Feliz Año Nuevo!
WOW….where to start.
Ecuadorian New Years. It´s just too much to handle in one night.
I´ll try to explain it as best as I can.
The best place to really experience New Years is on the streets. My host family took me out in the car so that I could see the mayhem for myself. The first Ecuadorian tradition is that men dress up as women (called viudas), fake breasts and all, and dance all over your car for money! Once you give them some change they move out of the streets to let you pass by. Crazy!
The other part of the New Years street life is the año viejo doll. Each family makes a life size doll stuffed with paper or bark chips and burns it at midnight to simbolize the burning of the old year. Some families, however, go all out! They set up huge displays on the streets with año viejo dolls as tall as houses. The most popular display was a huge Michael Jackson doll surrounded by speakers that would blast out songs like Thriller and Billie Jean.
After experiencing the chaos of the city, my family drove me back home (after giving out all our spare change to the viudas). Once at home, we had a big family dinner and got ready for the New Year.
Ten minutes before the new year we all went up to the terrace so that we could burn our año viejo doll. We also brought up a huge bag of grapes because another tradition here is to eat twelve grapes at midnight. For each grape you eat, you get a wish.
Around midnight (we weren´t really sure the exact time because everyones cell phone said something different), we set our año viejo doll on fire and quickly stuffed the twelve grapes into our mouths. The city errupted in fireworks, which was quite funny because the president had just made fireworks illegal. The view from the terrace was amazing and for a full ten minutes, everwhere you looked there were bright flashes of colored lights. Amazing!
Afterwards I headed back downstair to get ready to go out. On New Years, the parties don´t start until 2 in the morning! I met up at a friends house and we got ready to usher in the New Year by dancing and partying until 6 in the morning. The next day I slept until 3 p.m…
It was by far the most exciting New Years I´ve ever had, and I´m sure 2010 will be a great year!
Feliz Año Nuevo!
Happy New Year!
Alex
