The advantage to being tardy with blog entries is that NOW we can comment on all three recent holidays in one sitting: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.
Thanksgiving or “dia de accion”: Although clearly a holiday unique to the United States, the people of Ecuador are well aware of its significance. It was front page news in “el Universo” newspaper, and the 20 or so people we invited were excited to attend an authentic Thanksgiving celebration. Upon receiving the invitation, the first words from Sarah’s friends were, “what shall we wear?” Even Ellen’s 8 year old friend Natalia was allowed to come to the celebration even though it was a school night and she wouldn’t get home until 1 AM.
We served the usual turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and apple pie. The only thing missing was the cranberry sauce, as our exhaustive search in the markets tuned up cranberry-less. Instead, I made something that was tasty but resembled runny cranberry sauce using fresh pineapple, cranberry cocktail and red jello. Cooking in our kitchen is a bit of a challenge because we don’t actually have an oven. Instead, there is a portable electric casserole heater, affectionately known to us as our “easy-bake oven.” But everything turned out great, thanks in large part to the help of a neighbor’s grown-up oven.
The funniest part of the evening was discovered the next day. Ellen’s job of the evening was to take candid photos of all our guests. When we downloaded the pictures, we found that she perfectly captured the expression of the back the head of each of our guests as they sat around the table.
Christmas: There is a beautiful tradition in Ecuador during the 9 days leading up to Christmas, called “las posadas navidenas.” These celebrations are held in the home of a different family each night. The celebration begins with a re-enactment of Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay in Bethlehem prior to the birth of Jesus. In this re-enactment, the hosts of the party remain indoors and act as the inn-keepers, and the guests are staged outside the door, and play the part of Mary and Joseph. The following song is sung, each group taking turns singing a different verse:
(Afuera) Les pido posada por amor de Dios/Mi esposa esta en cinta, somos ella y yo.
(Adentro) No los conocemos y es tarde Senor. Siga su camino, busque otro Rincon.
(Afuera) Yo soy carpintero y me llamo Jose/ mi esposa es Maria y vamos a Belen
(Adentro) La casa es pequena y no hay habitacion y es la medianoche, ya no hay atencion
(Afuera) Mi esposa no puede dar un paso mas. Esta tan cansada, que quiere llorar
(Adentro) Quien es la Senora que pide el favor/ no tenemos sitio, no insista por Dios
(Afuera) Ella es una reina de un reino de amor/ Es madre del Verbo, del Hijo de Dios.
(Adentro) Si ella fuera reina en carruaje vendria/ como es que va en burro y en noche tan fria?
(Afuera) Abrannos la puerta les pido un ricon/ no saben que lleva mi esposa al Senor?
(Adentro) Porque no lo dijo cuando nos llamo? Pasen caminantes que aqui sobra amor.
The rough translation is:
(Outside) I ask you for a place to stay, for the love of God/ my wife is in labor
(inside) We don’t know you and it is late. Continue on the road and look for another place
(O) I am a carpenter and my name is Joseph. My wife is Mary and we come to Bethlehem.
(I) The house is small and we have no room. And it is the middle of the night, there is no attention
(O) My wife cannot travel any more. She is so tired she wants to cry
(I) Who is the woman who asks this favor? We don’t have room. Don’t ask again, for the love of God
(O) She is the queen of the king of love. She is the mother of the Word, the child of God.
(I) If she were the queen, why is she traveling this road by donkey on this cold night?
(O) Open the door to us, I ask you for a place to stay. Don’t you know that my wife carries God?
(I) Why didn’t you say this when you first called us? Come in travelers. Here you will find love.
After this, all the guests and hosts come inside, sing more Ecuadorian Christmas carols, eat sandwiches and drink soda. There are also readings about the birth of Jesus as the children sit around the crèche. It was wonderful to be included in these posada celebrations.
The following is a contribution from Sarah about a highlight of our Christmas:
I’m sure that if you’ve read this blog before, you have probably read how much we value our maid Shirley. For Christmas, we wanted to give Shirley and her two children, Genesis (6) and Nixon (3) something special, useful, and memorable: Bikes!! At home in the US, bikes are a great way to have a lot of fun and get a little bit of exercise. Here in Ecuador, however, bikes replace the minivans and cars as the family transportation vehicle. It is not uncommon to see up to five family members piled on one bike! So we went shopping in la Libertad, the only place within 100 miles to buy bikes. La Libertad is a dusty, overcrowded, rundown collection of streets. Store fronts are encased in metal bars, like so many cages lined in rows. After a few hours of searching for the perfect bikes, we piled them on the roof of our car and drove home to Casa Blanca. It was not easy getting the bikes in the elevator, but in the end we had almost three bikes in our apartment. I say almost because all of them were missing some crucial parts such as valves for the tubes, brakes, and screws to hold everything together. Dad worked really hard to prevent the bikes from falling apart in front of our eyes and in no time we had three great bikes, in working order, ready to be received by Shirley Genesis, and Nixon. The next day, when we presented the bikes to Shirley, she thanked us but was distressed that she didn’t have anything for us. Mom assured her, “tu eres nuestro regalo cada dia” (you are our gift each day). Later that day, we brought Shirley and her bikes to her home. When we got to their small bamboo house, we showed Genesis and Nixon the bicycles. I will never forget their faces when they understood that the bikes were for them. Genesis hugged us all and jumped on her bike so fast that she almost fell off the other side. Nixon was so excited, all he could do was literally jump up and down and shriek in joy. They couldn’t believe that such an unreachable gift could be theirs. Seeing the reaction of these two children made my heart swell so much I felt like I could have gotten on a bike and ridden to the stars.
We are one step closer to improving Shirley’s life and future. By having a bike, Shirley will cut down her bus expenses. Although we know that there's a good chance that the bikes will be stolen within a month, we carry the hope that this will not happen, and we still feel good that we could give this gift to such a deserving family.
New Years (Ano Nuevo): There is a wonderful tradition here of each family buying or making an Ano Viejo muneca or monigote (old year doll), filling it with fireworks and burning it in huge bon fires on the beaches of Salinas at midnight. This is a symbolic act of burning all the mistakes and bad things from the previous year, and welcoming the New Year with a clean slate. New Years in Salinas was a night to remember. The town was absolutely MOBBED with people from Guayaquil and the loud, boisterous party lasted all night, if not all weekend. The night was lit up with gorgeous fuego artificiales (fireworks) from dusk to dawn, and the air was thick with smoke and rata-tat-tat of fireworks, resembling a Hollywood war scene. Our family welcomed the New Year on the beach by burning our elephant-shaped Ano Viejo muneca, laced with sparkler fireworks. The elephant was mostly cute and resembled Horton from the recent movie, “Horton Hears a Who”, but I also couldn’t help thinking that we were symbolically burning the mistakes of the previous “elephant” administration in the US.
