Que Viva la Chiva!
Que Viva!!
If you ever find yourself in Ecuador and want to express that something is cool just yell out, ¨Que viva ____¨whatever your item is. For example if you saw a Benz and wanted to say that is was cool you would just yell out ¨Que viva La Benz!!¨Then comes the fun part. If no one says anything than you basically can acknowledge the fact that you are not cool. However, if an Ecuadorian yells out, ¨Que Viva!¨Then you know that you are part of the ¨in¨ crowd. It basically means, ¨Long live the Benz,¨and the reply is something like ¨Forever!¨
So what, might you ask, is a chiva? The fun part is that it has no direct translation in English. The closest I can get you is ¨party bus.¨Throughout Ecuador, and especially on the coast, people love chivas, and this past weekend I found out why.
A chiva is about the size of a mini school bus. The front is your basic everyday truck driver´s comparment: steering wheel, bench seat, no seatbelts, and a rear view mirror. However the driver´s column pulls one of the most fun things known to mankind. The back is completely open aired roofed benches with small wooded doors to prevent people from falling our. The benches have small paddings if you are lucky and almost look like a row of pews in a church. The roof of a chiva, however is where the serious action happens. The roof is completely open aired with a bench that traverses the outer edges. On top of the driver´s cabin is an open space perfect for a live band.
That´s right. You basically have a band that sits on top of a bus playing their little Ecuadorian hearts out, while everyone else can climb in and out of the passenger cabin to and from the roof like children on a jungle gym. In fact the only thing that a chiva has besides seats and a band is all you can drink fire water, or aguadiente as it is referred to hear in Ecuador. It has the taste of ANIS, which is closest to black licorice, but actually goes down quite easily with a little gaseosa, or soft drink. I imagine that the Chiva´s design either influenced or came out of a safari car, but Ecuador is really on to something here. If they sold these in the states, chiva rides would easily be minimum a monthly activity.
Anyway my first chiva ride took place in Quito after the bull fight. We met some of our friend´s English classes to form about a twenty person mob ready willing and able to chiva it up for the Quito´s festivals. Quick note about hanging out with Ecuadorians. They absolutely love practicing their English, which is one of the nicest things about being here. Even if people have had their whole lives to study English in schools, they just cannot duplicate the experience here of relating to an English speaker. Every time I meet an Ecuadorian who is trying to learn English I immediately feel validated in my experience. In fact I have several English professors in my classes that know the ins and outs of English grammar, but have huge pronounciation problems. I now realize and am so thankful that I had native Spanish speakers for all of my Spanish classes growing up. It makes such a huge difference and I am glad that I can help out the people of this country in the same way that my Spanish teachers helped me.
Anyway the chiva rolled up and my first thought was suprise. It´s really not very big at all. Probably the size of one of those Airporter shuttles. The band is also hilarious. They remind me of this one scene from the Beatles´cartoon, Yellow Submarine, when they first unfreeze Seargeant Pepper´s lonely Hearts´Club Band before they go on to defeat the Blue Meanies. The band all wears colorful clothing, bobs up and down, while playing basic party\carnival tunes. I was delighted.
I started off my chiva experience on the passenger pew set up downstairs part. It´s a great place to chat with friends and shoot the breeze while passing around some beverages. Have I mentioned yet that the word ¨germ¨doesn´t exist in Ecuadorian Spanish? Every time you share something with someone it comes out of the same bottle. For example if I went out for drinks with four of my friends and we ordered fou beers, we would start with the first bottle and pour just enough beer into each of our respective glassses to kill the first bottle. Then we would move on to the second, third, and fourth. I actually like the comraderie of it all. An added plus is that the beer stays colder because you dont have someone grabbing it with their hands every couple of seconds.
Just as we were all settling in someone revved up the lets go dancing chant, so we stopped in a local square and all started running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Eventually we formed a circle and started doing the bunny hop at my urging. I had flashes of the Pide Piper of Hamlin as I lead the Ecuadorians around and around the circle.
For the rest of the ride I boarded the roof. The capacity is probably close to 12 people. We had probably 25. Everyone was falling all over each other as we chitty chitty bang banged around the streets of Quito. I am convinced that I am having a better time than Pat Swayze had in Dirty Dancing. Every two seconds or so someone would yell out a ¨Que Viva¨chant and we would all respond in unison. Eventually ¨Que viva¨transformed into ¨Que Beba ____,¨which basically means ¨I hope _____ gets drunk.¨
The funniest part of my chiva experience in Quito again involved being six inches taller than everyone and their mother. Since we had so many people on the roof, there was no way that we could all sit down, so some people had to stand up. Thus as I was taking my shift standing up I took a telephone wire to the forehead. No one else even came close to brushing the wires with their hair, but I took one square in my forehead´s brow. Lucky for me my pre evolutionary gift simply let the telephone wire slide right off my head without toppling me over. (Man I bet my friends will get a kick out of that one). I also didn´t have to take any more shifts standing up, which is always a huge plus. Even the cops waved at us and celebrated. It was awesome. Never could happen in the states.
My second chiva ride of the weekend landed me in Ibarra on the way to Hosteria Tulquizan. Basically teachers are supposed to schedule one field trip for their class every cycle. As we are drawing near to the end of the fall cycle, I booked a trip for everyone to take a Sunday trip to Tulquizan. 13 dollars for chiva transportation there and back, horseback riding, swimming, lunch, zip lines, sports, fishing, and lounging around.
We all met at my school at 7:30 in the morning and were greeted my super chiva 2000. While our Quito chiva was sort of old and un painted, this one glowed with yellow on a glossy wooden finish. I think that Garrison Minnesota should scrap its RV show and enter into a Chiva show. These things rule.
The hosteria was cool. We took a chiva ride through a tunnel where we bumped along over the train tracks at 1 mile an hour. We emerged from the tunnel on a mountain with a cable leading down to the building. Every single person got to zip line from the tunnel to the hosteria over a river. The pool was fairly clean, the weather was hot, and I got to have second helping of lunch. Awesome times. Ally also showed me that she is a veteran horseback rider-knowledge completely unknown to me before we showed up.
I also, more importantly got a chance to talk to my students on a more personal level. One of the toughest things about being a teacher is your responsibility to wear different hats-teacher, role model, parent, friend, coach, mentor. Thus at school teachers face difficulties trying to be a friend, when their primary responsibility is to teach. Thus field trips are wonderful, because they really give you a chance to get to know your students in a different light.
I mentioned that I am reading a book my Dad gave me that describes the last 10 years of Ecuador´s history. I have about five pages left, and have found the book fairly interesting, so thus decided to ask my students about the past 10 years, which included 10 presidents, two near violent demonstrations, bank collapses, dollarization, near anarchy, unbelievable corruption, and an oil boom. Their descriptions are heart wrenching. Though things seem to be improving now from what I can see, the last 10 years were brutal for Ecuadorian citizens. My students answered my questions simply with statements like, ¨Things were absolutely miserably bad. You cannot even imagine.¨I hope I am helping them out on some level. These people have been through a lot.
I also got a chance to talk to my students about movies, books, TV, and everything else you talk about with your friends. They insinuated that there actually isn´t a whole lot to do in Ibarra. However, this January, our local soccer team is moving up to the highest soccer level. Thus we are going to get the nation´s best teams competing at our local stadium. A mere ten minute bus ride from my house.
Maybe I will get to take a chiva.
If you ever find yourself in Ecuador and want to express that something is cool just yell out, ¨Que viva ____¨whatever your item is. For example if you saw a Benz and wanted to say that is was cool you would just yell out ¨Que viva La Benz!!¨Then comes the fun part. If no one says anything than you basically can acknowledge the fact that you are not cool. However, if an Ecuadorian yells out, ¨Que Viva!¨Then you know that you are part of the ¨in¨ crowd. It basically means, ¨Long live the Benz,¨and the reply is something like ¨Forever!¨
So what, might you ask, is a chiva? The fun part is that it has no direct translation in English. The closest I can get you is ¨party bus.¨Throughout Ecuador, and especially on the coast, people love chivas, and this past weekend I found out why.
A chiva is about the size of a mini school bus. The front is your basic everyday truck driver´s comparment: steering wheel, bench seat, no seatbelts, and a rear view mirror. However the driver´s column pulls one of the most fun things known to mankind. The back is completely open aired roofed benches with small wooded doors to prevent people from falling our. The benches have small paddings if you are lucky and almost look like a row of pews in a church. The roof of a chiva, however is where the serious action happens. The roof is completely open aired with a bench that traverses the outer edges. On top of the driver´s cabin is an open space perfect for a live band.
That´s right. You basically have a band that sits on top of a bus playing their little Ecuadorian hearts out, while everyone else can climb in and out of the passenger cabin to and from the roof like children on a jungle gym. In fact the only thing that a chiva has besides seats and a band is all you can drink fire water, or aguadiente as it is referred to hear in Ecuador. It has the taste of ANIS, which is closest to black licorice, but actually goes down quite easily with a little gaseosa, or soft drink. I imagine that the Chiva´s design either influenced or came out of a safari car, but Ecuador is really on to something here. If they sold these in the states, chiva rides would easily be minimum a monthly activity.
Anyway my first chiva ride took place in Quito after the bull fight. We met some of our friend´s English classes to form about a twenty person mob ready willing and able to chiva it up for the Quito´s festivals. Quick note about hanging out with Ecuadorians. They absolutely love practicing their English, which is one of the nicest things about being here. Even if people have had their whole lives to study English in schools, they just cannot duplicate the experience here of relating to an English speaker. Every time I meet an Ecuadorian who is trying to learn English I immediately feel validated in my experience. In fact I have several English professors in my classes that know the ins and outs of English grammar, but have huge pronounciation problems. I now realize and am so thankful that I had native Spanish speakers for all of my Spanish classes growing up. It makes such a huge difference and I am glad that I can help out the people of this country in the same way that my Spanish teachers helped me.
Anyway the chiva rolled up and my first thought was suprise. It´s really not very big at all. Probably the size of one of those Airporter shuttles. The band is also hilarious. They remind me of this one scene from the Beatles´cartoon, Yellow Submarine, when they first unfreeze Seargeant Pepper´s lonely Hearts´Club Band before they go on to defeat the Blue Meanies. The band all wears colorful clothing, bobs up and down, while playing basic party\carnival tunes. I was delighted.
I started off my chiva experience on the passenger pew set up downstairs part. It´s a great place to chat with friends and shoot the breeze while passing around some beverages. Have I mentioned yet that the word ¨germ¨doesn´t exist in Ecuadorian Spanish? Every time you share something with someone it comes out of the same bottle. For example if I went out for drinks with four of my friends and we ordered fou beers, we would start with the first bottle and pour just enough beer into each of our respective glassses to kill the first bottle. Then we would move on to the second, third, and fourth. I actually like the comraderie of it all. An added plus is that the beer stays colder because you dont have someone grabbing it with their hands every couple of seconds.
Just as we were all settling in someone revved up the lets go dancing chant, so we stopped in a local square and all started running around like chickens with our heads cut off. Eventually we formed a circle and started doing the bunny hop at my urging. I had flashes of the Pide Piper of Hamlin as I lead the Ecuadorians around and around the circle.
For the rest of the ride I boarded the roof. The capacity is probably close to 12 people. We had probably 25. Everyone was falling all over each other as we chitty chitty bang banged around the streets of Quito. I am convinced that I am having a better time than Pat Swayze had in Dirty Dancing. Every two seconds or so someone would yell out a ¨Que Viva¨chant and we would all respond in unison. Eventually ¨Que viva¨transformed into ¨Que Beba ____,¨which basically means ¨I hope _____ gets drunk.¨
The funniest part of my chiva experience in Quito again involved being six inches taller than everyone and their mother. Since we had so many people on the roof, there was no way that we could all sit down, so some people had to stand up. Thus as I was taking my shift standing up I took a telephone wire to the forehead. No one else even came close to brushing the wires with their hair, but I took one square in my forehead´s brow. Lucky for me my pre evolutionary gift simply let the telephone wire slide right off my head without toppling me over. (Man I bet my friends will get a kick out of that one). I also didn´t have to take any more shifts standing up, which is always a huge plus. Even the cops waved at us and celebrated. It was awesome. Never could happen in the states.
My second chiva ride of the weekend landed me in Ibarra on the way to Hosteria Tulquizan. Basically teachers are supposed to schedule one field trip for their class every cycle. As we are drawing near to the end of the fall cycle, I booked a trip for everyone to take a Sunday trip to Tulquizan. 13 dollars for chiva transportation there and back, horseback riding, swimming, lunch, zip lines, sports, fishing, and lounging around.
We all met at my school at 7:30 in the morning and were greeted my super chiva 2000. While our Quito chiva was sort of old and un painted, this one glowed with yellow on a glossy wooden finish. I think that Garrison Minnesota should scrap its RV show and enter into a Chiva show. These things rule.
The hosteria was cool. We took a chiva ride through a tunnel where we bumped along over the train tracks at 1 mile an hour. We emerged from the tunnel on a mountain with a cable leading down to the building. Every single person got to zip line from the tunnel to the hosteria over a river. The pool was fairly clean, the weather was hot, and I got to have second helping of lunch. Awesome times. Ally also showed me that she is a veteran horseback rider-knowledge completely unknown to me before we showed up.
I also, more importantly got a chance to talk to my students on a more personal level. One of the toughest things about being a teacher is your responsibility to wear different hats-teacher, role model, parent, friend, coach, mentor. Thus at school teachers face difficulties trying to be a friend, when their primary responsibility is to teach. Thus field trips are wonderful, because they really give you a chance to get to know your students in a different light.
I mentioned that I am reading a book my Dad gave me that describes the last 10 years of Ecuador´s history. I have about five pages left, and have found the book fairly interesting, so thus decided to ask my students about the past 10 years, which included 10 presidents, two near violent demonstrations, bank collapses, dollarization, near anarchy, unbelievable corruption, and an oil boom. Their descriptions are heart wrenching. Though things seem to be improving now from what I can see, the last 10 years were brutal for Ecuadorian citizens. My students answered my questions simply with statements like, ¨Things were absolutely miserably bad. You cannot even imagine.¨I hope I am helping them out on some level. These people have been through a lot.
I also got a chance to talk to my students about movies, books, TV, and everything else you talk about with your friends. They insinuated that there actually isn´t a whole lot to do in Ibarra. However, this January, our local soccer team is moving up to the highest soccer level. Thus we are going to get the nation´s best teams competing at our local stadium. A mere ten minute bus ride from my house.
Maybe I will get to take a chiva.
posted by ecuadortraveler at 9:31 AM
1 Comments:
You can come back to Ecuador whenever you want mom. Love you.
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