Rumba and the Campo

Thursday night I had a deeply cultural experience. I went to a Rumba Terapia (rumba therapy) class. Rumba therapy is incredibly popular in Ambato. If you ask someone where a gym is, they will point you to a rumba terapia studio. Rumba is basically a glorified 80's aerobics class with latin style music (merengue, salsa and lots of reggaeton). the room is full with women age 14 to 75 all wearing spandex and sporty tank tops. our instructor is an energetic teenage boy with long hair and a superman t shirt. he bounces back and forth and forward and backward to the music and we all try to keep up with him, hips swaying and hair bouncing. I look incredibly out of place in my mesh shorts and t shirt and white hips that don't quite move with the same rhythm as everyone else. But that class was so much fun. It was actually really hard, too. I worked up a sweat. Next time I will definitely wear spandex, a leotard, and my hair in a side ponytail with a scrunchy and I will fit in better. I could film it and pass it off for a flashdance music video.

I am writing this post from the BEAUTIFUL home of Juan Carlos Fernandez. He is a very good friend of my cousin Melanie. In fact, she is the godmother of their 3 year old son John. Yesterday, I took a bus to Quito and Juan Carlos picked me up. He gathered his family and we headed off to meet some of his friends and family in the campo. Now when I think campo (countryside) I think someone has a cute little farm somewhere outside the city limits and we're going to visit them. oh no. how wrong I am. We drove for about an hour on unpaved roads, bumping along in his little suv to an empty field. Apparently his friend just bought this property out the middle of nowhere. Worse than Bethany, CT, this place is comprised of fields separated by barbed wire fences, lots of cows and lots of cow poop. His friend had not built anything on his newly acquired property. Juan Carlos's friends and family had set up a small tent and were drinking cerveza when we arrived. They ate hornado (roasted pig that for some reason always comes with the pig head) and mote and corn and potatoes and just drank in the field for hours. Then we planted trees around the edge of the property. They made me remember which one was mine and baptise it with water and name it Jessica. hahaha as the afternoon went on, we could see a cold front coming in. It was amazing to watch. Half of the sky was bright and the land looked green and fresh. The other half was covered in dark clouds and the land below just looked brown. It was clear that it was going to pour. We watched the lightning storm roll over us. It was so incredible because there was only nature for miles. The only hint of human existance were the barbed wire fences separating land from homogenous land. I felt like I was on stormwatchers, that nature show that they used to make us watch in science class in junior high. Anyway, we bounced down the unpaved roads in the rain. it was a bit terrifying. especially, since Juan Carlos's friend in the passenger seat of the car in front of us kept getting out of the car to dance over to us and offer beer to our driver. Thank goodness he refused it, but that happened at least five times on our descent into civilization.

We made it back into town and it stopped raining. Juan Carlos showed me around the downtown area of sangolquil (the town that he lives in) and of course we had to see the church, Which was one of the prettier churches that I've seen in this country. Then we headed back to his house and watched a movie (hot chick? it's an adam sandler movie from cerca 1991) and went to bed.

Today, we were supposed to leave at 10 to go to the mitad del mundo (center of the earth) a monument and museum on the actual equator, which I've heard is really cool. Of course it's 10:45 and everyone is still showering and getting ready. oh Ecuadorians.

Melanie, Everyone I've met here asks me about you and your family. As soon as I tell them I'm related to you, they say, oh well then you're family! So you should know that everyone here loves you and cares about you and asks me when you're coming back. plus, it's so nice to see Boston regalia everywhere!!! it's so nice to be able to say that I'm from close to Boston instead of close to New York. No other Ecuadorian knows where Boston is! :) thanks for the great contact. It's nice to have family here!