Rules of the Fiesta

I recently attended my first party here in Agua Blanca. It was similar to other parties I’ve been at in this part of the coast, but the music was a bit worse. The following is a list of do’s and don’ts if you happen to find yourself at some such occasion.

1. Avoid looking at your partner when dancing. You may look at the sky, the ground, or anyone else, but do not make eye contact with your partner. So don’t even bother trying to have a conversation.
2. Share beer with everyone at your table. To share, pour roughly 2 oz of beer (equals about 1.5 inches on small plastic cups, or 2 inches if cup contains ice). Drink beer in one gulp. With a quick flick of the wrist aimed towards the ground, remove remaining foam or backwash from the cup. Return plastic cup to the beer pourer. Repeat at least twenty times if you want a light buzz.
3. Dance to merengue and cumbia (music genres); Drink to bachata, salsa, and ballads.
4. Leave fiesta when the smell of alcohol overpowers the smell of bad cologne.

What I’m doing now: The local loca

Community-run organic garden project, started through the field school. I’m helping set up business relationships with restaurant owners in the nearby tourist town (Puerto Lopez) as a direct market for the garden products, connecting with organic ag experts and organizations to get seed and technical training for the community, and getting an impressively bad tan from doing work in the garden plot.

The education project. The basic idea is to develop a culturally-appropriate educational model, using local logic, integrating locally-pertinent examples, including local knowledge, and emphasizing local application. Local, local, local, local. In other words, I research and record local history, traditional foods, festivals, knowledge of medicinal plants, etc. I also do in-classroom investigations of teaching methods, learning styles, and classroom dynamics. This and other ethnographic research gets compiled and a Colorado-based team works on developing sample educational modules. Woohoo!

One Year in 30 Seconds or Less

Canyon de Chelly, Arizona Cabo San Francisco, Ecuador

• Finished honors project: "Development and Dilemmas of a Community-Based Ecotourism Project"


• Regained normal sleep patterns and caffeine intake


• Graduated college and made an anticlimactic departure from Oberlin in December gloom


• Moved my things back to my parents' house (New Jersey). Felt strange.


• Visited friends, family, and museums around New England with Patricio (boyfriend).


• Moved to Colorado Springs, lived with ex-professor and her hubby, did basic research for an anthropology field school and my upcoming year’s work


• Toured the Southwest and hiked the Grand Canyon with Kyffin (college friend)


• Arrived in Ecuador, traveled to north coast with Patricio, promptly became ill with a nice variety of infirmities


• Arrived in Agua Blanca, my new home for the next year, and helped facilitate University of Colorado field school