Escuela Katitawa

We made it to Salasaca a small town about 1/2 hour north of Baños, a big tourist destination for both foreigners and Ecuadorians alike. Salasaca is a small, mainly Kitchwa (Quechua) town that has one main road. When we arrived we were dropped off in front of a row of camionetas (trucks) that charge anywhere from 10 cents to a dollar to take you where you want to go in Salasaca. We got ripped off the first ride and the man charged us each a dollar to Pachi Mama hostel (Mother Earch in Kitchuwa) where we would be staying during our volunteer stint.

While a small town with mainly dirt roads can sound boring we have not experienced that in Salasaca. The second day of volunteering, which was last Friday, started off pretty typical. On the 40 minute walk to school we constantly had to yell at the house dog, Blaze to stop chasing chickens and once had to yell at her to get off of a puppy she was attacking. Upon arriving at school, we all we to our respective classrooms and projects (mine at the time was preschool) and at 9:30 am the siren, which sounds like an air raid siren went off and all the kids lined up for colata time, the white soupy grainy substance they have for snacks provided by the ministry of education. The children also get packaged cookies from the ministry of education that they throw on the ground and stomp with their feet, crushing them to add to the colata.

About an hour after colata is when things got crazy! I was outside playing with some kids wondering where a little girl named Jessica had gone when I heard an explosion and saw a giant fireball in the kitchen window. All of a sudden, Antonia, the preschool teacher, the cook and three little girls, including Jessica ran out of the kitchen. We yelled to everyone to stay away from the kitchen and started scooping up kids to take them up the hill. We had no idea what was going on, only that we could hear the hissing of gas continue. After the hissing sound subsided, we realized that Antonia´s face was severly burned but everyone else was okay. We later found out that when changing the gas tanks for the free-standing stove, they disconnected the gas feed but forgot to turn off the gas which fed the flame of the fireplace standing right next to it, creating the giant fireball. The kitchen itself was pretty much undamaged but some of the ministry of education granola was burned up. The rest of the school day went by without incident except that for some unknown reason Antonia rubbed onion on her burns.

Later 15 of us gringos headed out in the back of a camioneta to the festival! What we were celebrating I am still not quite sure. We arrived just as the sun was setting and the ´fireworks,´ which were really dynomite, were let off scaring the horses into running all over the place nearly trampoling young and old alike. There were about 500 people present, 10 vendors selling different Ecuadorian treats, an arcade and lots of men on horseback. At the forefront was the band of drunken teenagers playing the same song on loop in sweet black jackets with gold buttons all over the back. Once we got a feel for the party, Matt and I grabbed some sugary emapandas and some impossible to chew meat on a stick. Matt also got a beer but could not walk away from the stand without giving a deposit for the bottle which would have to be promptly returned once finished. We all milled around checking out the church and more of the crazy partying. Once all the teenagers and many of the older Salasacans seemed sufficiently drunk (we knew this by the woman crying and screaming ´pendejo´while being carried away by two other women, a guy urinating on himself because he couldn´t stand up straight and numerous swerving and stumbling others) and the horses started running amock (apparently Salasacans don´t really know how to ride horses but bring them out for all the big parties) it was time to move the party to the town center.

At the town center we all gathered around the big stage with all the rest of the Salasacans dressed in their finest attire. The men were wearing white pants and button up shirts with their traditional black panchos and the women dressed in white shirts with red shawls and a `skirt` that is actually a long black piece of cloth that they pleat and wrap with a colorful belt. After about 15 minutes the drucken teenage boy band arrived waving around liquor bottles still playing the same song. After about 20 more minutes of their shenanigans a band and an announcer arrived on the stage and the proper entertainment began. Not long after, more drunken men on horses arrived with the leader´s horse galloping and bucking. Unfortunately an innocent (probably sober) Salasacan woman got in the way and was knocked over by the valiant drunken horseback rider and then trampoled by the next horse. She had to be carried away and everyone took extra precaution to stay out of their way. This was not the last appearance of the horse brigade; they came back a handful more times even when the crowd had filled in the plaza. Luckily nobody else was hurt. The dancers then arrived on stage with their bright orange mini skirts with matching track jackets. The Salasacans seemed scandelized and mesmerized at the same time. At this point Matt disappeared to find beer and came back with a liter bottle of home-made sugar cane alcohol to share! It was a hot sweet liquid that we couldn`t finish between our group so Matt enlisted a local Ecuadorian to help us out. After several swigs we finally finished and we were glad to be done with it. Unfortunately, our wonderful new friend wanted to pay us back for our kindness and bought another bottle of the sickly sweet alcohol. We tried to refuse but he wouldn`t have it and we had to finish an entire second bottle.

Once the outdoor party died down we decided to check out the only discoteca in Salasaca. It was $1 to get in which was too steep for us so we were about to turn around when the owner came out and invited us in as his guests (as long as we bought alcohol). It was the strangest sight I have seen in Salasaca. The salsa and cumbia music was going and all the young Salasacans in their best traditional attire were dancing as if at a tame 6th grade dance, holding hands and rocking side to side avoiding eye contact with their partner. The owner was so excited to have us there that the hype man kept welcoming us americanos though only about 3 of us were actually from the states, but no one took offense. After about an hour there we headed home on the camioneta exhausted from the excitement of our first Friday in Salasaca.