Duet

December 8, 2011

I’ve got to hand it to the Ecuadorians….they really know how to party, and do so at the drop of Panama hat (and I hope by now all reading this realize that “Panama” hats are actually of Ecuadorian origin). Just about any reason will do, the partying doesn’t start until 9-11 PM and they dance until daylight or the power goes off – which ever happens first.  And these parties can last for days; by early afternoon the next day, they’re at it again.  How the Ecuadorians handle these party marathons is beyond me – and I’m a night owl.

The LOCAL party season really starts kicking into gear in early December, surges during Christmas and New Year’s, peaks during Carnavale (usually in February) and culminates with Semana Santa (the week before Easter) or so….And this is just the town-folks…when the gringo and Ecuadorian tourists start arriving for the big holidays, it gets utterly chaotic.

In the meantime, several carnival/ “circus” vendors (not to be confused with the holiday “Carnavale”) set up their rides in our area for a few months.

Now, if you are willing to bungee jump, or fling yourself out of a high-flying plane with a parachute, you will probably be keen to get on one of these Ferris wheels, or those tame looking brightly-lit Pebbles and Bam-Bam ground “trains” that run rampant all over town and the beach, with drivers purposely swerving, and looking for reasons to add to the excitement by possibly make them tip over at high speed.

And we always know when the local party season kicks off, because first of all, the grade school marching band starts practicing their routines on the nearby soccer field and/or on the school playground around the last week in November until end of December.

The band so far only consists of a variety of drums and those triangle bells. Last year, they generally rehearsed from around 8AM till noon, and they got pretty good at:

“DA DA, DA DA, DA DA DA DUM” on the drums and the first two bars of “Jingle Bells” (I think) on the triangle bells.  It is cute to watch their earnest efforts, but by the second week of that, not so welcome. Last year, by the fourth week of those 4-hours of morning marathon practice drum and accompanying bell sessions beating non-stop, it started to effect all within hearing distance to think that water-boarding can’t be as tortuous.  At least for me, I was ready to stomp out to the field and teach the bell-players the next few stanzas of Jingle Bells, if only to mitigate – to a degree – the f’n drums.

Hit the "Play" button and

Turn the sound up to get the real effect.....

I took the above video a few days ago, trying to capture some of the band’s fervor and dedication – I had to hold the camera over a wall to get it, so the video has a rather bad glare, but it should give you an idea of our daily serenades this time of year.

The good thing about this year’s band practice is that they have gotten better. Much better. The bad aspect is that the school band leader is making them practice around 8 hours a day now.  But the thing that is most enigmatic to me is that – I  kid you not – they are practicing several songs that sound nothing like holiday songs, but more like boot-camp training cadence tunes and I SWEAR there is one song that they are now practicing that sounds suspiciously like the tune “from the hills of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli”…DA DA DA…DA DA DA…DA DAA DA…DA DA, DADA DADA DADA DA DUM….Also I’m pretty sure I recognize when they are working on the tune “Hey, hey, hey…hey, hey, nah, nah, naah no”.  Go figure.

The Olon party scene kicks off each year with a local beauty pageant in early December staged at our new local park and is an entertaining evening.  Last year, it was supposed to start at 8PM, didn’t begin until 10 PM and lasted well into the late night/early morning hours. In the meantime, vendors were selling food, trinkets, drinks, and the kids played on the playground.  Two emcees (animadors) introduced the show, and the pageant included 5 area contestants strutting their stuff in various outfits (the representative indigenous clothing segment, the esportivo (sports) outfit, the evening gown portion) interspersed by some pretty lame acts. The crowd was enthusiastic, with various cheering sections for each of the girls. There was even the question and answer interview part with each girl (one poor girl was so nervous she forgot her name).  I petered out about 15 minutes before the coronation some time after 2AM, but found out later the girl I was rooting for won.

This year, the pageant was last Saturday night, and I popped up to the park around midnight to watch some of it; the whole town turned out to watch it. I didn’t have my camera with me, so the pictures included with this post were taken at last year’s show.

But the most fun party of the year is the 3-4 day festival to Santa Lucia (and Olon’s birthday party), which is the weekend after the pageant, and this year begins on this coming Sunday. I wrote in more detail about it last year in “I Love Lucia” (PLEASE click on that link to get a better idea about this fiesta. It’s one of my favorite posts), and I am really looking forward to it!

Last year our friends Scott Creasy and his mom Pat came down from Las Tunas to join us, and I believe they are coming again this year, along with some other friends.

The video below was taken last year at the Santa Lucia party, just as Todd and local friend Eduardo were tuning up for the first-night of drinking and dancing (a glimpse of Pat is seen at the end of the video).