Rebelde concert review
Maggie, Amarilys, Mike, his girlfriend and I went to the Rebelde concert in Quito last weekend. It was amazing! I just wanted to share Maggie's review of the concert with everyone. She wrote it for the Peace Corps Ecuador newsletter, El Clima:
Every once in a while a music group comes along that revolutionizes music and society in general. Whether it is because of inflammatory political lyrics, other-worldly guitar licks and chops, or a new sound that knocks the socks off the critics, these bands create at the least a new genre and at times, a cultural revolution. Rebelde is not one of these groups; the poppy back up band and the achingly cheesy lyrics are enough to make even an elementary listener of music gag slightly. However, as I held my cell phone screen light up swaying softly to “Salvame” along with thousands of screaming fans in Quito, I couldn’t deny that I was having fun.
First of all, let’s get some things straight. Yes, I am 26 years old and no, I am not still in junior high, but embarrassingly, I must admit that the recent Rebelde concert that I attended in Quito was, you might say, my social event of the year! What an experience, tons of screaming teens and pre-teens and us- three 20 something gringas. A shout out to Ariana of Valle Hermosa and Amarilys of Santo Domingo for accompanying me on this journey of a concert. No, Rebelde would not win any competitions based on talent and certainly are not going to add anything substantial to the Latin music community. But I’ll be danged if that concert wasn’t as fun as tying hogs! (I don’t know if that is really a saying, but neither do any of you so it works). There were crazy hot choreographed dances, pyrotechnics – fireworks shooting into the ceiling of the coliseum keeping time with the poppy beat, the back up band was rockn’ out, and the stadium was filled with the energy of thousands of screaming fans. In other words and also in the words of Miguelalto, lead singer of San Diego’s own Fuzzy Raisins, Rebelde “Ruled”.
Some of you might recall that during Omnibus 95 Reconnect some of my fellow Peace Corps friends and I performed a dance to the internationally popular Rebelde hit “Soy Rebelde”! We are thinking about getting back together for our COS conference next year- I know many of you had hoped for an earlier reunion, but unfortunately we are having a “thing” with our agent and that is the soonest we can schedule anything concrete.
Some of you reading this might be asking yourself, “Does this article have a point?” Well anyone that knows me very well has already realized that most of my stories lack this very important aspect and you of course are not asking this question. But, for the rest of you well, this article is not so much a review as simply a sharing of an experience. I don’t think hidden within this mumbo jumbo is any deep moral truth and although it is tempting, I won’t try and find some unrelated closure to my article by relating it to some unrelated something that is meant to make us all warm and fuzzy inside. But, hey if you get the chance and have a stash of your monthly living allowance that you haven’t used, a Rebelde concert isn’t the worst way you could spend your money!
Maggie
Chuquipata
Galapagos!
Pierre and I are engaged! We went to the Galapagos at the beginning of this month and Pierre proposed one night when we were walking along the beach at sunset. He timed it so that it was the night of the full moon, so we had the full moon on one horizon and the sunset on the other. We had climbed to the top of a lookout point, and that's where Pierre popped the question. We were surrounded by volcanic rocks and marine iguanas blowing snot rockets. Very romantic no?(Marine iguanas are the world's only ocean-going lizards. They swim out in to the surf to eat algae and have special glands to remove salt from their bodies. They get rid of the salt by blowing snot rockets.)
Pierre and I are thinking Chicago summer 2009, somewhere outside along the Lake Michigan waterfront. Save the date! It would be awesome if the Cubs are in town that weekend, and also a Wilco concert. I have decided that I am not going to a bridezilla. Instead, I am going to be the great delegator. So that everyone can start thinking about their role, here are the tasks I´ve already assigned:
Grandpa Rickard: minister
Nathan: all playlists
Julia: flowers
Sasha: all fashion decisions, picking out outfits for entire wedding party
Cindy: writing the letter to Wilco asking them to perform or attend the wedding (She wrote the letter to DMB inviting them to Nathan and Julia´s wedding, so she has experience in this sort of thing)
Carrie: catering decisions
Jamie & Kristin: bachelorette party, you know what i want
Mollie: invitations
Rakhi: choreographing all dance-offs at reception
Pierre and I had a great time in the Galapagos. The highlight for me was snorkeling with sea turtles and seeing the penguins. I also think my brief time there bleached parts of my hair. Or maybe it's because I dyed my hair reddish in September. For the first time in my life, parts of my hair are blonde! Very weird. Here´s a link to my pictures:
http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9BZuGjRo2ZDgPierre's photos are much more organized and informative than mine. He also went a little crazy with Google Earth:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=6356k91.4e7n59r1&x=0&h=1&y=hinr6qThe Peace Corps gossip chain is very quick. I told a couple of people my good news, and pretty soon everyone heard about it. One of the Peace Corps nurses congratulated me yesterday, and I have no idea who told her.
I am currently in Quito to hang out with some friends and celebrate the new group of trainees swearing in as volunteers. It's kindof sad, because at the last swear-in celebration, lots of people from my training group came and it was super fun. Last night, there were only 4 people from my group at the party. My group has been dropping like flies. We started off with 35, and now we are down to 26. My friend Joseph went home last month. He was my 3rd good friend to go home. First Michelle, then Mike, and now Joseph. Both Mike and Joseph were in my Rebelde dance group. My group is falling apart! But I know who I want to recruit to replace them, if we ever need to perform again =) Mike is actually back in Ecuador visiting this month, so he, Maggie, Mike's girlfriend, Amarilys and I are going to see Rebelde today in Quito! I'm very excited. Should be us and thousands of screaming pre-teens and teenagers. It'll be awesome!
Joseph's departure was tough. But I still haveMaggie, Trent, Lindsay, and Nick when he's not being a brat. And I've been using my tried-and-true coping mechanisms: journaling, reading, private dance parties, and the O.C. (I wonder if Pierre will join me for my private dance parties when we're living together or just run away scared like my cats.)
But I can't complain. I'm going to Machu Picchu next weekend with Nathan and Julia. And I did go to the Galapagos this month. The Galapagos and Machu Picchu in the same month! They don't call it the Posh Corps for nothing. I have 11 months left of my service (but who's counting?) and I'm going to make 3 more trips to the Amazon, plus a Galapagos cruise with my family, and 4 more groups of visitors to entertain. So I should be busy and not too lonely.
I'm still working on the same projects I've been doing for awhile now, and starting some new ones. I started the botany and herpetology projects at the nearby forest preserve, which is fun. I´m starting a computer class next month and I´ll start teaching English again next week.
Happy Spring!
