The Markets

My favorite experience from Saturday was visiting the first indigenous market. It was very interesting to see what all of the women and men from the indigenous peoples are able to make by hand. So many of the products were very beautiful and unique, things you are very unlikely to find anywhere else. It was also very cool to see just how high of quality the products were. I enjoyed communicating with them and Spanish and practicing my numbers. Everyone I spoke with was very welcoming and seemed happy to have us there.
One thing I learned about the culture from Otavalo was about the gold beads the women wear around their necks and what they mean. The number of necklaces and size of the beads describe the social status of the woman wearing them. I originally thought the necklaces were for decoration, but knowing the meaning behind the jewelry made them seem much more important and beautiful. From our dinner, I learned just how difficult it is to make indigenous food. After reading the Claudia's personal cookbook and seeing how many steps and ingredients went into every dish, I had an even larger appreciation for Claudia welcoming us to her house and for how elaborate traditional Ecuadorian food is. I also enjoyed learning about the reasons behind why the band dressed the way they did and played the music that they did.
My initial reaction to the cuy was definitely ethnocentric because I was afraid of how it looked. I made an exception to my personal belief of not eating red meat in order to try the cuy because I thought it would be a good learning experience and I feel as if doing so helped me to step away from some of my ethnocentric feelings about the food choices. It also seems to be very ethnocentric that we want to take pictures of the people in addition to taking pictures of the scenery. I feel like I need to be more present instead of taking photos of everything.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Carly V.- Blog Post #16

In blog post #4 Carly mentions how her family will hug and kiss people, even those they do not know. This is a way to use gestures as a form on communication, even if you do not share the same language. I though that this example showed effective intercultural communication. Because I did not speak much Spanish before going on the trip, using this form of communication was a large part of how I navigated conversations and relationships with the people that I met.  In blog post #6 Caitlin also displayed an effective form of intercultural communication. In her post she was referring to her time at Neque y Mas Neque. Because she was not completely confident in her Spanish speaking abilities, she found other ways to connect and communicate with the children. For her, this alternative form of communication came from dance. Dance was a universal form of communication between her culture, and the  culture of the ...
Read more

Meng - Blog 16

1. In Paige's Blog(#14), she mentioned that she used some nonverbal communication to communicate with teachers when they were cooking. It is an effective way of intercultural communication. I totally agree that sometimes, if you don't know how to express yourself, body language helps a lot, and it even works better than language. 2. In Blog12, Tyessa said that she feel not close with her host family, and usually, they don't communicate with each other too much, which makes she felt upset because she wants to get closer to them. In my points of view, it can be seen as an ineffective communication. I think in the process of communicating with people, sometimes you should learn to be proactive. Break the silence first, and take the initiative to communicate with others. If you are especially enthusiastic about other people, they will feel it. 3. An example of effective communication came from  Linsey. She talked about how the communication way changed ...
Read more

Blog Post Fourteen: The Market, Neque y Mas Neque, and Cooking

Image
Neque y Mas Neque The Mercado Artisinal is a great metaphor for Ecuadorian culture. The market is filled with handmade clothing, blankets, pottery, jewelry, and so many more items that are staples of Ecuadorian culture. All of these items also tend to be made or filled with bright colors which is common here in Ecuador. Another way the Mercado Artisinal is a metaphor for Ecuadorian culture is the fact that you negotiate the price of the item. In Ecuador, it is common to negotiate prices in markets, at street vendors, and even in taxis. The biggest thing I learned from the kids while working at Neque is that it doesn’t matter whether a kid comes from the U.S., Germany, or Ecuador or whether they are in poverty, the middle class, or they are rich, they are all the same. Every kid wants to play, to learn, and to have someone care about them and take an interest in their life. During our time at Neque I also learned that doing service work, no matter the size of your contribution,...
Read more