A Few Fun Facts On Ecuador

Ecuador doesnt allow part time work.  And then there are a bunch of people that try to have a sensible discussion about why there are low-income countries that aren’t developing. 

In 2000, Ecuador dollarized their economy.  This means that all the people turned in the old currency to the central bank and received US dollars instead. The value of the last currency, the sucre, was reminiscent of a kangaroo fleeing unpredictable.  This has had a very helpful stabilizing effect in the economy.

The central bank was not in favor of dollarization.  Most institutions don’t like it when you tell them they are useless.  They even released a study that claimed the US dollar wasnѕt suitable for the Ecuadorian climate.  This reason wasn’t good enough, so-

The biggest function of the central bank now is its Cultural Center.  I don’t know how to explain this one.  One would think the majority of necessary functions of a central bank might decrease in the absence of a local currency.  This is not the case.

The US dollars used here look much more worn than those in the US.  This may be due to the fact that the central bank is the only body that is allowed to collect them and trade them for new ones at the US federal reserve.  And perhaps they are busy with their Cultural Center activities.

Tango is not supposed to be danced in a straight line.  Nor in a perfect, uni-directional circle.  To do so would be considered funny.

Measures of Language Success

I have made a short list to help you understand how I measure my progress in spoken language acquisition.  The list is ordered from easy to difficult.

• The American tourist mistaken for an Ecuadorian
• That local who realizes youre from the States and starts talking to you in horrible broken English.
• A one on one conversation (mostly silly questions with textbook answers)
• Talking to a group of two (in a triangle formation, nothing bus-like)
• A phone conversation with a friend from a non-echoey room
• The ability to sing along with (rehearsed) popular songs
• Talking to a group of four (with only moderate jokes being told)
• A phone conversation with an unexpected telemarketer
• Lunch with a group of four at a busy restaurant with a horribly loud television in the background
• Talking to a group of six (none of them using “hip” lingo)
• A multi-person teleconference from a payphone in a busy street
• Talking to a group of greater than 10 (maybe in a place with padded walls)
• The ability to sing along with unrehearsed (but catchy) communist tunes
• Talking to a group of six who have been drinking Scotch Whiskey for the last 6 hours
• The speeding cabbie who is driving in two lanes with all four windows down, the dashboard rattling like gunfire and three springs poking you from the seat.
• An introduction that includes my name (which is pronounced something like “baiyn” in Spanish).

I guess I’m somewhere in between the unexpected telemarketer and the catchy communist tunes.  I will be a true Spanish speaker if I can ever get that last one right!

Food and Memory

As I have survived a few weeks now without bumping into a stomach virus (or greater corporal trauma), I am beginning to feel my days are numbered. (This feeling is based on a sampling of numerous travelers experiences in Latin America.)  That said,  I will reveal my plot to make the best of any situation to this regard that may confront me.

I have always found that, when traveling, its good to keep track of what I eat.  This way, when I hear my stomach rumble and evaluate the situation with my uninformed, amateur medical biases, I can blame the food I like the least.  I can then use this unapprised accusation as leverage towards the classical conditioning of intuitive responses so I am more likely to avoid these foods again, such as the street-side vendor selling ice-cream out of a bucket.

Following this rigorous personal philosophy, I am keeping a list of foods that I have recently eaten in my short- term memory to call upon in case of a demise in my health.  I am prepared to stumble through them in a crude, mumbly fashion while in a keeled position before selecting my least favorites for eternal bias.  Here is a short list:

• Maduros (fried bananas, these are my favorite!)
• Tortilla Maduros (yes, I have invented some of these names)
• Rice and Beans (staple)
• Bread and Butter (I made this one)
• Sausage in a sauce made of Coca Cola, Salsa and Sugar (traditional)
• Jack Daniels (is Tennessee an Ecuadorian province?)
• Bacon Chunks (by far the most popular, it was like watching those little birds follow the tractor around while cutting grass)
• Chicken Wings (Straight out of Florida)
• Fish-Throat Soup (this might be a bad translation)

(Note:  There are also some foods that I found very flattering on this list.  They are there because, just like many other human beings, I enjoy consolation in times of excoriating pain.  Hopefully my mind is not too cloudy (if such a fate is to find me) that I elect one of those foods dear to my palate.)

Vacation and Productivity

Pedro, a friend from work, and I caught the bus to Montaitas this weekend.  When I say bus, I don֕t mean something like the local buses because these buses actually have fixed locations where they stop.  To catch the local bus you just wave at it from whatever curb you happen to be standing when you see it trucking by.  (Sometimes I even walk twenty feet from where I caught it the day before just for fun).  The bus slows down as it nears you and your job is to not hesitate and jump right on.  Getting off the bus is quite similar; you just stand up and yell, “Pare!” as you’re walking (or maneuvering) toward the door and the bus drivers job is to try to slow down to a reasonable speed before you lunge from his moving vehicle.

Montanitas is a wonderful little traveler֕s town on the Pacific, full of people heading North and South and those that seem to have lost track of time.  And time is somewhat of an anomaly there; we were there for less than 36 hours yet it seemed like three days of vacation.  The patio at our hostel probably got the most of my time, the sea humming, a fresh breeze, the people coming and going, and a book on productivity.

The same book served as a marvelous lead for contemplation on the bus as well.  The bus, similar in shape and function to any bus you may now have as an image in your head, was driven by a man and his two sons while three other people collected money, arranged luggage and ran through the streets looking for riders.  It doesnt always require six people to operate a small bus down here, but it is often more than I am used to and dramatic measures help draw out the productivity juxtaposition here.

It would be fine if you want to compare this experience to a US bus experience, though I am going to continue with a more precarious contrast.  Google recently released the beta version of a program that guesses what web pages you are going to visit (from your past habits), preloads them (while you are using the web for other things), and then records how much time it saved you by having the pages preloaded.  I will let you conclude what you wish about the relationship between productivity and development.

We may have increased our own productivity on the ride back.  As we rode we watched the new Batman movie.  Yep, the one that just came out last week in the movie theaters - already showing on the bus, in your living room or available for two dollars from that guy with all the gum and cigarettes two doors down from the movie theatre.

Ventures into Ant Biology

I am used to the type of ants that come with freeway style habits - a long distance, semi-sinuous, bi-directional breed.  These are not the ants of Ecuador.  Here, they apparently come in bands, not colonies (at least from my empirical evidence).  Instead of smashing a generation who by chance were assigned to somewhere in the middle of the long line where you stamp your foot while cursing the presence of the little numb-skulls, you actually can squash an entire community.  Or at least it feels this way, as there is no sign of any more around once you are done and no apparent ‘source.’  They just sort of ‘appear’, all walking in different directions, and then they’re gone.  And then they’re back.

Trajectory

By the way, if I have yet to mention it, this is what Im doing down here:

During the week, I am at the Ecuadorian Institute for Public Policy helping out on various projects and working on my own.  Recent themes have been free-trade, labor markets, translation and economic education.

When I head up to Guatemala, much of my time will be spent at Francisco Marroquin University.  I will hopefully get to know the school, which is a very innovative economic/business school, the faculty and much more about many of their projects which include lots of technology in the classroom, an economic education seminar and developing a PhD program with San Jose State University.

Something to Celebrate

The iguanas were too fast for me to catch - all seven of them, running from me!  Don’t interpret this as a power trip; it was much closer to a point of weakness.  Have you ever seen iguanas run?  No wonder we keep them in glass boxes with large branches obstructing any movement they might be capable of.  These things look hilarious!  Iguana owners wouldnt get anything done if pet shops encouraged back yards.

I did however catch a couple of my favorite foods down here to show you.  Food is more sedentary and so was my camera during the chase.  You see, food doesn’t look like it is trying to doggie-paddle its way above water while keeping a keen eye on its rudder of a tail.  The eye comes out of the side of its head, just above the crook of its mouth which poses a horribly-plastic, inborn look of concern.  It then stops.  Though it doesn’t sink, (once again there is no water, this iguana has scrawly claws not amphibious paws) it instead peers at you with huffy breaths: sculpted smile rising, sculpted smile falling and repeat.

Perhaps both of my foods could help Mr. Iguana and his fleet chill out a bit.  The pictures say it all but allow me to give them my own brevity in words here:

Food 1:  Monkey Hippy.
Food 2:  All Natural Water.  (yes, water is not food, my judgment to leave this technicality out until now was a decision based on the marginal costs of word additions to the previous sentences.  As they say in Ecuador: okie dokie.  Just look at the label.  It is once again fun to drink water!

Straight to…

Ill make this one short.  I’m a little sad today.  My new favorite team (Ecuador) just blew their game yesterday.  Jerks.  No jumping on the hoods of cars with my flag this time.

On top of it, my real favorite team (Brazil) also blew their game.  Where can I turn for something to celebrate around here?!

Ecuador Wins!

Yeah, I know, this news is a day or two late.  I wanted to be sure you received the true nature of my enthusiasm.  (I still havent found a dance school, but close!) 

Conveniently, for my consumption of turistic experiences, the place everybody comes to celebrate big wins is right down the street from where I live on Victor Emilio Estrada.  They hold celebratory mosh-pits and toot car horns repeatedly (the fans, not the unsuspecting families that happened to get stuck pitside in traffic) while parked in the street bumper-to-bumper.  The main, strikingly-yellow pit takes place right in front of a marvelous cerveceria known as El Manantial (the Spring).

I received answers telling me there are from 3 to 6 more games before Ecuador makes it to the finals of this round (you can tell the nuanced precision of the die-hard fans I am working with here).  And as I jest about my inability to be enthusiastic for a soccer game, I must also report that I have ditched my fidelity to the all-powerful Brazil (just for this month, you gotta blend in as a traveler) and I am now a fan of Ecuador!  We’re going straight to the World Cup baby!

Marginal Analysis and Language Acquisition

This falls in the studies I would do if I were omniscient category.  If you dont like studies you can gut this pseudo-one by simply reading the sentences that end in a question mark (?).

When learning a language there is a lot with which you can preoccupy yourself.  And depending on your ultimate goals, there are many ways you can measure your level of success.  Here are some rough thoughts on the topic; I’m open for suggestions.

Lets assume my ultimate goal in learning Spanish is to be able to communicate verbally (rather than in writing or with grammatical precision or to have a perfect accent…),  I am interested in the quickest route to this goal and am trying to consider where my time is best spent.

In the process of reaching this goal there are many obstacles; we will just take one to keep the analysis simple.  For example, in Spanish nouns have a gender (an aspect of the language that is completely foreign to me and that will require lots of time to learn).

A shortlist of things I must consider:

• Time it would take me to memorize the gender of nouns from a book.
• Number of nouns needed for an ample and sufficient intermediate vocabulary.
• Frequency I could learn the gender of a noun in a spoken conversation.
• Percent of nouns someone wouldnt understand if I guessed the wrong gender.
• Rates of noun acquisition at different levels of language ability
• ...

My question is: is it even necessary that I study the gender of nouns?  If my ultimate goal is to be able to communicate verbally and the costs of learning the gender of these nouns formally (through study) are much higher than the costs of learning them informally (through conversation), why bother?

Perceived costs of not learning the gender of nouns formally:

• Grammatical mistakes
• Time spent learning suboptimal vocabulary
• Minor confusions from time to time
• Loss of grammar-freak friends (could also be a benefit)

Perceived benefits of not learning the gender of nouns formally:

• More time in conversation
• Time spent learning the more applicable nouns to the standard vocabulary
• Better develop Spanish language intuition
• Quicker ascent to greater comprehension in conversation, which in turn would lead to a greater noun-gender acquisition.
• ...

What other things am I wasting my time studying that could more easily be acquired through action?

Hello Guayaquil

My new place is quite nice.  Come Friday I even got a taste of the neighbors playing horribly bass-ridden techno into the night.  I had succeeded in reading a slue of papers from the 2004 Mont Pelerin Society (essential illuminati) meeting until about four in the morning when, as I tried to sleep (and I am very tolerant in these moments, Friday is a night of celebration and by no means am I here to cramp anyones culture) and couldn’t, I figured I might as well dance.

Appropriately, to some foul techno version of California Dreaming, I put on my shoes and, as my stated goals on this trip are either to become kidnapped or married, head down the block.  It was only about 100 paces later and a neck wrenching triangle or two before I had determined that the party was behind a very high wall with no discriminate entrance. 

This is when, if my true goals were the aforementioned and I was a true diehard nightlifer, I would have stepped back, gathered some inertia and done a Jackie Chan-style wall-scaling entrance and awed either my future captors or my future wife.

This was not the case however.  Instead, regarding my dark-street-like status and realizing that the California Dreaming song had now ended (this would make my entrance all the less novel, even inopportune perhaps since it was once again clear that I dont even like this type of music) I retreated to another yet-unstated goal of the trip (perhaps even a more realistic one), devouring a wealth of marvelous economic literature.

After an hour more of drowning the bass in air-conditioner motor and bluegrass (yeah, the hoedown converted me) I emerged to realize it was once again silent (minus the air-conditioner motor, but this sound is like that of mosquitoes at dusk for a family that lives on Lake Michigan I would presume).  One doesn’t even need sheets to fall asleep in the humidity down here.  Asi es.

Hoedown Report

I would like to report a very successful hoedown.  Due to timing (the hoedown was planned right before I left on a trip to a far away land so I could get out of cleaning up) and geography (the far away land hinders a speedy, abridged compilation of the available digital evidence i.e. the photos and video), there may be some lag in the creation of the “What is a Hoedown?” documentary.  Nonetheless, at some point in the future you should be contacted regarding this matter.

Also, a humungous THANKS to Mom, Dad and all of our wonderful family, neighbors, friends, friends of friends and completely unfamiliar faces who made it a hoedown! of a time.

Squirrell Highway

It’s probably a mutated gene I picked up somewhere in youth.  My mom used to yell, "Come here, come look!" and I would come running down from my room, probably expecting a dragon or something equally as dramatic based on the tone of her voice.  But, no dragons, it was always a deer.  Or should I say, another deer.  Sometimes they were does, sometimes bucks, always brown and always seemingly uninterested in my family’s voyeurism.

I don’t have anyone to yell to here in my ex two-car cottage.  So, I have submitted to mom’s second action in the situation: ‘Where is the camera? I’ve got to get a picture!" 

My camera is in a sock.  I call it the case, but it provides for an easy draw, which, even on my fastest of days, is no match for the speed limit on Squirrel Highway. Squirrels are kinda brown too.  Though often I don’t get the chance to focus directly on them.  It is more likely that I see a sinuous blur or a rash of leaves settling outside my door just after a calamitous thump.  You can get my drift by looking at the picture above.  What I have captured in this picture is a typical passerby on Squirrel Highway, though, as you can see, this little monster has disguised himself as a slithering dragon to the lens of my camera.

Nonetheless, I find myself just as persistent as mom.  Every time Mr. Squirrel tutters across my roof or throws himself blindly (and with great tact) into the branches of a nearby tree, you can find me ready—camera in hand, sock at my feet—for a chance at the next great photo for my archives.  And, as soon as I live within range of a possible witness to this exposition of stealth and cunning nature, they will be sure to hear me calling.

The “Danger Zone”

If you are a friend of mine you may be familiar with a conversation like this:

YOU AND ME: <40 minutes of solid discussion>
YOU: Why yes ben, What you said does sound very reasonable and I…
ME: Uh, Oh! Danger Zone! Danger Zo…
<click>

While the Silicon Valley flourishes in some technologies, others (AT&T Wireless for example) have pockets of disintermediation.

Tridge Revision #1

It seems I have miscalculated my audience.  Where I thought I could craftily sneak in a sleight of word and omit vital information, my father, a native of Midland, Michigan and one of the two people who has closely watched the evolution of my lying habits over the last 26 years (I don’t know which attribute may carry more weight, but rest assured that both of these factors are essential to the full understanding of this story), has called me on the following portion of my last post:

The three legs span the shores over the confluence of two docile, unknown rivers that will remain inessential to the full understanding of the story.

The rivers are, in fact, known as the Tittabawassee and the Chippewa.  They are even available for walleye fishing year-round.   Though, I will add, nobody was fishing on the day that I was there.  And although this new information has surfaced, the rivers remain, with me as the empirical witness, docile.