Festival de Maíz y Turismo

On my first night in Sangolqui I was lucky enough to arrive at the beginning of the annual festival of Maiz y Turismo(Corn and Tourism). This event began on a Friday night and lasted for the next five days. The climax of the first night was an amazing display of fireworks that took place at one of the city’s soccer stadiums. Canadian fireworks experts beware; if the type of display I saw ever catches on you may be soon out of a job. What occurred is without a doubt the most interesting and inventive fireworks display ever. In Canada we view fireworks as projectiles to be shot into the air and explode into many different colours and shapes. This display, in constrast, was centered around a several meter high metalic structure with hundreds of fireworks and firecracker attached to it. The object of the display was to set of the fireworks but at the same time have the structure collapse as this happened. What at first appeared to be a column, then collapsed into a star, and finally after wild shaking a few big projectiles, finally petered out. All of this was done in accompanyment to traditional music being pumped out on huge speakers. That was the first night.

Saturday morning begun with an endless parade down the main street. Bands palying in exquisite harmony, groups of cowboys on horseback, traditional dancers, some llamas, peoples of all kind, even a giant chicken advertising for McPollo marched on by. Meanwhile people watched from the roofs and sidewalks while vendors hawked food and drinks to everyone in sight. The majority of the parade was made up of men on horseback showing off their riding skils. As they rode by people from the sidewalks would continuously run up to them with cups of alcohol of all kinds and swap drinks with them. This may explain why the horses went mostly sideways instead of foreword although I expect that they might have had something to drink of their own. This mix of people on horesback in the middle of a modern city gave rise to an interesting clash of technology and culture. Having finished the parade and returning on a parallel street a man on horseback lost control of his horse and ended up leaving a huge mark on my the car of my host father. When my host brother confronted him about it the rider either didn´t notice or didn´t care and rode on. If two cars collide you can exchange insurace numbers and move on, but who would bother or even can carry insurance on a horse?

From the parade everyone then proceeded to the arena for an afternoon of racaus bullfighting. It is easy to see how the parade could logically progress to the bullfight. Ecuadorians usually eat a small breakfast consisting of coffee and maybe some bread or other pastry. On a mostly empty stomach they woudl then proceed to ride on horseback in the middle of a hot and sunny day for several hours. All of this was done in long pants, buttoned up shirts, ponchos, hats, and with scarfs around the neck. Add in the massive amounts alcohol and of course who wouldn´t be so drunk that they wouldn´t want to fight a bull? The bullfighting took place in a huge ring surrounded by a hastily built wooden structure held together with twine, wire, and ripped up tshirts. It would flatter this structure to say it looked like something designed by a group of totally plastered Civ. Engs. and found on the back of a napkin in the Bomber bathroom at closing time. Security issues thrown aside, we climbed up the shaky wooden ladder to the third story.

The bullfight in the ring resembled very much a game of soccer, long periods of inactivity followed by a few seconds of intense excitement. If right now you’re thinking of the bullfights in Spain with a lone man singlehandedly fighting a bull, then banish those thoughts from your mind. This event was a hodgepodge of competing interests with a bunch of amateur bullfighters cavorting around the ring. Clearly some of the parade riders had found their way to the ring as there were several people passed out on the ground apparently unaware that there was a made bull running around ready to spear anyone in his way. From my vantage point I could see three types of people in the ring. Some were on horseback who functioned roughly as “officials.” They kept things in order but also did their fair share of antagonizing the bull into running around the ring. There was another group who stood along the sides of the ring and while they did participate, they did not attack the bull and only jumped back into the stands when he came too close. Finally there were those who openly antagonized the bull, threw things at it, pulled at its tail, stabbed it with prongs, and waved red flags in its face. Those were the ones who faced the best chance of getting killed or seriously hurt, and many of them did. One man who decided to ride the bull fell off, and then was completely flipped in the air by the bull. As he lay on the ground he made the mistake of moving and the bull then threw him with his horns again. I didn´t see him die, but I heard later from another student that they saw someone almost die right in front of them.

The overwhelming majority of those involved in the bullfight were men, however a palpitable shock could be felt from the crowd when near the end a lone woman dared to enter the ring and face down the bull with her own cape. This caused a great amount of confusion among many people, in fact it went so much against the culture that many people present strongly disapproved.

Although there was an obvious level of cruetly and stereotypic machochism to the event, I have to admit that it was a lot of fun. The bullfight was an event of collective community experience: when the bull charged everyone in the stadium felt a surge of emotion, together. When someone was hurt the pain was shared by all and the person was quickly pulled off by whoever was nearby. In an individualized North American culture, how often can we say we feel anything like this? How then would I rate the event? I was told that the following scale is used:

one killed= a bad day
two killed= so so
three killed= pretty damn good!

That being said, I’m glad I didn’t take up my friends offer to go into the ring. Eventhough my injury or death could have helped make the day better, I would much prefer being able to explore Ecuador in one piece!