Alright I'm about to go hard on this frustration part because it is a constant issue here in Ecuador, and it makes me angry pretty much everyday.
Frustration
The most frustrating part about being in Ecuador is the unwanted attention from men on the street, in the bus, out at night, ect. The culture is very different, and yes I understand that I do look foreign, but dealing with the catcalls of sixty year old men does not get easier. The most annoying part is that you are supposed to ignore any attention because even a negative response is seen as flirting because you're engaging with them. I'll break these issues into four categories:
- The obnoxious, blatant staring at my chest or legs. Usually Ecuadorians women wear pants, so when a gringa gets on a bus in shorts, which happens sometimes due to either the fact that it's really hot outside, or I haven't done any laundry and I have nothing left, the men feel that it's alright to stare. I literally had a 2 minute conversation with the man collecting money on the bus, in which he did not look above my chin once.
- The men who hang out of car windows yelling. This category is especially frustrating because when I've complained about it to other Ecuadorians they say I should feel flattered. Yes, there is nothing more flattering than the toothless, balding Ecuadorian farmer in his truck calling me his princesa. Actually, this category can be broken down even more:
- The ones you feel bad for...this would be the toothless farmer, almost anyone over the age of fifty, and anyone who refrains from explaining why they are what I've been missing my whole life. Yes, their advances are awkward and unsettling, but they don't inspire rage, it's more you just want the situation to be over.
- Then, the ones you want to get hit by a bus. They are the younger ones, the ones who think they are entitled to comment on every part of your body, the ones who tell you what they would do to you if you were "theirs"...these are the ones that it is so hard to "just ignore" because every fiber of my being wants to punch them very hard in the face.
- The bus creeps. These are an unfortunately prevalent breed of annoyance, and hard to avoid as the bus is the cheapest mode of transportation. There is nothing more frustrating than standing on a packed bus being pushed back and forth and realizing that someone has intentionally positioned themselves so they are pressed right up against your butt. Even worse, is if they are touching your butt, or your leg, in a weird way and you confront them they act surprised. Like, yes that was me you were touching sir, and yes I prefer my bus rides grope-free as a rule, sorry to shock you.
- The men who you encounter on the street who offer to walk you home. This is the most uncomfortable because it puts you in a very weird situation. It's hard to tell the person who is approaching you with the intention of "protecting" you that they are the person making you feel totally unsafe. When I walk home at night I sometimes pretend I'm either deaf, or speak no spanish.
LOLZ
Alright, that frustration part was very aggressive I know, and not all men in Ecuador are like that obviously, it's just something very hard to adjust to. But, my experience here is overwhelmingly positive, and there are lots of times that laughing happens. I think the best laughs happen when there are language-barrier misunderstandings. My favorite is when people try to directly translate things in conversation, when the direct translation does not mean what they think it means. My favorite example of this happened a few days ago, when one of my Ecuadorian friends was talking about her little cousin. The verb "querer" in Spanish means want, but also is used to say you love someone. So, when in her head she said "Yo lo quiero mucho" talking about her baby cousin, she meant that she loves him very much. When she tried to say this in english though, she just translated querer to want, and the result was her explaining to me how much she wanted her little cousin. She couldn't understand why I was laughing so hard.