One day I looked out my window and saw this moving flower. I thought it deserved a photograph plus an explanation here about these really cool ants. Leaf cutter ants are common here. I often disrupt their work days by crossing their leaf-carrying trails but do my best to not squish them. Here's the cool thing about them though- they don't eat their leaf (or other plant) snippets as most think. They're actually a society of farmers and use the plant material as nourishment for the cultivation of a fungus that they feed to their larvae. A quick Wikipedia search led me to more cool facts: some types of leaf cutter ants are capable of defoliating an entire citrus tree in 24 hours! (thus are considered a major pest in some places...). They can also tell if certain plant material they feed to their fungus is toxic and will discontinue it's use. Cool huh?

3.29.11 Ecuadorian Fashionistas

Actually Ecuadorian fashionistas don’t really exist…you remember fashion in the 90s? That’s pretty similar to fashion in Tena (slightly modernized). It’s really hot here in Tena- probably around 90 everyday with high humidity. I can’t really wear jeans any day without being extremely uncomfortable and don’t understand how Ecuadorians do it. Unless you have a professional job and are required to wear professional attire, most clothing here is casual. Let me start with women:

About 80% of women you see in Tena are wearing Spandex capris or shorts and tank tops. Most of their clothes are brightly colored and they often have matching brightly colored make-up. Flip flops are common (although high heels are also very common) and most have a nursing baby in a sling over their shoulder as an accessory. From very informal studies, I’ve found about 4 out of 5 women prefer scrunchies to secure their hair.

One thing I really like about Ecuador is that people are much more comfortable with their bodies. It doesn’t matter if a woman is overweight, she still wears her Spandex and no one minds. Being overweight here is just seen as a fact.

There’s not much to say about fashion in Ecuadorian men. Pants and t-shirts are standard. Again according to my informal studies about 30% are normally seen wearing rubber boots and carrying machetes.

All kids are required to wear uniforms to school but afterschool they wear normal kid clothes- usually dirty but shorts, tshirts, dresses.

Gringos (aka foreigners) definitely stick out because of their clothes (I suppose also because of their blue eyes and light hair). But most tourists are seen wearing high tech dry wicking shirts and convertible pants with very secure sandals. Ecuadorians seem to really like American clothes but the American clothes here are nothing special- lots of Hollister t-shirts or t-shirts with vulgar sayings in English (which make me wonder if the wearers actually understand what they say).

On a related note, I mostly do all my laundry by hand here. This usually entails spending an hour or two on the weekends applying bar soap to each piece of clothing, rinsing (usually not thoroughly enough) with water from the mosquito breeding tank that’s outside my house and hanging my clothes up to dry on an outdoor clothesline. I’ve found the lack of a drying machine combined with drying on a clothesline means my clothes are often much larger than they started. When it feels like I could fit another person in my shirts with me, I usually send them to the laundromat to be shrunk a bit. During my first few weeks in Ecuador, this system worked out perfectly. My clothes were growing along with my growing waistline and I hardly noticed any weight gain due to the great increase in carbohydrates in my diet. Washing my clothes by hand is just an example of how much I am learning to really appreciate the ease of life in America. I’m positive I will think back on all these hot Saturday afternoon hours of washing clothes every time I turn that knob to Spin Cycle when I get back.