Burning 2010

Leaving Chicago on the 30th wasn't easy.  Had I not committed to spending New Year's Eve with my adopted family in Latacunga, I would have happily paid almost any change fee the airline imposed in order to stay a little longer.  But when I finally arrived home early yesterday afternoon, I was very happy I'd followed through with originally laid plans. 

I dropped off my bags and right away took a walk up to the Salto, the amazing outdoor market just up the street from my house.  The same lovely vendors are there day in and day out, and they have come to recognize me as something other than just a wide-eyed tourist.  Conversation and smiles certainly do mean a lot to me here, and I've finally found a place where I am guaranteed to find them without looking too hard.  The 25 cent avocados, 50 cent pineapples, and piles of herbs and flowers immediately palliated any sadness or loneliness brought about by my solo return to this place. 

Later that evening, around nine pm, I was invited by Paula and Rodrigo to take a walk through the city.  We snuck out before three year-old Ana Paula could know we were gone and then spent a fantastic couple of hours meandering through the streets of Latacunga. 



Viudas locas (crazy widows - men and boys dressed as women) set up roadblocks and demanded money from drivers in exchange for passage. 

Giant dolls whose moving arms prepared chugchucaras, the typical fried pork dish of Latacungan fame.

Ecuador maintains a tradition of constructing effigies to be burned at midnight on New Year's Eve.  These dolls may represent famous characters (such as President Rafael Correa, Buzz Lightyear, the or blue things from Avatar) or they may represent a family member or community leader.  For the nighttime hours leading up to midnight, the dolls are put on magnificent display on porches, sidewalks, and in storefronts.  Families and neighborhoods construct elaborate scenes that include the effigies, their testimonies (or wills), loud music, and myriad details that speak to tremendous collective creativity. 



A simple household display up the street from ours.



One of the more fantastic scenes in which massive mannequins represented each of the major towns in Cotopaxi province.



With Latacunga friends Mauricio, Rodrigo, and Paula.



In Plaza San Augustin, charismatic women fry delicious balls of maza (dough) to make bunuelos, tasty sweet things typical at Christmastime on the equator.

We returned to a house filled with brothers, sisters, cousins, and delicious food prepared by Marcia and Gaby, her youngest daughter.  After eating (and sharing conversation filled with inquiries about Alaska and discussion of the incomprehensible strangeness of vegetarianism), the extended family left and just the residents of this house remained.  At midnight, we took Rodrigo's homemade robots into the streets to be burned.  One robot represented Marcia's brother, Pato, and the other was meant to be me.  We arranged them so they looked to be engaged in robot battle (with swords and a small, green referee) and then set them on fire.  Looking up or down the street, we could see dozens of tiny fires ushering the effigies and all they represent out of the lives of the families, burning the ano viejo (the old year) and creating space for all the good that the new one promises to bring.  At midnight, hugs were exchanged (not kisses) and as the fire grew in size the family members took turns leaping over it.  A bottle of Boone's Farm was passed around but no one drank in excess.  And after all that remained of the robots (and of 2010) was embers, we returned to the living room where a family dance party was to ensue.  I, exhuasted from travel and insufficient sleep, snuck down to my apartment and went to bed.




Midnight hugs around a pile of burning robot carcass.

The Ecuadorians wish for three things each time a new year comes around: salud, dinero, y felicidad (health, wealth, and happiness).  That's not too much to hope for.  In fact, it seems pretty reasonable.  They also like to wear either red or yellow underwear as the old year makes room for the new.  These colors are said to bring the wearer love or money (they are equally enthusiastic about both options).  My hopes for you in 2011, friends and family, aren't so different than the common hopes of the Ecuadorians.  I might add, though, that the new year brings you more love than money, more hugs than you know what to do with, and renewed appreciation for your family, as well as for your own individual brilliance. 

This morning, as the family car's alarm sounds without any intervention from my sleepy upstairs neighbors, I am thinking of what each of my loved ones' robot-effigies will look like for next year's burning.  And I cannot wait to exchange hugs with the humans that inspire these robots at a midnight not so very far in the future.

Much love on this day with a remarkable set of defining numbers (1/1/11),

C. Brown