El Ombligo del Mundo: Valle de Chota (program excursion 3)

The river that runs up the Chota Valley

For our third excursion, we visited Afro-Ecuadorian communities in the Chota Valley. The valley is famed for its music, Bomba, and the high percentage of the nation's best soccer players that come from the valley (most of the national team's players I saw play were from the Valley of Chota). We all stayed with host families (this time alone) in four different towns - Concepción, Salinas, Chota and, my town, Mascarillas. Mascarillas is famous for making ceramic masks.

A young girl spies on us as we tour Concepción

My host "mother," Pamela, who I stayed with is a few months younger than I am and had a 1-year, 6-month old son named Matias. Her brother, Jhoel, my host "uncle," was 15 and plays soccer very well. He also plays the bongos in a Bomba band. One night I went with Jhoel to play soccer with other kids in the town. They were all - including the 10-year-olds - way better at soccer than me. One of the nights, I got to sit in on a practice with Jhoel's Bomba band - Los Fantasticos de Mascarillas. I ended up joining them to play and we recorded a few songs. It seems I've landed myself on a semi-professional recording of Bomba music.

My host brother, Matias

Salinas boys returning from tubing on the river

While in the Valle de Chota, we visited a high school in Carpuela (a nearby town) and (after participating in an awkard game of Ecua-volley) we got to have a great "intercultural" conversation with the kids there. We broke into groups to discuss. I was sitting alone with three kids about 2 years younger than me. I was wearing a Barack Obama t-shirt and one of the kids was asking me about how it was possible for the U.S. to have a Black president. I took a lot of pride in telling them that he was the best candidate and that it turns out race wasn't the deciding factor. Then we talked about music, what we do to chill and where the hottest girls in the world come from (they thought American girls were the hottest, Teo and I were in dispute - probably Argentina or Italy).

Most of the remaining time we spent visiting some tourist sites - some bath/spa places and a restaurant featuring some girls dancing the Bomba with baskets and bottles on their heads. To end the excursion we participated in a cultural 'sharing' exposition where a number of groups performed music and dance for us and Juan, our director, made Teo and me perform some of our songs on guitar and charango.

The best part of the trip were the nights I spent alone with my host family just talking and learning about their lives and telling them about mine. It was wonderful to relate to people who came from such a different background and by being alone for my host stay, it was more important that I open up and ask questions. In my talks with Jhoel, I learned about some music I should listen to and in my talks with Pamela I learned about their older brother and her husband who is in the military. It was interesting to hear her views on the politics and social status in Ecuador.

Despite a wonderful trip, our return to Ecuador posed some pretty serious health issues... namely of stomachs. Upon return to Quito, 13 of the 16 of us had serious stomach issues and almost all of the 13 had to go into the hospital to get re-hydrated and checked for parasites and bacterial infections and such things. I got off pretty easy despite being in pretty serious pain for about 24 hours and my body pretty much fought off whatever it was a drank or ate that got at me. (The food was wonderful, but we Americans have weak stomachs from growing up so spoiled). It was a great cap to one of my favorite excursions.

Here are some pictures from my stay including one of my host family and some others I took while waiting for the bus to come pick us up from our host village.