Imanallatak kanki?

Every class should be as cool as Quichua. The professor is this animated little man who started spouting out the language in rapid-fire succession, giving each of us T-minus 2 seconds to figure out if we were a “kari” or “warmi,” “kuchilla” or “llakilla” (man or woman, happy or sad). We heard nothing but Quichua for almost an hour and there was not a stress vibe to be had. And if anyone would like to confuse and bewilder their friends and neighbors, just pull out the old standby “Nukaka (insert your name here)mi kani” (noo-KAH-kah xxxx-mee KAH-nee), “My name is…” Gets ‘em every time. And by the way, the title of this entry is “How are you?”

After class, five of us met Boney, our coordinator’s husband, who took us to visit the women’s prison in town. One of the more questionable policies in this country is that the children of women in prison here also live there. They go to a day care center in the prison all day and stay with their mothers through the night. The center is on par with some of the better ones in the U.S. and, especially important for the infants and toddlers, they aren’t forced to live without their mothers at such a critical age but, for Pete’s sake, they live in a PRISON. These children have been condemned before they have learned to talk! A few of us will be volunteering in the center. I’m hoping to work there until I start in the public school but I’ll only do it if I can work with infants. I don’t want to get attached to the toddlers and then abandon them. I’m still deciding if it is a good idea at all. There was definitely a moment, though, when we all looked at our bags being searched, the ID stamps on our arms and realized that we are INSIDE a prison. The whole experience was something of a silent shock.

Thursday night was the “Bienvenidos” fiesta in a club downtown. Yes, invite all the 19 and 20 year old American students to a club with a free open bar. Excellent plan. In any case, I spent the evening upstairs having a fantabulous time dancing but Jenna spent half an hour downstairs in desperate need of a wing-man, fending off an Ecuadorian suitor. She and I left pretty early but the crisis of the evening was that one of our friends left rather inebriated, wearing the sweatshirt of one of the guys, and managed to drop her other shirt in the street in front of her house where her host brother found it the next morning. All of this was very innocent but try explaining it away in English, let alone Spanish. This really wouldn’t be worth sharing except that all of the host mothers are world-class gossips and consequently, all us BC folk are in on the drama. And I thought Villa chatter was a phenomenon!

Friday night, a group of us went to see “Hombre en llamas” (“Man on Fire”) with Denzel Washington. [Side note: How do these people communicate when one word, llama, can mean fire, a form of the verb “to call” and a South American quadruped? Nevermind.] Anywho, some background on the movie without giving away any important plot. It’s about kidnappings and police corruption in Mexico City. In the first few minutes, there is an unrelated kidnapping that ends with a caption to the effect of “Every 4 hours, there is a kidnapping in Latin America. 70% of the victims do not survive.” Now I saw this movie in May right after reading the quote “It is almost strange to die of natural causes in El Salvador” and I’ll admit, Dave probably had to pry my nails out of his hand. Seeing it down here, however kinda takes it to a different level. Excellent movie but no one really cared to go hang out downtown afterwards. I think the guard of my apartment building was a little surprised to get a full plot recap when he asked how my night was. He’s lucky he didn’t get a hug! And since I can envision the panic in my mom’s face all too well right now, let me reassure her/you: Kidnapping is not the method of choice in Ecuador, as my host parents reassured me. Besides, I don’t dress well enough to warrant a ransom. :)