FEBRUARY 2011 Table of Contents
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FEBRUARY 2011 Table of Contents Volunteer Life Arts & Entertainment Gringos Go On Vacation 2 Ave María 34 By J. Grigsby Crawford By Sonia Vasquez Finding Adventure in the Mundance 35 MacGyver In the Bathroom 15 By Marion Cory By Alex Pellett Rocking Out: Life in an Ecuadorian Band 36 MacGyver Goes to School 18 By Caitlin Leach By Alex Pellett American Rebels: Oliver Stone Sits Down 37 With Latin Leaders in South of the Border Better Know a Staff Member: Joshua 20 By J. Grigsby Crawford Cuscaden By Clint Armistead From Coconuts to Rugby Balls 38 By Tristan Schreck Better Know a Volunteer: Mike Armenta 21 A Returned Volunteer Reflects on Life in 39 By J. Grigsby Crawford Ecuador By Kristen Mallory Two Years in Facebook Statuses (aka: The 23 Recollections of a Soon-to-Be RPCV Via New Releases to Look for at Your Local 39 Online Social Medium) Pirated Movie Store By Sarah Evans By George Beane Feeling Funky? 40 The Good Ole Times 31 By Caitlin Leach By Ben Palmer The “Marrieds” 41 Ask Rob! 32 By Laurel Howard By Rob Gunther This Issue’s Recipes 43 By Sarah Zelcer 24 Book Reviews 47 By John G. Mannion El Clima Magazine Editor-in-Chief J. Grigsby Crawford Layout Editors Roxanne Lee & Brent Williams Volunteer Life Section Editors Rob Gunther & Sarah Evans Copy Editors Elizabeth Wyner & Jordan Shuler Arts & Entertainment Section Editor Caitlin Leach Email [email protected] Assistant Arts & Entertainment Section Editor Sarah Zelcer Cover photo courtesy of Christina Curell, an HIV Program Volunteer from Omnibus 104, living in Guayas. Volunteer Life • El Clima • February 2011 VOLUNTEER LIFE Volunteer Life lying in hammocks. We will agree to dis- agree. Gringos Go on Vacation We will eat your sea- By J. Grigsby Crawford food, but if your seafood is not We will check the inter- satisfactory, we will NOT return net and bitch if the connec- “There are known knowns. to your establishment. tion is not high speed qual- There are things we know that ity. But most of all we w i l l we know. We also know there We will drink your rea- read news from back home are known unknowns. That is sonably priced beers. But if your and silently wonder what it to say, we know there are some beers aren’t reasonably priced is exactly we’re so anxious to things we know we don’t know. or chilled to our liking, we will get home to in four months. But there are also unknown not return to your beer-serv- unknowns—the ones we don’t ing establishment. We will have conversa- know we don’t know.” We will ask whether ho- -Former U.S. Secretary of De- tels have hot water and if that fense Donald Rumsfeld water is not indeed piping-turn- your-flesh-red hot, we will take DRAMATIS PERSONAE: our Gringo Traveler business elsewhere. First Person: Peace Corps Vol- (The Gringo Traveler is unteer since February 2009; the somewhat of a roaming profes- author of this story sor of economics doling out les- PCV#1: Male Peace Corps Volun- sons in capitalism.) teer in his early 30s; business- We will sit at tables with man groups of other Peace Corps PCV#2: Female Peace Corps Vol- Volunteers and listen to them unteer in her late 20s; married to talk about other volunteers. PCV#1 (Because if volunteers spent as much time working as they PCV#3: Unusually tall male Peace spend talking about e a c h Corps Volunteer in his mid 20s A Booby minding his own Booby business other, this country would look PCV#4: Unusually good-looking like Switzerland.) tions about who owes money male Peace Corps Volunteer in to whom and pretend to not We will rub sunscreen his mid 20s be uptight about it. onto each other’s backs so ~ many times it will no longer We will meet other We are gringos and we are go- feel vaguely homoerotic. Gringo Travelers and grin- ing on vacation. go café owners and other We will get cranky from white travelers (some of This is what we do. being around each other so whom aren’t from the U.S. long and snap at each other, We will find the finest and speak English as a sec- only to make up and be best hotels that $14 a night can buy. ond language and probably buds all over again. We will read books while shouldn’t be referred 2 Volunteer Life • El Clima • February 2011 to as gringos but are anyway) We will nearly get sold López, where the beaches are and we will have conversations fake bus tickets, but it will be far less pristine, but the town with them about their travels all right in the end. is more exciting. and then the conversation will The stretch of land turn to us and we’ll explain between Guayaquil and Salinas who we are and what we do “We will fall in love with each is a shock to my system. It here for two—really? two? is so desolate and bare it is yeah, seriously, two—years other in a friends stunning. It’s like Dust Bowl- and they will widen their eyes sort of way, with era Oklahoma. It’s like parts in pensive interest. all of our flaws of Africa I’ve seen. It’s ripe for As if it even needs to be and charms a National Geographic photo said, we Gringo Travelers will stripped bare out shoot, but not in a good way. thumb through old copies of in the open...” It’s empty and dry and the The New Yorker while reclining signs that tell people not to under a beach umbrella. litter aren’t ha-ha funny or sad-funny or even sad; they We will plan the week’s We will discuss the exact are only cruel. activities with militaristic definition of hemorrhoids enthusiasm for timeliness, and determine that what has ~ accuracy and efficiency. plagued me for the last six During the voyage, I talk to months is in fact ‘swamp ass.’ I will feel the tristesse PCVs#1, 2, 3, 4 about the (PCV#1 is somewhat of an that comes from being around importance of sunscreen. I am authority on the issue.) other people for so long and absolutely determined that will cover it up by being more We will have arguments none of us get burned. I’ve outgoing. Then I’ll get home about Spanish grammar and had a few incidents in the past when it’s all over and be so people will get defensive. where I thought the best way to ‘get bronzed’ would be to depressed and tired from all We will laugh so hard it wear no sunscreen at all and the pressure that I disappear hurts. into my apartment for a few let me say, it was a mistake. We will fall in love with days until the self-loathing I’ve packed a gloriously each other in a friends sort of wears off. massive tube of SPF 50 Banana way, with all of our flaws and Boat and I’m already having We will snap high charms stripped bare out in obsessive thoughts about how resolution, low aperture, the open. digital photographs of nature I’ll rub it in and be impervious scenes that will likely merit And we will eventually to the sun’s tropical glare. go home, because even for the sharing on an online social Three days later PCV#4 Gringo Traveler, reality sets in networking platform. will get so sick of hearing me and one realizes that vacation and PCVs#1-3 say the words We will floss before bed. can’t last forever. ‘reapply’ and ‘rub in,’ he will We will take exotic day ~ attempt to ban all verbs relating trips and if a travel agency to sunscreen application. even dreams of ripping us off First we’re going to or giving us something other Ayampe, a small, quiet beach ~ at the far south end of Manabí. than absolutely satisfactory Ceviche (s__v_ ch _; - ch _) After three days there, we’ll service, we will be pissed. noun: a South American dish go 15 minutes north to Puerto 3 Volunteer Life • El Clima • February 2011 of marinated raw fish or whiskey. another lemonade and barks something else at the waiter seafood, typically garnished She’s so beautiful that and then stares me in the eye and served as an appetizer. other guys are always staring and says, Why are you still in ~ at her when we walk into this country? restaurants and bars and she PCV#4 is talking about ceviche acts like she doesn’t know why. with intensity—such intensity She’s so beautiful I’m digging Some time later we sit in her that I too am worried he will into my US bank account living room eating big slices of not get enough. Quite simply, funds for this ceviche lunch. mango for breakfast. Hanging on PCV#4 is jonesing for some the wall in front of me is a giant ceviche. “I’ve packed painting of Jesus wearing a crown a gloriously of thorns. The painting is so vivid I’ve had ceviche just once in and grotesque it looks as if the my life. massive tube of SPF 50 Banana blood from his forehead could February 2010. I’m at Boat....” drip right off the wall and down a restaurant in Loja sitting onto the Persian rug.