"Celebrate We Will"

In early October, the entire city of Zamora paused to celebrate the city; likewise, the city and the surrounding province spent the first weeks of November celebrating the province's foundation a mere fifty-eight years ago. Although the official holiday falls on November 10, shenanigans began on November 1st with the annual Pregon. The Pregon is an annual parade featuring thousand high school students and officials of various public institutions dressed in elaborate costumes despite the blazing sunlight and soaring temperatures. For me, it was a great replacement for Halloween. There are very few Halloween celebrations in Zamora—although most are familiar with the Americanized version of the Celtic holiday—but the entire town still seems to dress up as soccer stars, butterflies, or zombies albeit a day later than the American holiday.

Following the Pregon, the town officially opened the giant feria. Not only can visitors buy everything from coconut milk to Saraguro attire, but they can also ride numerous carnival rides and attend raucious free concerts. The rides are admittedly terrifying given the absence of safety regulations in Ecuador and the young—barely adolescent—employees charged with operating them. I recently boarded a ride in which customers are repeatedly twirled upside down in the air. As expected, the attendant secured the safety bars above my sisters and I. He did not, however, remember the do the same for those in the front row and he started the ride. The boys immediately began screaming and, luckily, the attendant stopped the attraction saving the boys from serious injuries if not death. Crisis averted but I'm certainly less willing to jump on a ride and entrust a twelve-year-old with the security after that experience.

In addition to the carnival, there have been numerous free concerts in the fair grounds beginning with a cumbia group on Sunday evening. Monday—known as La Noche de la Juventud-- featured the largest concert of the week: Rata Blanca. After a two year wait (Rata Blanca had been a scheduled guest for the past several years but never arrived due to mining companies refusal to financially-back the event due to conflicts with the provincial government), Zamoranos packed the fair grounds to mosh or moshear to the beat. But, unfortunately, the wait continued for several hours more as, in true Ecuadorian fashion, the concert that was scheduled to begin at 9:00 did not start until 12:00. Following such a late night, the town relaxed on Tuesday before returning to the fair groups on Wednesday for the next concert-a folkloric band known as Hayak.

Finally, after barely sleeping for several nights due to my house's proximity to the fair grounds and the loud concerts lasting nearly until dawn, November 10th arrived. The official anniversary of Zamora-Chinchipe's provincialization was marked by the civic parade in the morning. As a teacher, I once again spent the morning marching through town and slowly being transformed into a lobster thanks to the sun's piercing rays. Given than each high school marches with a band, all staff, and three legions of students (the tallest and best “formed” of the students as selected by the inspectors), it is certainly a long parade. Following the parade, the town relaxed—I trekked to the river with some friends to frolick in the current and snack on some rocks—until the final cumbia and reggaeton concert in the fair.

We're now in the midst of our final spat of vacation prior to resuming a normal schedule. For various reasons, we hae only had 3 ½ days of school in the past few weeks; well, 4 ½ if you count to Saturday of the minga. Theweekend prior to the beginning of festivities, all parents and teachers were required to come to the school and conduct a minga or a community work project. Everyone contributed; some planted gardens, others macheted the soccer field, and others constructed a rear fence out of logs so students cannot sneak out. It was truly impressive to see all come together and work to improve the facilties, although such widespread participation may have been provoked more from the threat of a $5.00 fine than overall goodwill.

In spite of spending a Saturday at the school helping with the minga and playing basketball, the copious vacations have also left much time for exploration including several jaunts in Podocarpus National Park near Loja, Vilcabamba, and Zamora respectively. Interestingly, each respective trek was in an ecologically distinct zone in spite of being only a few hours apart on twisting mountain roads. I must admit, however, that my favorite was that in the tropical forests of Zamora—which proved to be a truly ridiculous adventure when we went in search of the “mirador.” Prior to the hike, we had noted a trail to the mirador. The sign suggested that it was only 800 meters, but that it required 85 minutes. Odd. We decided to skip it and return some other time; unfortunately, a miscommunication with a Belgian friend left us with no other options. We had to climb to the mirador. Legs burning and soaked with sweat, we had literally clawed our way up a steep ascent nearly an hour later only to discover that, in spite of the signs, there was no mirador. We had literally climbed up steep mountain ridge pushing through overgrown vegetation and discovered nothing. After descending, we decided to ask the guard about the trail; he laughed and said something about an area with slightly fewer trees. Classic Ecuador—good times and absurd adventures. And really, really sore legs the following day.