Fiesta del Patron Teodoro Gomez

The first week of November is an important week for our school, Teodoro Gomez de la Torre.  It is the anniversary of the founding of our school, now 134 years ago, by two benevolent citizens 

of Ibarra, Teodoro Gomez and Mariano Acosta.  

To honor this occasion, all classes stopped for 4 days of festivities.  It was quite a week! 

Day 1: 

5:00 am - The high school band paraded through the streets of the city waking up the neighbors to announce this important week in our history.

7:30 am - The honorary flag bearers, the cheerleaders and the band arrived at our school, and were greeted by cheers from the entire student body.  Several speeches, a performance by the first graders and a mariachi band marked the occasion.

Then, the English department had some of our most exceptional English speaking students give a 

re-enactment of the story of our school's foundation.

After this, everyone went home.

Day 2:
Although few official classes occurred, I saw several presentations by outside agencies.  For example, the police came to give students an anti-drug presentation.

Day 3:
Sports Day!  All students competed in different running races at two different parks or stadiums around town.  Remember, there's over 4,800 students to accomodate in our school.  I don't have any pictures of this because I had expected to run!

Day 4:
7:30 am - Foundation Day Parade and Solemn Ceremony

The administrations, staff, band and the seniors participated in a solemn parade and ceremony to honor our founders.  Students carrying the school's insignia designed in flowers and the school flags led the parade throughout the streets of Ibarra. 

Next came the drum corps.

The students were dressed in their formal uniforms.

I see many of my Senior Boys in this picture.
They are watching me while trying not to get out of step. 

Next came the administration and all the teachers walking formally in designated lines.

Finally, our flag bearers. 

We paraded through the center of town and around the Obelisk. 

This is the main Pan-American Highway that goes right through the center of Ibarra.  If you didn't know, the Pan-American Highway is an almost contiguous highway that stretches from North America to the southern tip of South America linking all the Pacific coastal countries.  As you can see, we stopped traffic on this highway for a little while. 

Finally, at the Laguna Mall, we reached our destination.  There, in front of the Pizza Hut, is a bust of Marino Acosto, one of our school's founding fathers. 

To pay him tribute, we listened to speeches, a retelling of the story of our foundation, and then we sang the school song.  After that, we continued our parade down the Pan-American Highway.

A little further down the street is a bust of Teodoro Gomez.  Here, students gave passionate speeches and musical performances; all to give thanks to this great visionary.

After the procession, all teachers and seniors were invited to return to a large concert hall in the city for an award ceremony.  Students received awards for academic and athletic accomplishments.  Teachers received plaques for 25 years of service or retirement.  There was musical performances and lots of speeches.

After the ceremony, teachers were then invited to a large banquet center for a luncheon feast, complete with dancing and Red Label Whiskey.  I'm not kidding.  After the lunch, the tables were cleared, and literally upended so that there'd be more room to dance and drink the afternoon away.  Ecuadorian teachers really know how to have fun!

Below, I've posted two different videos of the singing of the school song and chant during the solemn ceremony.  If you do not see them below, you will need to go to onthewingadventures.blogspot.com to get the full effect.  The second video shows the school chant that embodies the patriotism for our school.  With this chant, students are honoring el Patrón, Teodoro Gomez, as our boss or master.  "Patrón" is also the beloved nickname for our school, as the student body considers themselves the best, or master over all others.  School pride and competitiveness is very important in Ecuador and it is especially exemplified at the high-school level.  After 4 days of history and festivities, I certainly felt a little pride in being a "Teodorista" myself.

 

Colada Morada

During the holiday of El Día de Los Difuntos, or Day of the Deceased, families gather together to remember and visit their relatives at the cemetery - see previous post.  But they also spend time together celebrating each other.  In many households, it is the tradition to cook a sweet, thick, fruity drink called Colada Morada.  To learn more about any Ecuadorian tradition, I always ask my Spanish Teacher, Leticia.  So, when I asked her about this special drink, she invited me to her home to find out for myself.  I spent all day cooking and learning and laughing with her wonderful family.  I'm so grateful to them for sharing their day with me. 

This is Leticia with Solomé, her niece, who is a student at my school.  To make Colada Morada, you start by sorting, cleaning and cooking wild blueberries.  

This is Leticia's daughter Scarlett, cutting a fruit called babaco into chunks.
Babaco is a fruit in the papaya family. 

Everybody in the the family helped to prepare this feast and Leticia's dad, Victor,
was tasked with the pineapple. 

My job was to cut up the strawberries. 

Colada Morada takes a lot of fruit. 

In the meantime, Leticia was adding two different kinds of blackberries to the blueberries and cooking them all together. 

Then, we strained the berries and blended them into a thick syrup. 

I recognize that!  I have seen those herbs being sold in bunches on the street corners.  Leticia's mom, Maria, and her sister, Marcela, put them into a pot with water, and added the peelings and cores of all the fruits we had cut up.  They also added cinnamon sticks and cloves,
cooking it together for a long time to make a flavorful broth.

In the meantime, her brother and dad, both named Victor, had started a fire outside on the grill.  

The pureed berries and strained broth were all added to a mixture of sugar and corn flour.

Finally, we added the chunked up fruit mixture and cooked and stirred for a long time.  To keep the coals intense, I watched Leticia's brother blow air through a pipe.  Ingenious!

Meanwhile, Marcela started cooking pristiños, small fried bread, to accompany our fruity treat. 

I was helping make the bread and decided to make my own version of "Guagua de Pan"

When all was cooked, we filled our mugs and had a feast on this thick, flavorful drink, which is the definition of "Colada" in Spanish.  "Morada" is the color purple.  Looking at the huge kettle of Colada Morada, I asked Maria how long it will take her family to drink all of that.  
She laughed, and replied, "It will be gone in less than a week."
It was delicious!

Dia de los Difuntos

November 2nd: Some know it as All Souls' Day.  In Mexico, it's El Día de Los Muertos.  In Ecuador, it's called El Día de Los Difuntos, or Day of the Deceased.  No matter what you call it, it's an important holiday in the Latino culture celebrating family both dead and alive.  Ecuador likes to extend this holiday through a long weekend and has a unique set of traditions to celebrate it in a big way.

First, El Día de los Difuntos is the day to remember relatives, both living and dead.  Families do this by gathering all together at the cemetery.  On this day, some believe that the souls of their relatives return to their gravesite to reconnect with family.  Since death is seen as a natural progression of life, the souls of the deceased are still living, just not in a body on Earth.  Therefore, it's important for those of us in this life to keep in touch with them, as these dead relatives can care for
and protect those who are still on Earth.

With this in mind, I asked a teacher friend to take me to the cemetery and explain more about the traditions.  On the way, oodles of vendors were selling real and fake flower wreaths and bouquets, sentimental cards, religious blessings, toys and trinkets.  Part of the tradition is to fill the gravesite with things your relatives love.     

Another important part of the tradition is "Guaguas de Pan".  Pronounced "Wa-Wa", these bread rolls are shaped and decorated as swaddled babies. "Guagua" is an indigenous word for "baby". Sometimes, you might see more fancy representatives of dolls for girls, and horses for boys.  Often, these bread rolls are left by the graves, but many more are shared among the family.  For at least three weeks leading up to this holiday, every bakery on every corner was promoting their special "Guaguas".  The bread is sweet and yummy, sometimes filled with a fruit marmalade.

Some families bring food to share, leaving a plate for the deceased.  This stand is selling typical "hornado" or pulled pork.  Bringing platters of food is most prominently done in the cemeteries of the Indigenous families.  I chose not to go to that type of cemetery with my camera, because I felt I would be too obtrusive taking photos of families sitting amongst the gravestones eating, 
while connecting to the afterlife.  Instead, I went to a Mestizo cemetery, made up of primarily Catholic and other Christian families of mixed European ancestry.  
These families tend to bring gifts to the cemetery, but not food.

One of the first things I heard as I entered the cemetery was the bells.  People stand in long lines to ring the bells to honor their relatives, or call the spirits of their family home. 

I wandered through two different cemeteries for most of the morning, watching families gather together to clean the glass, replace the momentos, repaint the lettering on the gravestones,
laugh and pray together.  I was so touched by this beautiful tradition
to just take a day out of our busy lives to pause and remember. 

This gravesite was filled with planted pots of flowers and cut flowers placed right into the ground.  Obviously this person is very loved!

At the end of the day, the cemeteries were beautiful. 

Something else I learned on this day, was that in Ecuadorian culture, it's very common to bury a person in a cemetery, renting the plot or the tomb for perhaps 10 or more years.  Then, the family gathers together for a ceremony to exhume the body.  The remaining bones are placed in a much smaller box and either returned to a smaller tomb in the cemetery or interred in a church or other location.  Remember, there is no spiritual reason against this practice since your relatives are still living in the afterlife.  They don't need their Earthly body any longer.  

The practical reason to do this is to save space, so the cemeteries never fill up.  

Yet another example of the incredible resourcefulness of this country!

Around the cemetery, I also saw many vendors selling bunches of herbs.  I wondered what this was.  The next day.... I found out!  Stay tuned for El Día de los Difuntos, Part 2 in my next post!