar to my host father), and he is not asked to carry any weight in the family. But it isn't just him... my Ecuadorian friends in my my age group do the same things. They don't know how to wash clothes or make their beds or put their clothes away or even make a freakin hotdog in the microwave without mommy standing next to them instructing them how to do so. One of the happiest moments in my life was finally moving out of the house and being independent to the largest degree thus far in my life, but that is so not the case here. The longer you can stay at home, the better. And aside from all of this, I have not met a single Ecuadorian who has had any type of job... and I mean any type. Teenagers make up 0% of the work-force in Ecuador. They don't work in fast food resturaunts, they don't bus tables or clean dishes, they don't operate check-out lines, they don't even cut grass for an extra buck on the weekend. Laziness is the only word that comes to mind.
So their are some of my cultural concerns... I don't know how they will affect me when I land in beautiful Wilmington on May 22. But I do know that they have left an everlasting impression on me, and they are important issues I will always remember. Until next time...