Rhianna Banana

Multimedia

In this video, Lindsay, Trent and I demonstrate some common gestures here in Ecuador. This was all Janet´s idea. Here are her explanations of what the gestures mean in order of their appearance in the video:

Ojo! Ojo means eye and this gesture is used to tell you to be careful as in...look around!

Coño. (I didn´t know this gesture, but Trent insisted on it and it is quite fun to see..so here it is.) It means you are cheap. So, if you are having lunch with someone and they aren´t going to pay for you, you might give them this gesture.

No. No means no, but the gesture here is the shame shame no, when really it doesn´t ALWAYS mean a shaming no. Some volunteers say that on the coast it´s a bit of a condemning no, but I feel in my community it´s just an easy way to say no. It´s more commonly used than shaking your head no.

Robo. This gesture is used to tell you that there is a robber around, and it´s used to explain what happened to something if it was robbed. A guy was telling me he didn´t have a cell phone anymore and he made this gesture by way of explanation.

A little bit. This is another gesture that I don´t see, but it means I just want to talk to you a little bit. And as Linds is demonstrating...here you will often not hear please or the like, you will get a whine or maybe a whiny face.

A donde va? Where are you going? I see this alot since I ride in trucks and people will often do this gesture to us, wanting to know where we are going. I love this one for some reason.

The Lip Point. This drives a lot of people crazy, but I kinda like it. Especially when I was on crutches, it was helpful. So, people here point with their lips or they sometimes just turn their head towards whatever it is to point. (Filipinos also use this gesture. You can see that I have more experience with this one and do it better than the others!)

Venga. Venga means come here. The venga can be confusing to gringos because some people´s venga gesture looks like a shoo! or get away gesture.

The fuerte. I call this the fuerte or the muy, but it has no name that I know of and most volunteers don´t know how to translate it exactly. Trent called it the chuta. Chuta is used here like we would use SHOOT! So this gesture seems to be used when something is extreme. So here are some examples of when you would use this. If something is really funny, especially at someone else´s expense, you would do this. If there is a close call, as in something dangerous, you would do this. But it´s probably mostly used to denote something bad, or hard or difficult. I need to make the gesture just trying to explain it!

No hay. No hay means there is no....or there are no... and you use this phrase and gesture ALL the time. If a bus is full and I´m trying to flag them down and they have no seats available, they will give me the no hay. If you holler over to a friend to see if someone else is at the house and they aren´t there, they can simply give you the no hay. (This is my personal favorite. My dad loved it too, and learned to use it when he was visiting me.)

Janet is very creative. In addition to coming up with the idea for this video, she also thought up a moniker for Maggie and I, since we are usually inseparable at Peace Corps functions: Magriana. People sometimes get Maggie and I confused, since we are panas (Kichwa for best friends), occasionally dress alike, and have the same songs on our ipods. So, having a joint name will probably make things less confusing for everyone.

I have been spending more time with Janet, which is great because she is hilarious and wonderful. Another added bonus of hanging out with Janet is that we simultaneously make Trent and Lindsay jealous. Maggie doesn’t get as jealous as she should; she really should keep in mind that Magriana could very easily become Arianet (which was also thought up by Janet).

Lately it seems like my friends and I have been so distracting that we’ve caused a few minor accidents. I was talking to Stephanie in Cuenca and a guy was staring so intently at us that he ran into a pole. There are lots of gringos in Cuenca, so I don’t know why we stood out to him. Another incident occurred when my dad was here, while we were visiting the nearby forest preserve, La Perla. The owner’s daughter was not watching where she was going because she was looking at me, so she also walked into a pole. That was kindof sad because she started crying. But it is not my fault that I am so funny looking that people have to stare! Then another time, Lindsay and I were walking down a street in Santo Domingo and we saw a group of guys ahead of us, and I knew that we wouldn’t be able to pass by them without being bothered in some way. As we approached, one guy started crossing the road to our side of the street and he was staring and seemed to be concentrating on what he was going to say to us. He also wasn’t looking where he was going, so he tripped on the curb and stumbled a little. Lindsay and I and his friends laughed at him, but he did manage to stammer out one word in English, hello. That made me very happy, since usually I am just annoyed after being harassed on the street.

In addition to causing people to trip and run into poles, some people (i.e. Pierre) have wondered what I am doing during my mini-retirement here in Ecuador. Well, I’ve been watching So You Think You Can Dance (my new favorite show), making cakes for Trent, Lucy, and Belkis’ birthdays, looking for a job, and cooking up evil schemes. My evil schemes always involve Pierre. First I thought that Pierre and I should elope so that he would have to do my taxes for me next year. But that was silly because my taxes should be easy next year, and people would probably get mad at us if we eloped. Then I decided that I will teach our children Spanish so that we’ll have a secret language that Pierre won’t understand and we can tell each other secrets and make fun of him =). Pierre retaliated by saying that he would teach our kids German. However, my Spanish is much better than his German, and our kids can practice their Spanish with my Peace Corps friends and Cindy and Julia, and Pierre will have to ask Maggie C. to speak to them in German. So, I win!

Pierre is going to be here in 18 days, woohoo! I will be able to irritate him in person rather than just over the phone. I think I like to annoy him because I am the baby of the family and that’s just what we like to do. Leonor asked me when Pierre was visiting and after I told her, her daughter acted like she didn’t know whom I was talking about. She met Pierre last year, so I told her, you know my novio (novio is used interchangeably here for serious boyfriend and fiancé). She asked me if my novio is Trent, whom she met when he came to La Asuncion to work on the school garden. I told her that no, Trent is my husband, and Pierre is my novio. 2 guys for every girl!

posted by Unknown @ Monday, December 03, 2007