Carnaval

Friday February 8, 2013. Brazil is famous for its Carnaval celebration- its colorful, beautiful, grandiose parties. Ecuador is less famous but they definitely celebrate. In a very different way.Carnaval is similar to Mardi Gras in the sense that it comes right before the 40 days of Lent. Instead of drunken debauchery, Ecuadorians play with food and water! In some of the tamer cities, like Ambato, the people have beautiful parades and throw flower petals and baskets of fruit. Here in Tumbaco, you walk around during Carnaval weekend and you will be pummeled by water balloons or “espuma”. 

Carnaval is celebrated for the weekend and also on Monday and Tuesday with no work or school, but Tumbaco started celebrating early this week. As we were walking home from school on a quiet dirt road, some kids were hiding behind a brick wall, throwing water balloons (one of which was frozen) and then yesterday, I got drive-by espuma’ed. Espuma is this very thin foam, similar to the consistency of soap suds, lighter than shaving cream. They buy huge cans of espuma and spray it at each other during this week. I was just walking down a busy road, minding my own business and another volunteer and I were suddenly doused with this foam. Which is when a brilliant idea occurred to me. All of us volunteers had heard about Carnaval and were very excited for the 4 day weekend, but hadn’t yet experienced it. So I spread the word to all of the female volunteers that we were going to attack the boys after class on Friday. We feigned a meeting and got all the boys to stay in one spot. It. Was. Awesome. There was espuma EVERYWHERE! Some of the volunteers risked their cameras and took some photos so I’ll post when they share. It was the most fun I’ve had in Ecuador. And now there will be 4 more days of it! 

In some of the wilder places, people celebrate Carnaval by throwing eggs, oil, flour, and even paint at each other. And I mean at strangers! We usually go to the market on Sundays to buy food to cook for the week but my host parents advised me that we can’t go this weekend because they will most likely throw the fish water at us or animal parts. So cool!

Tomorrow I’m hiking a volcano. I’ll try to take lots of photos in between huffing and puffing. The altitude really gets me up here. Plus I’m really out of shape. Plus they’ve been feeding me chimborazos of rice for each meal.

Talk at you soon. Que viva Carnaval!

<3 Chels