The Wikis

One of the more unusual Christmas celebrations here in southern Ecuador is the indigenous Saraguro tradition of the parade and dancing of the Wikis (or huiquis).  The Saraguro have done a great job keeping many of their cultural traditions intact, this one included.  On December 23rd, the dancing parade began in town, and then wove up and down into the hills a couple of times.  There were several people we knew (mainly the kids' school mates) that were dancing, and we managed to catch up with them as they were taking a rest at another school mate's home.  It was a hot day (as many are) and they were having some snacks and drinks.

The costumes are elaborate, and there is a complicated story behind it that I do not totally understand.

These guys in the colorful outfits are the "wikis"  

They seem to act like clowns or court jesters, making people laugh and doing some funny lewd things

These costumes are the "giants," and these kids were wearing them over their heads, so their faces stick out at the top of the white base 

Many of the "giants" are shaped like people, and there is one here that is shaped like a vulture with a red head

This little guy is the grandson of our beadwork teacher 

 I believe these guys are supposed to represent the Mestizos, or the Conquistadors, with their long straight noses

These girls (Yudi to the left, and Nadelyn to the right) are classmates of the kids', and are dressed as "sarahuis," apparently mini version of traditional Saraguro brides.  Nadelyn's brother Davy, to the far right, is dressed as a bear.

John and his posse of "sarahuis" (3 of the 4 girls go to the kids' school)

 These guys are dressed in heavy costumes of Spanish moss, with deer horns at the top.  I believe they are meant to represent the devil.

The woman to the right is wearing traditional Saraguro dress, including the large intricate beadwork necklaces.  You see many women dressed this way in our town on a daily basis.

Taking a little break from the procession (they had been at it for 4 hours at this point)

A band accompanies the dancers, with a violinist and some drummers 

Bread and tea for refreshments 

This is an incense burner, surrounded by fresh marigolds.  There were 2 or 3 of these in the procession.  

The dance starts again -- down the main street of town in the hot sun 

The elder man playing the violin is the father of our beadwork teacher 

The "giants" 

Emmett's buddy Joel wearing the bear suit

Oh man, he Wikis came to our door!  They demand a small fee, and you are better off giving it to them...  (kind of a trick or treat situation) 

The diablo at our next door neighbor's house 

The sarahuis in front of our apartment door 

The procession giving the bus driver a hard time (all in good fun)

These folks stayed in costume and character for the better part of 3 days.  They danced for much of the day on December 23rd, and ended up in a village up in the hills called Kantzama Alta.  They then descended again on the evening of the 24th, to process and bring a baby Jesus to the church just before Mass on Christmas eve.  They then come to Christmas Mass, complete with costumes, drums, and jester Wikis.  It is a trip!  Very colorful, and very fun.

Merry Christmas!

Hope you have all had a wonderful holiday season.  Ours has certainly been different this year than our usual Christmas routine.  First of all, the hot, humid, steamy weather has not made it feel like Christmas time to us at all -- we have had to keep reminding ourselves!  I did bring back a string of lights that we put up in our apartment, so that helped us get into the spirit a little bit.

We weren't sure what to do about a tree -- unlike our home in the Northwest, there are really no evergreen trees here.  Some people do have fake Christmas trees, but we didn't want to go that route.  So... we made one out of green poster board and some creative pipe-cleaner decorations!

We rolled up our exercise mat (that Annalise is sitting on) to make it look like a tree trunk, and we put our presents under it.  It was kind of cute, and mainly in the better-than-nothing category.

In case you are wondering, Santa did manage to find us -- he brought a present for each of the kids and some stocking stuffers.  So we did manage to keep some of our own American Christmas traditions going this year.

Christmas traditions in our town in Ecuador are something different altogether.  The Christmas season basically starts after the big Guadalupe fiesta weekend (as previously detailed) in mid-December.  On December 16th, nine days before Christmas, there begins a Novena (a 9-day religious celebration) leading up to Christmas.  Unlike the Our Lady of Guadalupe Novena, this one is much more geared toward kids.  At 7pm every evening, there is a religious even led by the nuns, with singing of Christmas songs and reading Christmas bible stories.  All the kids dress up like Mary and Joseph, but in a very indigenous Latino peasant way.  Many of the boys wear typical South American ponchos and hats, and the girls wear two braids, indigenous clothing, and babies (dolls or stuffed animals) strapped to their backs.  Some kids come dressed like angels.  Our kids went the more Arab route.

Emmett and Annalise in front of the giant manger scene that the Sisters set up in the church 

The kids with Sister Julia, the "mother superior" of the 5 nuns in town, who was completely charmed by their outfits

The Novena was held in a different place in town every night, often in front of someone's home.  That person set up an elaborate manger scene in front of their house for the night, and set up chairs outside for people to sit in.  Then they fed everyone some food after the Novena was done.  I get the sense that it is an honor to be chosen to host one of the Novena events.  The Novena culminates with an evening Mass at the big church on Christmas eve, and then there is a Mass on Christmas day as well.  

There is really not a culture of gift-giving there like there is in the US.  Many families are barely scraping by, so there really is not a lot of money for buying presents -- but it also seems like it really isn't the tradition anyway, so it's not as if people feel they are missing out.  Instead, there is a tradition of giving out bags of candy and cookies -- it's almost more like an extended Halloween celebration (but focused on the Christmas story) rather than a big commercial holiday.  In fact, we really have not missed the crowded malls and one-day-sales-events of American Christmas at all.  It's nice to have it be a more quiet time focused on kids and the religious (rather than commercial) aspect of the holiday.

One thing we really noticed is that the Christmas music here is totally different.  While you will sometimes hear our familiar Christmas tunes (like Jingle Bells) being piped in from somewhere, the Ecuadorian Christmas songs are completely different, and much more of the South American musical tradition.  We have learned a couple of catchy songs that are now becoming more familiar to us.  But there is something about the Christmas music that we have been raised with that just feels so comforting and familiar, and gets you in that holiday mood -- and we have missed that.  We have missed the cold, and even the dark (if you can believe it), and we miss snow.  We are so grateful for this amazing experience the we are having -- but there is something about spending the holidays in a foreign land that makes you a little homesick.   Even though we had a great time opening our presents under our cute poster board tree, we miss all our family and friends.

We hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas!

Trip to Piuntza Frog Farm

The kids and I had the opportunity to join the German dental volunteers for a trip to a frog and tilapia farm in the neighboring town of Piuntza.  I had no idea this place was even there.  Apparently it is the largest frog farm in Ecuador, and they ship no less than 8,000 lbs of live frogs to the US every week to be used in restaurants, etc.  Who knew we consumed that much frog meat?

First of all, let's talk about the size of the frogs...

They are huge!  Holy moly.  The kids had a good time holding the frogs, and then we had a tour of the place.

Tilapia tank 

Tadpole tank

Lots of big frog tanks, with hundreds of frogs in each one

Kids in front of a tilapia pond

 Muchos gringos

The upshot was that we bought some fresh tilapia, as well as some frog meat to take home (though not the cute frogs that the kids were cuddling).  There is a lady that we pay to cook lunch for us during the week, and she cooked up the frog meat for us the next day.  It was delicious.

Those are the frog nuggets on the upper right, with rice, beans, and fried plantains.  Yum!

Guadalupe Fest 2

After the long walk on Friday, there was a public Mass at the sports arena in the middle of town.  They decked the place out with hanging bundles of flowers, and they set up chairs and a stage.  They had moved the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe and all her decorations to the stage.  (It is difficult to overestimate what a powerful religious figure she is in Latin America.)

Town-wide public Mass on Friday evening

One thing we have learned about our town is that people know how to party.  After mass the dance music started, turned up to 11.  Even though so many people had spent all day walking in the hot sun, they were out dancing until 5am!  Our apartment is about a block from the sports arena where the dance was, and we could hear the music blaring all night.  There were also random fireworks (mainly BOOM-makers) going off all night long.  

The next day the morning was fairly quiet (with everybody sleeping it off), and then in the afternoon the motorcycle races started.  They had brought in bulldozers and created a dirt motorcross track, complete with mud puddles and jumps, in part of the school field.  Nothing gets you in the mood to pray to the Virgin like a hangover and the sweet sound of motorcross engines, I find.  

 The sweet dirt track

Annalise watching the festivities from the upstairs school balcony 

John, Emmett and some of his buddies watching the races 

Gentlemen, start your engines...

After all that stimulation, there was a little break in the late afternoon, and then the party started again.  It began with a crazy fireworks tower, the likes of which I have never seen.  It was kind of like a giant tower of huge sparklers in the middle of town.  

 Crazy sparkler tower

Sparklers in the shape of a cross??  You know it!

Next came some traditional dancing, which was really fun to watch.  Dance troops from all over the region came in colorful outfits to do folkloric Ecuadorian dances.

These dances only went on until midnight -- it was an early night!  Since it was Saturday night, there was a special Mass for Our Lady of Guadalupe the following morning.  Word has it that the Padre has been known to cancel mass when people have been up dancing all night the night before, and people either don't show up to church, or they are too haggard to participate.  

On Sunday morning the bishop made a special appearance to officiate at Mass.  What, then could have capped off this wonderful spiritual celebration?  You guessed it -- 4-wheeler races!

Annalise sitting with the family of one of the racers 

A very wide variety of 4x4's competed in the race

Then, Sunday night, more dancing until 5am with the music turned up as loud as it could possibly go, and fireworks throughout the night.  All in all, it was a crazy and fun and kind of overstimulating weekend.  We were all really glad when it was over, and the night time was quiet again.  We have learned that when there is nothing going on here in Guadalupe, there is really NOTHING going on.  And when there is a party, there is a PARTY.