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Mike Has a Very Bad Day

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Years ago, when Michael and I first met in Costa Rica, we did a series of tongue-in-cheek fotonovelas about our new lives: How Mike and Judy Met; Mike and Judy Get Engaged; Mike and Judy Contemplate Marriage, and so on. In those days I shot in black/white, developed the photos in the darkroom, designed and photocopied the booklets, hand-colored the photos, and sent the novelas off to friends and family with the postal service. Remember those days?  When we left Costa Rica (Mike and Judy Consider a Change of Life), we gave up the project. However, when Michael lost his keys this week, which led to a series of unfortunate events that added up to “a very bad day,” we thought we would resurrect the form and have a bit of fun…It all began as a regular day, Michael left early for Cuenca for his usual weekly grocery shopping at the SuperMaxi. Judy left soon after for appointments in Azogues and Cuenca. Michael was to come home early, and Judy later, closer to dinnertime.The downward spiral begins when Michael returns to find his keys gone – no doubt lost in a taxi or bus when he pulled out coins from his pockets. The gate was locked, but he’d hidden two keys for just such a disaster – one for the gate just inside the fence – reachable from outside – and another deeper inside for the front door. What? The gate key is gone! Our compadre who takes care of the property while we’re gone must have used it and did not put it back.

So now Mike has to get into the yard. This requires climbing the 8-foot metal fence – luckily one without spikes on top like all our neighbors – through thick bushes.

On the other side, Mike goes looking for the hidden front door key. What? No hidden key?? El compadre must have used this one too and did not put it back. Chuta! (a favorite Cañar expletive.)

Now the only thing to do is to break into the house.  Judy’s darkroom window seems a likely place.

Mike forces the latch and climbs over my darkroom sink. Ah, in the house at last, and ready to relax, make a fire and have a beer. That will put everything right.  But….what’s this?? No beer??? Oh NO!So it’s back out to buy some beer. Still no gate key, so Mike finds the ladder, luckily left outside behind the house. So it’s up, fiddle the ladder to get it on the other side, climb down, go buy beer, then up and down again….


 

Judy comes home at last from a busy day in Cuenca. By now Mike has crafted his very bad day into a good story. And he’s brought a special treat for dinner in that little red cooler he took to Cuenca  – sea bass fillets!  Now to just find the breadcrumbs….

What? No breadcrumbs???

Well, that was the end of Mike’s very bad day. He breaded the fish in cornmeal, and it was OK. At the time we didn’t know we would do this fotonovela, so I didn’t take a photo. But here is my sea bass sandwich next day, on our walk into the country… …enjoyed while watching an alpaca make friends with a pig. Which rather put things in perspective…That’s all folks!  Next Cañar Chronicle back to serious things. National runoff election this Sunday, April 2, that will determine the next president of Ecuador. Stay tuned and be sure to write. I love hearing from you.

Elections!

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Presidential candidate Lenin Moreno.                                      Photograph: Henry Romero, Reuters

Dear Friends:   The U.S. could learn a few things from Ecuador when it comes to national elections. To start, the political campaigning for a new president lasts officially one month – if this happened in the U.S. think how many gazillion dollars would be saved and spent on important things. Two days before voting (on February 19) all campaigning must stop: no TV ads, no noisy trucks with banners and flags and blaring speakers, no candidates making last-minute flights on private jets to far-flung corners of the country (that would be the U.S., again). On the day of voting, no publicity materials of any kind are to be displayed, and no public meetings are allowed, including church services (?). (Also: no liquor sales for three days before polling, though I easily bought two bottles of wine the day before.) Yesterday, as Michael and I walked into town to vote, we ran into a friend scraping a political sticker off his windshield. “I don’t want to be fined,” he said.

Voting is compulsory from age 18-65, and citizens can be charged a fine for not voting -$44.80 according to one headline. Turnout for the last general election in 2009 was 91%. Michael and I are eligible to vote (but not required) by virtue of our permanent residency status and ten years living here, plus we had to register for our voter’s cards.
Here’s Michael lined up at a local school for his first time voting. Polling sites are designated schools, with tables manned by university students who are obligated to serve and paid $20 for the day – presumably with a bit of training and supervision. (For reasons I don’t clearly understand, men and women vote at separate tables.) One young man checked off Michael’s name from the voters’ list and had him sign in, while another
handed him the paper ballots, called papaletos, large sheets of paper with color photos of candidates. There are no primaries in Ecuador to sort out presidential favorites, so we had our choice of eight candidates, pictured here with their vice president choices. The system allows for a run-off election if one candidate does not receive 40% of the vote with a ten-point lead.The presidential ballot is not too confusing – you simply put a vertical line in the box above your choice. The two top contenders this election are: Lenín Moreno (far right) and Guillermo Lasso (second from right). More on them later. In addition, we had to vote for about 140 asemblistas – members to the national assembly, and five Andean Parliment representatives (member states: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile). This ballot was a lot more challenging, especially for those such as the elderly and illiterate Cañari woman beside me when I voted, who understood little and certainly needed a Kichwa-speaking helper – nowhere in sight. Michael was handed his papaletos, stepped into one of the two cardboard voting booths, and made his rayas – vertical marks – with a blue ballpoint attached to a string in the booth – ink color matters here).

Feliz Año 2017

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Dear Friends:  Well, Año Viejo made up for all we missed at Christmas. At least that was the case for me, as Michael decided not to make the long, panting hike up the mountain to join the end-of-year procession that lasted all afternoon and into the evening, through heavy fog and sprinkling rain, and finally included about 1000 folks (almost all in incredible masks and disguises). Michael and Paiwa, visiting for the holiday, stayed happily by the fire, but I joined them later for an important event at our house.  It was a wonderful experience! This annual celebration on the last day of the year is apparently unique to the community of Quilloac, made up of about eight or so comunas – distinct hamlets, each with a theme they were to act out with disguises and masks. We hiked to each comuna, where a stage was set for a short program before we marched on with those comuneros joining. I confess I couldn’t tell one theme from another, but the masks and costumes were very funny – many men dressed as women and maybe women dressed as men – harder to tell. Those in disguise stayed in character all day – giving speeches at each comuna – (someone dressed as an elder speaking in high, quivering voice, for example). Many jokes in Kichwa passed me by, but the crowd loved every minute, and for me the visual spectacle made it all worthwhile. This guy below pushed a stroller with two “babies” the whole day.  

But by the end of the day, after climbing up over 11,000 feet and shooting all day, I was too tired and cold to wait for the performances at the end point- the Quilloac school complex – and to hear who had won prizes for the best themes.     

I have to give credit here to my excellent assistant, godson Luis Gabriel, ten years old, who took charge of my pocket camera and charged up the mountain ahead of me to shoot photos as I was left breathless on the roadside.. (That is his mother Mercedes behind him on his right – an old friend, early scholarship graduate, lawyer, with other community leaders who invited me for this event. What I missed later was the burning of the giant effigies at midnight, after the performances and music and dancing. Earlier I’d seen students building them.

  

But then we had our own event back at home. Paiwa had found a small monigote in town (a cousin of Spongebob Squarepants) and brought it to Michael to make an effigy. It worked perfectly with the Trump mask he’d found last week. They dressed him up with my garden gloves and made a bonfire ready to light when I got home about 7:00.

 We were in bed with our books by 9:30 or so, but awakened abruptly at midnight with volleys of bombas – some sounding as though on top of our house – and fireworks near and far that went on for about 15 minutes. Then all was quiet and we knew 2017 was here…