Our first clue was the celebration at the kids’ school. During the last few days of school each class was charged with creating an effigy of a teacher at the school using old clothes and recycled materials. Then on the last day of school they burned all the effigies in a bonfire. Aside from being a little surprised by the fact that they had a bonfire at school (the second one, so far) I was also puzzled by the idea of burning an effigy of a teacher. Did this mean the teacher was disliked? Or express a desire to get rid of her/him? Obviously not since Lucia’s class was assigned a well-liked teacher and most of the teachers in the school were represented. Our travels took us to the Oriente, the part of Ecuador by the Amazon basin. There the effigies were different, featuring huge super hero figures that would also be burned on New Year’s Eve. And in Otavalo we found the effigies varied considerably. Some didn’t seem to represent anyone in particular. But there were plenty representing the president of Ecuador and other local and national political figures. Nearly every shop and home had an effigy, and the hostal we stayed in had a very elaborate display with an effigy, a poem about the prior year focusing on politics and accompanying props (chair, eucalyptus branches, etc.).
We began New Year’s eve in Quilotoa, Ecuador, a town at 12,800 feet in the Andean highlands, located along the rim of an ancient volcanic crater. I knew that Ecuador had certain traditions for celebrating the New Year. But over the previous few weeks, and as we made our way toward Otavalo, the town in the Northern highlands where we would celebrate, we learned that there is as much focus on closing out the Año Viejo, or Old Year, as on welcoming the new. Our first clue was the celebration at the kids’ school. During the last few days of school each class was charged with creating an effigy of a teacher at the school using old clothes and recycled materials. Then on the last day of school they burned all the effigies in a bonfire. Aside from being a little surprised by the fact that they had a bonfire at school (the second one, so far) I was also puzzled by the idea of burning an effigy of a teacher. Did this mean the teacher was disliked? Or express a desire to get rid of her/him? Obviously not since Lucia’s class was assigned a well-liked teacher and most of the teachers in the school were represented. Our travels took us to the Oriente, the part of Ecuador by the Amazon basin. There the effigies were different, featuring huge super hero figures that would also be burned on New Year’s Eve. And in Otavalo we found the effigies varied considerably. Some didn’t seem to represent anyone in particular. But there were plenty representing the president of Ecuador and other local and national political figures. Nearly every shop and home had an effigy, and the hostal we stayed in had a very elaborate display with an effigy, a poem about the prior year focusing on politics and accompanying props (chair, eucalyptus branches, etc.). On our trip from Quilotoa to Otavalo we learned about a tradition to honor the expiring year. Men and boys would traditionally dress up as widows of the expired year, all in black, and hold babies representing the new year. They would ask for “limoznas” or charity in the form of a few coins, since historically widows and orphans have depended on charity. The modern day iteration of this tradition is men dressing up as buxom women, often in suggestive clothing, and stopping cars with a rope pulled across the road. Doug couldn’t resist having a picture taken with one such group (as he said, when else will I get a picture like that?), and in Otavalo evening traffic was brought to a near halt on the main drag, as many groups stopped cars. Early in the evening we saw a group of young kids trying to stop cars, but very unsuccessfully. Either they would chicken out about stopping certain cars (those with older people driving, or that looked somewhat official), or the cars would call their bluff and drive through. We also saw a large group of men dressed as armed aliens from the Predator movies who had much more success and were quite entertaining. The car stopping action on the main drag got much raunchier as the evening went on, so we chose to take the kids back to our hostal which was having its own New Year’s celebration. The hostal had a roof top terrace where we could enjoy the evening stars, occasional fireworks, snacks, and a special and very potent “hervido”, basically a warm drink featuring blackberries and local grain alcohol. It is a tradition to wear yellow underwear on New Year’s eve to bring luck in the coming year, and red underwear for luck in Love. The underwear was widely available in stores and street stands that afternoon, so Karin and I opted for some yellow (already having good luck in love). And the kids got to celebrate with fun masks, and some Inca Cola which had the added benefit of caffeine to help keep them up until midnight. At midnight we all made our way to the street, where families and businesses burned their effigies. Some were helped along with a big dousing of gasoline and thus produced a mini explosion. We also threw in some papers where we had written down things from the prior year we wanted to let go of. We were informed that one could jump over the burning effigy in order to enter the new year without fear, and in the end we all did, including the kids once the fire burned down a little. It was pretty impressive to see little bonfires for blocks in either direction. After participating in the whole event it made sense to me that the focus of the celebration in Ecuador, commonly referred to as “Año Viejo” rather than Año Nuevo, is on letting go of the old in order to move forward. So the teacher effigies open up space for the new year, they aren’t meant to send a message that they should get a new job. I found the Ecuadoran celebration to be a lot more interesting and energizing than the common U.S. focus of watching the clock hit 12, or the ball drop in New York City. I doubt we’ll take to burning effigies in the street back home, but I hope we can find a way to imbue our future celebrations with recognition of the passing year, and creatively opening space for the future.
3 Comments
Tracie
2/3/2015 07:41:43 am
It sounds wonderful. What an amazing experience. I love reading the updates. Thank you for sharing!
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Elena
2/3/2015 10:06:32 am
I'm so glad you enjoy the blog, Tracie. Thanks for taking the time to read the posts!
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Jerry Anderson
4/9/2015 04:16:34 am
I enjoyed your story about your trip to Otavalo and your celebrating the
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The challenging thing about truly living in another country
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