Missing Buenos Aires.... and home

I Woke to the sound of high pitched series of a honking horn from a
passing car seven stories below. Although I have
become somewhat accustomed to this familiar noise
penetrating our apartment walls, it was sufficient to
wake me, and since the clock registered 6:30 am I
decided to make some coffee.

No matter where one is in the city of Quito, honking horns will
be heard. Apparently unaware that there is a lever on
the left side of the steering wheel which signals to
others that a driver is going to make a turn, drivers
here opt for the horn. This neat little device is
used for blasting at pedestrians that wait on
the side of the street for them to pass by, just in
case they were thinking about jumping in front of traffic.

Never a taxi if you want one, but they are eager to make
their presence known with a few beeps of the horn when someone is walking the sidewalk, just in case they do not know they want a taxi.

Then you come to a stop light with a line of waiting cars, all of which blast
away the second the light turns green; worse still is
the gas delivery truck that carries propane tanks in
the back, who probably for safety measures as well as
to notify the neighborhood that he has arrived,
constantly raps out the same beep beep be be be beep!
Every morning about 10 he drives first down our side
of the street, whips around to the other for a second
pass of beep beep be be be beep.

He is followed up by the fruit delivery truck armed
with a bull horn as he drives the same route
announcing what I think is the days specials, but
since he is talking at such a speedy monotone rate, I
do not know if I could quite make out what he was
saying even if the loud speaker were clear enough to
understand. I always have the feeling that I am in a
Muslim city playing one of the days five
prayers through the speakers, although the locals are
probably just as fanatical about crosses and bleeding
dead Jesus.

Worser, is to encounter their round about. This a four way intersection
of main streets that has no lights or stop signs, but a cirle in the middle of the street, which provides the opportunity to spin around this circle and off into what ever direction the driver wants to go, I can't really explain it because I do not understand it. Crossing these "redondeles" on foot, as well in cars I would
imagine, is a complete mess, and very dangerous. For
this reason I have mapped out my city excursions to
avoid these disastrous and frustrating situations,
which of course solicit a chorus of honking horns.

Unfortunately, the propensity with which the locals
honk their car horns is about the only personality
that is unique to Quito. It is a city without a
personality. The American influence is very strong,
the architecture is American styled, step inside the
mall and you could be in any mid-western state. They
love chicken, I have gotta give them that, but it is
KFC that stands tall, there is a three story KFC 3 blocks from here, and on almost every other block, along with McDonalds, and Burger King of course.

When I asked about local food, I got the same response as
in Peru, so I guess it is questionable who is the original maker of Ceviche, but I am going with Peru for the purposes of this blog. Unlike the strong native influence
of the natives in Peru and Bolivia, here, there are few
traditionally dressed folks, instead the style is more
like America, but maybe from a bad year during the 70s,
(maybe all those clothes were sent down here.)

The cars unlike the newer small European models found in
Argentina, are of the American class, SUV. Of course
not as big or as lifted, and of course that is for the
folks that can afford one, the rest of society is relegated to the 35 yr old buses that spew clouds of exhaust as they pass by. Today I even had a car
shaped like a red bull can pull up to me, crack one open and hand it to me, like so many times in downtown San Diego.

What better place to delve into their culture than in the TV. We have a few channels with our television, which are
mainly latin soap operas, filmed in other countries,
that are played ALL day long into the night, and all
of them containing the word LOVE in the title. The
channels that do not play soap operas play videos all
day long as they love to sing and dance. The
videos consist of the same horse clopping music that
we have been hearing since Bolivia. Bad keyboard
sound effects accompany what is usually 3 or four women
standing in a line, with thick thighs in a short
skirts, and cowboy boots up to and covering their
knees. These videos, of local college station
quality, consist of the girls and also guys in suits
that are too big, swaying back and forth passionately
singing to the horse clopping, with special visual effects are produced by
the means of doing a spin every 6th beat. Latin rap
is constant on another channel, known as reggae tone, I
prefer the constant Shakira we had been hearing until
this city.

Not even soccer is popular here. Of course they have
a league and since there are no other sports there is
a game or two a week. But the level of play does not
begin to compare to that of Argentina, much less
Europe, and certainly the level of fanaticism is
lacking to say the least. They are trying to promote the sport here with a new program, or so I read in the paper, but the people seem to be so passive that sports just
are not going to work. The other popular sport is
fast walking. It is worth mentioning that the people
here are very small, Sarah is tall, I am almost a
giant.

You would think then, that I must be drinking some
beers to pass the time in this dull city. While I
have managed to choke down a few of the local beers,
it is hardly worth the effort. Unlike Bs As, where
the local brew offered a light, middle, and dark beer,
the only brew of Ecuador is like Budweiser, but not
even close to as good, and I am no fan of Budweiser.

So what is this city good at? This is a great place to learn Español񯬮 They speak a
very clear version of the language, and the classes
are very cheap. Much unlike those in Bs As where we
paid a lot of money to listen to instructors that
speak a dialect of Spanish very unique to Argentina,
which is a greatlanguagee, but one that I could not
understand and therefore no so great para apprender Español.
But picked up some great sayings, from other English speaking countries.

Here it is quite the opposite. I have not spoken any English except with
Sarah, although we try to use Español until it just seems ridiculous to stumble through conversations. But this stop has been great for improving my Spanish,
and so I must say that Ecuador is a great place for
learning, but to practice is another matter.

The people are also quite theoppositee of Bs As, where the people were so nice and
eager to talk, even if I could not understand a word
of their dialect. Of course I cannot generalize for everyone here, but I always
have the feeling that I am a foreign invader gringo. There is little extra talk than what is necessary for whatever transaction is taking place. However, they probably have the right to feel this way.

The people here were conquered by the Incas for what
we were told was religious reasons as it is at the
center of the earth, only to be conquered again fifty
years later, and be subjected to 300 years of ruthless
colonial rule during which the natives were used as
slave labor force to supply Spain with natural
resources, of which mainly it wanted gold and silver.
There was little investment into the colonies of
Spain, except new bureaucrats to make sure that the
indigenous worked and that the resources extracted
would be sent back to Spain. Therefore the Spaniards
here had to do little work and lived very comfortable
lives on the backs of the indigenous. This very
corrupt society has carried on after the revolution
for independence, which just meant that the resources
would no longer be sent back to Spain, but stay with
the Europeans who had come over. However, without any
industrial growth of their own for three hundred years, they were
soon found KFC and McDonalds taking over their city and their exports going north instead of to Spain.

Now 60% of their exports go to the US, and I was told, sold back
to them at huge prices after processing. Remarkably, this city is actually quite expensive. They use the US dollar as their currency and the prices are usually about the same as at home. I do not understand how they can live considering that I read their average monthly income is slightly over 350 dollars for men, and slightly under 300 for women. How they can live on this I do not know.

According to the people that I have talked to, they
have their hopes pinned on Hugo Chavez. This is a guy
that nationalized telephone and oil companies that
were owned previously by US and EU companies, making
them the property of Venezuela, and I believe there was no
compensation for the companies. He has been
redistributing property, and changed the constitution
to allow his "re-election" indefinitely. I put this
in quotations because starting today he has assumed
control of the main television station in Venezuela
that has been criticizing his rule, saying that the
station will belong to the "people." However, 70% of
the people, according to a poll intoday'ss paper, want
the station to remain as it has¨been for the last 53 years.
However, as I would imagine the reaction would be in the US, the majority are
not concerned about their freedom of speech, but their
tv shows. The administration wanted to do the same with PBS because it is too "left" leaning.

(I just saw a title on Yahoo that Venezuelan troops fired on Protesters, but have heard nothing from the news down here yet.)

Chavez now controls the most viewed tv station because
they were among other things "terrorists." With no other voices to be heard in the country Chavez is a lock for Presidency for a few decades. Forming a
strong bond with Bolivia and Ecuador, Chavez is
gaining a lot of popularity mainly by delivering
speech after speech blasting the US Pres., and
therefore gains overwhelming support.

There is also a battle for freedom of speech here in Ecuador as the President, allied with Chavez, is attacking the press. "They do not show the good things
about the war" he says. (Oh wait, different country.)
Correa, the Pres. of Ecuador, has called for the resignation of certain writers
here and it is an ongoing theme in the papers.
However, there was a special section in the paper last
week which I am going to save because it was, in my
opinion, complete propaganda promoting Chavez. Like his very own FOX news, the section dedicated to Ecuador answered the critics.

Correa has been criticized for being an appendage of
Chavez rule. So they provided an article determined to provide information which showed how Correa was assuming a distinct position in the alliance. It was a perfect answer to those who challenged that he was a subordinate of Chavez, in
what is called his 21st century socialism, or his
attempt to link South America together, much like the
new EU Union. There were about five pages dedicated to Chavez's influence outside of his country, that painted a very optimistic picture of this grand scheme.

What really struck me as propaganda was the section on Argentina. We were there almost four months and I heard very little support for Chavez
except a few younger kids who havelittlee influence.
What I saw was a beautiful City and country,
recovering from a terrible economic crash with the
help of foreign investment, and a functioning
democracy. With construction on every block and tourism booming, I have a hard time believing that Argentina would hand over its beautiful culture to the
likes of Chavez, especially since they go out of their
way to be European. I cannot believe that they want
anything more to do with the 21st century socialism
than to remain on good terms with a powerful country
with lots of oil. Therefore, this article was very interesting in that it was building up the hopes of the locals that all of S. America was hopping on the
train. But the article also included a quote that said that this is another cold war, and
in true cold war fashion, that "Chavez is winning."

So anyway, the only interesting thing in this city, is
watching what could be years of tension between this
region and home unfold. Maybe in a few years we won't be
able to travel here, and I will be glad I saw it now.

So this completes my last long rambling blog. If you are still reading this you need to find better things to do with your time. This also brings to an end our adventures in South America. I remember when we were counting down the last days before we left, and now here we are with one day left until our return. We have forgotten the frustration of reading the news back home, which was also part of what encouraged us to make this trip, our own little protest I guess you could say. But just as important and maybe more so, are all the people we met along the way, the beautiful sights we have seen, the lessons we learned, in Spanish and in life, and the things that I learned about myself as well. One is that I am very excited to start law school when we return. After witnessing various societies that are less than models of the rule of law, I am eager to be a part of what I think is a very important part of our society that has created a comfortable place to live. A more structured society where people do not drive through residential areas blasting car horns at 6:00 in the morning.

Next stop L.A. Save B.A. for another day.

Por la ultima vez, Chau,

A