Getting the Job Done

I’ve been busy getting the apartment in shape. Even though it’s a rental I felt I needed to do some renovations to get it just the way I wanted it--it's the designer in me! I was lucky enough to find someone who’s done a great job of taking care of everything I’ve needed done. The building is owned by an architect and Rodrigo started working for him as an apprentice in his construction crew 32 years ago, when he was 17. Since then he’s learned pretty much every trade needed to build a home from the ground up.

It’s been such a boon to have someone who knows all the ins and outs of Ecuadorian construction and who’s been absolutely dependable and trustworthy. We’ve been working very hard but, of course, everything takes twice as long as you had hoped. This is not peculiar to Ecuador and I’m used to it, having renovated a few homes in my past. But we’ve been making steady progress and I’m looking forward to my first dinner party some time in the near future.

Unfortunately, every time I step out of the apartment I’m intent on carrying out a specific mission and so I haven’t been bringing my camera and I’ve missed some great shots! But I did take some pictures a couple of weeks ago of some roses I bought at the flower market. The colors were just so pretty and the blossoms were unusually large. This whole bunch cost $2 and they stayed fresh and perky for 10 days--these shots were taken around the eighth day!

These are eggs of every kind of domestic bird--clockwise from the top you see two duck eggs, a few pigeon eggs, five goose eggs, and two very large turkey eggs. The indigenous lady who was selling them told me turkey eggs are good for the nervous system. I may need to try them if the renovation work isn’t done soon!

A Foggy Journey

I arrived in Cuenca on July 6 after quite a complicated journey. I can sort of laugh about it now...sort of. It makes me tired just thinking about it and people have told me they need a drink after hearing it so I’ll spare you the details. I will only say that I ended up having to fly north to Toronto, then down to Colombia, then past Ecuador south to Peru, to finally arrive in Guayaquil 26 hours after I left New York.

And then, because I arrived in Guayaquil at 1PM and the next flight to Cuenca was at 6PM and I couldn’t bear to spend one more minute waiting at an airport, let alone five hours, I hired a car for the drive to Cuenca, which normally takes 3 hours but because there had been a landslide a couple of days prior there was a one-hour wait to pass the site.

And then, there was heavy fog, which always makes for an interesting time traveling on those narrow curving bumpy roads with those sheer mountain drops. At that point I hadn’t slept for around 36 hours so I was not a happy camper. I faintly remember growling at people a few times.

I was inexplicably cheered by the sight of this industrious and resourceful woman who set up a make shift restaurant by the side of the road where cars had a long wait to pass. I’m sure it went up overnight and will come down as soon as the opportunity is gone. Ecuadorians are truly hard working people.

So here I am, busy getting my apartment in working order. I should emerge from this phase sometime in the next couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to a nice long rest.

What A Wonderful Feeling!

Just a quick drive-by post to say that I’m loving the process of clearing the decks for moving to Ecuador. I know that it can be a difficult emotional process but I think the organizing freak in me supersedes the sentimental! There’s a wonderful aspect to going through absolutely every single object and piece of paper in your home and organizing them so that you finally know where everything is and whether you actually need it or can be rid of it. Any object that remains either has personal meaning or a purpose--I feel so light because of this and that bodes well for the move. Just two more weeks!

PS: The picture above is of the block where I’ll be living—you can just see my building on the far right side of the picture (gray facade).

At The End of The Rainbow

I'll be moving over to my Pennsylvania blog now that I've posted the last few pictures from Cuenca. I'm looking forward to returning to Ecuador on July 5 but in the meantime, I'm happy to be relaxing by the lake.

I'll be posting at looloobythelake.blogspot.com--maybe I'll see you there! If not, hasta pronto!

Advertising

When I’m traveling, there are several things I look for to get the pulse of the popular culture in a country. Among a few, for example, are the kind of street food that’s most popular, what’s stocked at the supermarkets, and the kind of advertising that is targeted at the general population.

Looking through images I had downloaded I found two examples of online advertising that had caught my attention because they are clues to what advertisers think will capture an Ecuadorean’s attention and imagination and get them to pull out their wallets.

I found both when checking my email account so these are targeted broadly, at people who use computers and have an email account. In terms of graphics they are nicely designed and wouldn’t stand out if I didn’t speak Spanish because it’s not the images but the text that startled me. In the one below, you can get a vague idea of its message by looking at it but I gasped when I read the copy, “Only a few men really know how to call out to women…be the envy of your (male) friends with the best catcalls”. Notice, in particular, the construction workers at the bottom of the ad.

Now, men who're reading this post may not quite get what’s so remarkable about this ad but if you’re a woman this ad is probably making you cringe. I’ve often wondered what on earth kind of reaction men who make rude comments at women on the street expect to get. Apparently, they just need to learn better ones to get the loving response of their dreams!

That kind of behavior does exist in Ecuador but it’s nothing compared to the constant stream you find in certain places--the streets of NYC, for example. I was actually surprised to see this ad aimed at Ecuadorean men, unless the demographic is teens who are driven by their out of control hormones! Going by this ad, machismo is alive and well and living in Ecuador. Right before I left I noticed an advertising campaign against machismo whose slogan is “Machismo is violence” so there’s certainly an awareness of the issue.

The appeal of the one above is more easily understood as the desire for money is fairly universal but I was still somewhat taken aback. The copy here reads: “ I invested only $200 and in 3 weeks it turned into $12,000. Today, after a few months I’ve made over $17,500.” The brilliance of this ad is that $200 is just about the right amount to tempt someone in Ecuador into investing. Large enough that it has value but small enough that once lost it won’t immediately persuade the investor to stop. I can only hope that no one is actually falling for these absurd claims. Turn $200 into $12,000 in 3 weeks. Yeah, right.