Masthead Logo Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2017 Ashes at Noon: Stories and poems about Quito, Ecuador Ana Hurtado Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the Latin American Literature Commons Recommended Citation Hurtado, Ana, "Ashes at Noon: Stories and poems about Quito, Ecuador" (2017). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 16925. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/16925 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Ashes at noon: Stories and poems about Quito, Ecuador by Ana Valeria Hurtado Rodriguez A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF FINE ARTS Major: Creative Writing and Environment Program of Study Committee: David Zimmerman, Major Professor Charissa Menefee Debra Marquart Brianna Burke The student and the program of study committee are solely responsible for the content of this thesis. The Graduate College will ensure this thesis is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred. Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2017 Copyright © Ana Valeria Hurtado Rodriguez, 2017. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PUBLICATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………...…...………..iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………………….v PREFACE………………………………..……………………………………………….………vi EPIGRAPH………………………………..…………………………………………….…...…xvii CHAPTER I HANAK PACHA….…….…………..………………………………………….…..1 Pumamaqui…...……………………...………..……………………………………….….2 El cóndor del Machángara…………………..………….……………..………………..…3 Hacienda lunar…………...…………………………..…………………………………..17 El monstruo de los Andes…………………………………………..……………………42 CHAPTER II KAY PACHA…….……………………....…..……………………………….….69 Spondylus…..…….…………………………..…………………………………………..70 Encomienda……………………………………….……………………………………...71 Kuri……………………..…………..……………………………………………….…...91 Plaza San Blas…………….….……………………..…………………………………..108 CHAPTER III UKU PACHA……..........………..……………………………………………..109 Flamenco……………….….….……………..………………………………………….110 La oreja de toro………………………..….…………..………………………………...111 Día de los difuntos………………………………………..………………………….…122 Los desaparecidos………………………………………..……………………………..132 Pichincha….….……………………………..…………………………………………..133 Saturno…..………………………………..…………………………………………….156 iii Sol de lluvia……….……………………………..……………………………………..165 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………166 iv PUBLICATION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Grateful acknowledgments to Word Riot for publishing “Flamenco” in 2015, to Spilled Milk Magazine for publishing “Los desaparecidos” and “Sol de lluvia” in 2016, to Huizache for publishing “Pumamaqui” and “Spondylus,” both forthcoming in 2017, and to Glimmer Train for placing “El Monstruo de los Andes” in their Honorable Mentions list for the 2016 New Writers Award. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my major professor, David Zimmerman, for his patience, friendship, and humor. I appreciate his support for my realismo mágico stories and my quest to represent my childhood and teenage years lived in the Andean landscape truthfully. Thank you, Dr. Burke, Dr. Menefee, Professor Marquart, and Dr. Viatori for sharing your wisdom with me. Your classes inspired my work endlessly. I hope you see the fruit of your labor within my prose. Gracias, cohort, for your support and comedy. I cherish our cheese potlucks, dances, and the deep sense of community we created. It was an honor to workshop your work. Un abrazo for all the second and first years who enlightened my life. Nicolás, thank you for your faith in me. Gracias, Tía Nancy, Mama, Tía Carmen, Carlos Luis, & Carlos López. Llevo Ana Mily conmigo siempre. Gracias, Mami, Papi, Fanchi, y Cawo por su amor. Una familia Venezolana congelándose en los Andes— no hay subject más interesante ni dulce. vi PREFACE I could write a thousand stories about Quito, but the stories in this collection are the closest to my existence; as a Venezuelan citizen who grew up in Quito, I am a part of the cultural syncretism at work in the capital of Ecuador. Ashes at Noon is a manifestation of research and travel: I’ve explored the outskirts, valleys, and hidden streets of my hometown of Quito and found the locations of my narratives, places tainted by our memories. The stories in Ashes at Noon represent my life in Quito, Ecuador, and the years I witnessed and participated in this culture. These stories overlap in terms of traditions, rituals, feelings, themes, sentiment, and an urge to share with others the stories of my hometown. My aim for this collection is to pay tribute to the culture that raised me. I want to explore where I’m from, the narratives that made me who I am, and honor the environment of the Andes and all the ghosts that reside in it. My collection is anticolonial; it explores the pre-Columbian traditions we still abide to and the curuchupa—extremely Catholic, judgmental, prejudicial—and racist mindsets we’re taught to follow. Quiteños have baptized my old work place, Museo de Arte PreColombino Casa del Alabado, as a hidden gem. The museum is located one block away from Church San Francisco de Quito, the heart of colonial Quito; specifically, the pre-Columbian art museum is placed a few footsteps away from the famous plaza built weeks after the Spanish conquered the Incas. In this plaza, tourists try to take photographs of the church and its surroundings, but only end up with pictures of fragmented pigeon bodies. American and European tourists stand several feet away from the Afro-Ecuadorian family that sells coconut water out of white buckets—they always carry change for dollar bills in their pockets—and next to mini-markets owned by generations of families who refuse to sell their property to those invested in making the historic center of Quito vii something other than what it is, a phantom landscape. On my way to work, I used to ride up from Cumbayá, a valley, up to Quito in my friend’s car. I then hopped on the trolebus—the bus lines that connect all of Quito—and later faced a stone hill four blocks up to the museum doors. Every day, I stepped on stones dead Ecuadorians once stepped on. I stepped on rocks Bolívar rode his horse on, gravel placed by indigenous men and women—laborers, slaves, Incas—stones now covered in cigarette butts, pigeon excrement, and car tracks. In the heart of colonial Quito, in a house turned museum, I learned the worldview of Ecuadorian pre-Columbian cultures. As I watched my coworkers avoid eye contact with the Shaman ceramic figure—a figure with no eyes, perhaps the Shaman would wear the artifact in front of his face like a mask—and as I accompanied them room after room, I realized that what made me more afraid than the pre- Columbian figures was the fate and origin of these pieces. A heart wrenching feeling took over my body every morning and night: who found these pieces? Who let them go? Where are the others? Where will my favorite artifact—a vase that features a belly button and drawings of snakes and the Napo river, a vase where the Napo people hid bones and afterwards buried the ceramic artifact deep inside Amazonian soil—end up? With these questions in mind, I created narratives about the pieces displayed in the museum, basing myself on anthropological research. As a bilingual museum guide, I learned, internalized, and memorized Alabado’s book written by Dr. Karen Stothert, PhD in Anthropology from Yale University. With the help of Iván Cruz Cevallos, scientific advisor to our museum, Dr. Stothert divided this book into to eight chapters, each section representative of every area in our museum. My museum guide text interweaves scientific data, traditions from live cultures, and history. The opening chapters explain pre-Columbian cosmovision: the universe is a harmonious whole divided into three parallel worlds, each world connected by the axis mundi, because “the continuity of life viii [depends] on the steady flow of vital energy through these worlds.” As I taught these concepts to American and European tourists, I slowly pieced together the complexity and contradictive nature of Quito’s contemporary society: pre-Columbian artifacts—morteros, clay, stone, and golden sculptures of shamanes, stamps, jewelry, whistling bottles, obsidian, knives, batons, anthropomorphic vessels, zoomorphic vessels, and more—sit in glass vitrines, in the middle of a colonial city designed by European clergy men and built by indigenous labor. The interweaving of worldviews defines our capital and identities. Ashes at Noon represents this weave. My short story “Día de los difuntos” (translates to Day of the Dead) profiles our Ecuadorian version of this holiday. This holiday itself interlinks pre-Columbian cosmovision with Western thought (Catholicism). Ecuadorians visit their dead relative’s graves and bring food for them. We make guaguas de pan—“guagua” translates to child in Kichwa—little babies made with sweet bread and sugar, and drink colada morada, a scented potion. In my short story “Encomienda”—a story that encapsulates the era before the hacienda system, when indigenous men and women were first enslaved and indoctrinated—I emphasize the importance of food sacrifice. It is a revisiting of the