Today a friend and I went shopping downtown for Jairo’s birthday present. My parents wanted me to get Jairo a present from them so I decided I would get him a little gift package of guitar stuff from them. I invited her along for two main reasons: First, it’s not that safe to walk around downtown Quito by yourself, and second, I know nothing about guitar stuff, and she does.
So, off we went, with Jairo completely oblivious to what was really going on, to buy his presents. It was a fun day and we ended up getting Jairo some pretty cool guitar stuff which I think he’s going to be pretty excited about.
While we were out, my friend asked me a question about Ecuadorian culture. She was having a situation with someone that she wanted to know whether it was a culture thing or a person being annoying thing. Turns out we had a good laugh as I explained this aspect of Ecuadorian culture to her which was making her suffer.
You see, elderly ladies here in Ecuador are all pretty much alike. I don’t say that to be stereotypical, it’s actually scary how alike they are. I’ll give examples from my own life. Every time I get sick, whether it’s a cold, the flu, a stomach ache, a headache, whatever, there’s an elderly woman from my church who always tells me it’s because I eat too many limes. I’m not sure why she thinks I eat too many limes since I think she’s never seen me eat a lime, but whatever happens, it’s the limes. I think even if I got shot it would be the limes.
Our pastor’s wife is an elderly woman, and recently I was telling her about a sickness I had had a few weeks back. It just so happened that I had bad headaches and would get really dizzy, to the point that I had to stay in bed. To me it seems like a migraine kind of thing, but her response was that I’m pregnant. Now, I don’t think that’s terribly off-base as far as looking at the symptoms, but I insisted that I was not pregnant. I know this for a fact, one, because I’ve had two periods since then, and two, because we’re pretty careful about that stuff. However, she was convinced that I was pregnant and just trying to hide it. I’m not sure if that’s what the whole church thinks now, but I’m not too worried about it because I’m pretty sure that in nine months when no baby is born, that will be the end of that.
Basically, elderly ladies here are extremely opinionated on things that make no sense, and very bossy, too. I remember one time they were selling food after church to raise money. I had eaten a plate already and was full. Apparently some food was left over so the pastor’s wife came up to me and asked if I wanted more. I politely told her no thank you, that I was already full, and she continued to insist that I eat more. I continued to insist that I was full and didn’t want more. I saw no end in sight to this argument and had no intention of eating more because I was stuffed, so I said to her, “You know, the Bible says that eating when you’re not hungry is a sin!” and finally she left me alone.
Even so, although sometimes it really makes you want to scream or hit someone, these elderly women are also very loving and very eager to take care of others. I think it’s almost an even trade. Almost.
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