The last two days have been particularly stressful. The more I stay in this place, the more I feel as if the way I live my life is one giant sin. I woke up this morning, insistent on ignoring any part of the conversation I had had the night before with Magda, and the morning was off to a pretty brisk start.
I woke up at 5:45 am, as my 9:00 am arousal the day before left me feeling like a lazy oaf thanks to my host-mother, who briefly mentioned she thought she’d have to wake me up if I’d have slept any later. This was said from a woman who told me I could sleep late given that it was a vacation day. Regardless, I took a shower for about fifteen minutes. This is more time that I have spent bathing myself in the last two days put together, as this morning I realized that you have to just barely touch the knob if you want anything other than scalding-cold water to dump on your head. The problem with this is that barely touching the knob also reduces the water pressure, so even if I had wanted a quick shower, I would have had to have stayed for as long as I did just to get the soap off of my body. Magui arose at around 6:45, a full thirty minutes after I was ready. By that time I had retired back to bed, fully clothed, with some reading material.
We took the buses to Cumbayá where orientation was to take place. The buses jerk everyone around, more so those who were standing for lack of room, which we had to do because of the packed bus. Without explaining whom you paid or what you did, Magui did everything like a robot, and I was left deducing what I could from the two green and white transfer tickets she grasped firmly in her hands. “Tienes que buscar el rojo de la esquina, y después el verde que tiene CUMBAYÁ escrito enfrente,” she told me. These were about the only words she spoke on the 40 minute ride, but I was at ease knowing that at least silence granted me amnesty from her counseling.
When I arrived at school, I sat down and was soon greeted with a warm and friendly hug from Margaret about two minutes into the presentation. The campus is absolutely gorgeous, with architecture borrowed from various cultures to construct the gym (or la pagoda, as they call it, a Japanese style building with a large, open interior to allow for various sports), the Offices of Administration (Da Vinci, built like a Greek temple), and the book store, which is a modern-design sight to behold with windows all along the exterior. Amidst luscious Japanese cherry trees and stone fountains, students were lazily reclined with their computers in tow. We have been instructed to never bring out laptops to school, as it runs the risk of burglary while on the bus. I still don’t know how I’m supposed to access the internet if I can’t take advantage of USFQ’s free wireless internet (which, by the way, Margaret has with her host family. JEALOUS!).
Orientation focused largely on the issue of security, which I understood, but it startled me that it was the main focus for everything. I still don’t know when I’m supposed to get my books, or even where my classes are. I suppose I will find that out tomorrow; perhaps Margaret and I can go together to make it a little more fun.
Magda picked me up promptly at 1:30 and fed me a large lunch, after which I asked her if it would be alright if I went to the internet café down the road. I needed to stop at a cajero automático (ATM) first, however, and she told me to take a taxi to el Banco Pichincha. I don’t know how to hail a cab, and she said the fare would be less than a dollar, so I figured I could find it myself. After walking about 10 blocks and seeing nothing but tight-cornered individual shops (and about 20 hair salons, seriously, do Ecuadorians need that many?) I gave up and headed back toward the internet store with my $3 in cash in my pocket. Let me tell you, I knew being in Ecuador as a gringo would probably cite a lot of stares from the natives, but I wasn’t prepared when a toothless old man holding his dog began to chant homosexual, homosexual when I walked by. I wanted to turn around and say, “No, Americano. Nice try, but the nice clothes just mean I come from a wealthier country than yours,” but I couldn’t because, well, for one I was afraid he’d bite me and give me rabies. Second, he was right. I am gay. But how the hell did he know that?
This preoccupied the majority of my thoughts on the way to the internet café. I know I exhibit somewhat less of what is typically expected from a male, but is it really that obvious? People can tell by how I walk? This scares me, as I now am beginning to see myself as one of those flamboyantly feminine gays that I vowed I would never become. I promptly called my mom from una cabina telefónica and just started crying. How am I supposed to live in a place where I feel insecure in almost every single part of the city? What’s more, I’m not just a target for people wanting to rob a well-to-do American, now those with a vengeance against homosexuals can wreak havoc on me as well.
My mother did a swell job of calming me down, as she always does, urging me to contact Maricarmen in the Office of International Programs at USFQ, who sets up the family stays. While moving away from the this family is the very last thing I want to do, it might be necessary. Then again, I have believed everything that I have learned about this culture from a sixty-year-old woman, who may not know the modern ways of society. I was told today that they do have gay pride parades and a gay-friendly sector of town, but machismo has greatly slowed the progression of civil rights. As the vice president so eloquently recounted today, “We are not the United States. Ecuadorians will say to you that all blacks are lazy because they simply believe it to be true. We never had a Civil Rights Movement like the US.” This means a lot, especially because Civil Rights set ground rules for just and unjust treatment of those different from oneself. Maybe the university environment will help make me feel more at home.
Tonight we’re having a Fiesta de Integración at a place called Mulligan’s Pub & Grill. Hopefully it will help ease some of my fears, as I certainly can’t do a lot worse. It sucks feeling trapped in this basement room, listening to nothing but the cackles of my host-brother and host-mother from the blare of the television. It reminds of that movie Matilda.
I just have to remind myself to be strong. I knew it would be hard, but I didn’t expect it to be like this, especially after I’ve spent so much time trying to master Spanish. I’m way ahead of some of my counterparts, as was visible from some people in my tour group today who got flustered after not forming a verb correctly and defaulting to English. But, alas, life is difficult. I have to remember as well that I come from a country with many more opportunities and a lot more advances than this third-world zone of hypocrisy. Bueno, ya he escrito suficiente para hoy. Hasta mañana (si todavía estoy VIVIENDO mañana).
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