Baseball Is Not a Sport (and other pointless debates)

Last night I went with my host brother and two of his friends to a concert on the other side of town. The group was Sui Generis, an old hippie-rock duo from Argentina that was first popular in the 1960s. They have a very Simon-and-Garfunkel sound, with a little bit of Beatles'-later-years mixed in for some songs. They sing about everything from love and life to anti-war protests to observations of humanity. It was great! Only one man of the original duo performed, with 2 other musicians. He was the most grizzly, charismatic, cheerful old hippie rocker I'd ever care to meet! The crowd simply adored him. I was fascinated that the audience was made up of people from my age to his age, and everywhere in between! This group has really stood the test of time.  I was a little worried when the "9pm start" surpassed Normal Concert start time (9:15-9:30), and then Ecuadorian Time start time (9:30-9:54), and finally started at Thanks-For-Nothing-You-Washed-Up-Bozo-Warm-Up-Band start time (just after 10).  Seriously, they were pretty awful, even for a pop group from the 80s, but once the real show started, it was fantastic!
It's been fun in the last few days to test my language skills by engaging in teasing or debating conversations with Juan Carlos. I explained to him the multitude of reasons for which I do not go fishing, and also expressed my deep internal desire to buy a little sailboat when I have the time and water to use it. I also argued (quite convincingly, as it turned out), that baseball is NOT A REAL SPORT! It is certainly a game, even a pastime (lots and lots of time...), but not a sport. He just got kind of quiet, but his friend started laughing, gave me a high five, and then proceeded to giggle and make faces at Juan Carlos (both he and his friend are in their 40s, mind you). I felt pretty good about myself after that. For the language skills, not the debating skills. I already knew I was right about this. :)

The dress code at school is not nearly as stringent as they indicated in the brochures. At orientation I asked if I could wear pants like the ones I was wearing (which ended at the knee), or if they were too short for school. Daniela, the coordinator, smiled and said they were fine, that shorts and skirts halfway up my thigh were fine! They just don't want kids wearing Squeak Cheek shorts because it draws some unwanted attention... The rule about no open-toed shoes seems to be made up or long ago mutinied, since I don't think I've yet seen 1 local student in closed-toed shoes.

At the last family lunch (Sunday), Daniel, Pilar and Fernando's son-in-law, invited me to take a seat, then began cracking up. In Spanish, the verb used for taking a seat is the same used for drinking something, so he explained that in English we say, "Take a seat," while in Spanish they say, "Drink a chair." He thought that was just the funniest thing he'd ever come up with. I guess the first time you realize it, it is!

Cecilia (the maid) and I had a conversation about food; she is worried that I won't like the food she makes, since I'm vegetarian and she's used to cooking meat. They make a point of making dishes without meat, or with meat on the side, and even getting perhaps a bit overzealous with making sure I get enough protein, in the form of eggs, yogurt, cheese, milk, lentils, fish, falafel, etc. I explained to her that the food is absolutely amazing, and that everything I've tried since I've been here I've enjoyed tremendously, but I don't know if she believed me... After we DIDN'T go get our visas registered yesterday (because someone forgot to call for a car to take us, haha), I went to lunch with the other two US students at a Peruvian restaurant close to my house. We all decided to take a little risk, so we each ordered something that sounded a bit out-there with at least one word we didn't know how to translate. I got a plate of cold octopus in a vibrant purple olive-mayo sauce, with giant corn kernels (mote) and sweet potato as a garnish. It was fantastic! I was a little intimidated to eat what were clearly dark purple suction cups on the underside of some of the pieces, but they really weren't bad - just chewy capers, really. ¡Riquísimo! I also discovered another food item that may have to become my guilty pleasure away from home: Pie de chocolate from Sweet and Coffee (which I also found out is a local enterprise, despite its English name; the founder was a classmate of my grammar teacher's). It is an entire wedge of the pure satiny-fudge chocolate layer of top-notch French silk pie, and it just may be the best, most satisfying chocolate dish I've ever eaten. Phenomenal. The other girl and I each got one, and we've been raving about it ever since, to the point that the other boy may just have to gag us soon (hopefully with some more of that pie!).

It just occurred to me this week how peculiar it was that the family hand washes dishes as we use them, despite the obvious presence of a dishwasher on one side of the kitchen. In fact, I realized this anomaly when someone opened the dishwasher and I discovered that it has been converted to a storage cabinet for extra sponges, dish soap, etc. That was a bit funny, and cool that they have still found a use for what I assume is a decrepit non-functioning former dishwasher!

The other boy in my grammar class (from Quebec, now working on his 3rd language) explained to me during a particularly tricky grammar exercise we were working on that one of his teachers once told him that as soon as you pass the absolute-basic level of learning a new language, you should acquire a dictionary solely in that language. The advantage of this, of course, is that it forces you to stay within that language to define and understand a new word, while growing your vocabulary exponentially. I pulled out one of the coolest words that I know (courtesy of my mother, the Spanish teacher and almost as much of a nerd as me) - "circumlocution," or the idea of talking around an unknown word using words you do know. For example: the machine you use to type papers and send and receive emails (a computer). This is a valuable skill in learning a new language, especially in an immersion experience where the person using the word often doesn't speak your native language and can't just "translate" it. He was pretty impressed with my Super Vocab Word of the Day for a common event we all use, and I was excited to both use the word and circumlocute in Spanish! P.S. Mom, in Spanish the word is circunloquio.  Anyway, it sounds like great advice to have an all-Spanish (or all-whatever the language happens to be) dictionary, so I'll definitely look into one when I return (not carrying that thing on the plane; way too heavy). Probably in addition to a book of verbs...

Okay, last fun fact. There is a very well-known Ecuadorian painter I've been hearing about (and seeing his work) named Guayasamin. He was a contemporary of Picasso, although I like his work much better. It has a similar piece-y, cubist look to it, but most of the body parts are still in the right places. His pieces are mostly about human emotions (mostly sadness and grief), but they have a roughness and rawness that makes them both stirring and fascinating. I've included a couple examples.

The above is entitled "Borrasca En Azul."  The one below is entitled "Los Desesperados." For you art enthusiasts out there, I highly recommend Google-ing his name in Images and perusing some of them; they range from chilling to hauntingly beautiful.