Compression

According to a note attached to my MRI (just $11 here in Ecuador), I’ve been diagnosed with something called syndrome de hiperpresion rotuliana bilateral, or lateral hyperpressure syndrome of the patella.  It may also be called patellar compression syndrome, I’m not entirely sure.  Regardless, most of these words mean little to anyone without an M.D.  My Internet searches mostly yielded abstracts of medical journal articles.  From what I can deduce, my patella is somewhat off track and out of proper alignment.  Most likely, it’ll necessitate a minor surgery.  I’ll know much more after yet another doctor appointment tomorrow afternoon, this time with a knee specialist.

I’m finding the whole thing quite discouraging.  Chasing down information in a language I don’t know perfectly, resting my knee, icing my knee, and waking up early to do strengthening exercises.  And still no clear idea of when I’ll be able to return to running and full athletic activity.

I love running for many reasons.  Foremost among them, however, is the clarity it provides.  So often, as I go about whatever I’m doing, there’s a secondary conversation running through my mind.  Is this the best use of my time?  Is this fun?  Is this productive? That nagging analysis, constantly weighing the benefits of a given activity or moment.  Running blocks out that voice like few other things I’ve found.  And, as I wait out this injury, I’m not too sure where to look to replicate that soothing mental silence.  At times I’ve found it in writing, and maybe I now will again.

Monday morning matador

El Juli dedicating the bull before beginning

This Monday, my students were animatedly discussing Sunday’s bullfight much the way my 8^th grade classmates and I would dissect the Super Bowl on the first Monday of football offseason.  Arguments, re-enactments, digital cameras pulled from pockets to show pictures, frustration for those who hadn’t been there in person and pride and relief for those who had.

I numbered among the live witnesses, though I mostly stayed out of the conversation.  El Juli, a preeminent Spanish fighter, took the sixth bull of the day and the last bull of the nine-day, 54 bull event.  He’d already dispatched his two bulls for the afternoon, graceful and polished but not spectacular.  However, an Ecuadorian fighter had been gored in the wrist and was unable to return for his second bull.

El Juli took complete advantage of the opportunity.  I’ll try to avoid the superlatives, but he seemed to have this bull on an invisible rope.  They were in absolute harmony, and the crowd was enraptured.  Normally, spectators begin to filter out the exits on the sixth bull.  No one moved.  No one spoke, except to whisper unbelieving compliments to those beside them.  The bull earned its freedom for its exceptional performance and bravery.  El Juli earned two ears and a tail, (from a bull killed earlier in the day) the highest possible honor.  The bullfight staff hoisted him on their shoulders to carry him out the exit.  Kids jumped into the ring to snap cell phone photos from the closest possible point.

Outside the ring, we walked past a meager protest crowd, shouting complaints and indictments of our complicity to torture, to murder.  Part of me agrees with them, yes.  But we’d seen something nearly magical in there, something impossibly difficult and beautiful.  And, for the moment, their hoarse voices did nothing to break the spell we were all under.

Raising up

The set up

Injury Updates

Two or three times a week, I check out the injury reports for my fantasy football team.  Next to each player’s name, there’s a link with the most recent updates.  I’ve paid close attention to Cedric Benson’s hip and Brian Westbrook’s concussions.  And it’s a bizarre thing, these injuries becoming commodities, only dimly and distantly associated with an actual human body.  When Michael Jordan returned to play for the Wizards, he received clandestine treatment for knee pain.  He guarded his doctor visits like national security secrets, scared that opponents would try to exploit the injury.  Tom Brady’s knee surgery last year became one of the bigger stories of the year.  Same with Kevin Garnett’s undisclosed knee problems in the playoffs last year.  These joints take on a life of their own, become a story separate from the athlete.  And it must feel strange to have your pain, your recovery, and your ongoing treatment become matters of such intense public interest.

Knee pain has been of particular interest to me recently.  I’ve completed six sessions of physical therapy, submitting my knee to heat, ice, analgesic rub, electrodes, and some sort of hollow tubing around my knees – not entirely sure of the purpose of that one.  Best-case scenario, I’ll make a gradual return to running by late next week.  Worst-case, I’ll try to run and feel the same pain that brought me to physical therapy in the first place.  If that happens, I’ll be back for more tests and more treatment.  Throughout the day, my thoughts turn to my knee.  Often subconsciously, I reach down to feel my knee as if I can understand the mysteries contained there with a few pokes.  Today, while reading the myth of Perseus aloud, one student asked me why I kept shaking out my left leg.  I sidestepped the question, brought us back to Andromeda’s rescue and Perseus’ killing spree with Medusa’s severed head.  These characters certainly had bigger problems than mine, but for a few rare moments there my students were more interested in the content than me.

Three updates

CHIVA

Our ride

 

It’s a bizarre tradition, but Ecuadorians and tourists alike love to pile onto trucks, blare music in the streets, drink heavily, and be driven around with no set destination.  These party buses resemble booze cruises on land, and they’re called “chivas.”

I’ve seen and heard many chivas, but I’d never been aboard one until last weekend.  It feels like a combination of a public bus and a crowded dance club.  Everyone stands up, holds onto a rope with one hand, puts a drink in the other, and tries to dance while on a moving vehicle.  Immediately upon entering the chiva, you receive a plastic cup attached to a string so you can wear it as a necklace.  You also receive a whistle.  Unfortunately, our group proved more whistle-happy than NBA referees, often drowning out the music.  The chiva comes with attendants who both serve drinks and hop out occasionally to guide the truck through particularly narrow streets.  A fun night, certainly.  And it’s almost equally fun to imagine this tradition transplanted to Denver or another U.S city.  Just picture a rickety, wooden truck driving through 16^th Street Mall, thumping with the heavy bass of Ecuadorian chart-topping hits, boozy passengers shouting while leaning out of the sides.

On board

ECUADORIAN HEALTHCARE

Last year, I went the whole year without visiting a doctor.  My health held up, and I avoided having to navigate medical appointments in a foreign country.  But that streak has ended in a big way, mostly due to nagging knee pain.  In the last two weeks, I’ve seen a general practitioner, a specialist, a radiologist, several pharmacists, and a physical therapist.  I have a copy of my own knee x-ray sitting on my bookshelf, and I have a standing appointment for physical therapy for two more weeks.  Unbelievably, ten sessions of knee rehabilitation will cost only $32.  I’m hopeful that I’ll be running again soon.  Nothing serious seems wrong, no structural damage or tearing.  And I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the care I’ve received, both in quality and cost.

BANDILLEROS

El Fandi

 

 

Fiestas de Quito, a ten-day party that spans the entire city, kicked off this weekend.  The main parade marches down our street.  We ate cereal Saturday morning while staring out our window at cheerleaders, parade floats, drummers, and soldiers lining up in formation.  We also attended the bullfight, the first of nine consecutive fights held at noon each day.  It was Miriam’s first bullfight.  She left ambivalent, though she enjoyed parts of it.  I remain captivated by the fights, despite understanding and agreeing with many of the objections.

El Fandi, often ranked in the top five worldwide, was the main attraction.  A knowledgeable fan told me that El Fandi receives between $80,000 – $100,000 for each fight.  He fights nearly 100 times a year.  He’s exceptional with the bandilleras, metal spikes driven into the bull’s neck in the fight’s second act.  Most matadors leave this to other members of their team, but not El Fandi.  He successfully planted two bandilleras with one hand, letting the horns pass just underneath his arm.  And likely those words will mean very little, but I can assure that if you saw it happen your heart would race and your mouth would drop.

The follow through

Brand New, but not always better

Brand New and Say Anything have already provided more than I could reasonably expect from any band.  Each group has a nearly flawless record (Deja Entendu and …. Is a Real Boy, respectively) that cracks my top-ten most-frequently played list and has stayed there for years.  Their most recent efforts, however, are beyond disappointing.

I don’t want to ask artists to simply replicate the same book, the same song, or the same show over and over.  But that can be hard when you’re especially attached to something they’ve done.  I’ve listened to the newest Say Anything only twice and I don’t ever want to hear it again.  They sound like a parody of themselves.  The lyrics are overwrought, too consciously designed for a reaction and for controversy.  The songs lack a melody and all feel a minute longer they actually are.  Were this some random band, I could dismiss them easily.  But I can’t listen to these new songs without being reminded of the old songs, thereby multiplying the inferiority of songs with titles like “Death for my Birthday.”

Brand New is a different case.  They’re still making intriguing music.  Their evolution suggests a desire to continually try new things, rather than water down their music to sell to each new generation of angst-plagued teenagers.  But I’ve simply stopped enjoying their new direction.  The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me contained some standout tracks, but much of it was dark and tuneless.  And their latest, Daisy, seems both joyless and hookless.  “Noro” continually shouts out the refrain, “I’m on my way to Hell.”  And it really feels like you’re being pulled right along with them – the discordant guitar fuzz, the metallic noise of loosening rage and chaos.  Interesting and expressive perhaps, but decidedly unpleasant.

Hard as it is to imagine, there must be others out there who love these albums as fully I love those others.  But for me these 2009 releases served only to highlight the difficulty of making a great record.

Aches and Pains

It’s been a frustrating month for my health.  I’ve nursed a cold for weeks, disgusting students with frequent breaks from teaching for loud nose blowing.  And, about three weeks ago, I tweaked my left knee while coaching basketball.  I haven’t been able to run since, which legitimately depresses me.  I’ve resorted instead to biking and indoor cross training, both of which mostly just remind me that I love running.  With Miriam’s help, I’ve also applied a steady diet of ice massages.  I freeze Styrofoam cups filled with water, peel back the cup, and then rub the cup-shaped ice all over both knees.  The pressure helps to move around swollen fluid, or so I’m hoping.

Students have also suffered this month, racking up absences in record numbers.  Last Friday, only 12 students showed up in a class of 22.  And all that germ exposure finally caught up to me.  Saturday night I broke out in chills.  Sunday I lay immobile the entire day, dazedly watching football and taking my temperature every few hours.  It rose as high as 102 degrees but has dropped steadily since then.  I’m still too ill to return to work, though I’m healthy enough to be bored and stir-crazy after consecutive days of nothing but rest, reading, and television.

It’s a beautiful, clear day outside.  I can see the park, just yards away, as I write this.  I would like nothing more than to be there, jogging comfortably and pain-free.  Soon enough.  For today, I’ll stick close to the couch and continue to imagine how nice it will feel to be healthy again.

Lights Out

Ecuador, as it turns out, runs mostly on hydroelectric power.  I’ve lived here more than a year, but I’ve just discovered this surprisingly green fact in a mostly non-green nation.  And I’ve only learned about it because of the countrywide, drought-induced electricity cuts.  I’m writing this by candlelight (to be posted later), feeling a bit more like Ben Franklin or John Adams than I ever have and probably ever will again.  We’ve got the 7 – 11 P.M shift tonight, the worst of the possible options.  I’ll miss “The Office,” but I also won’t have to dig out the stacks of uncorrected work nestled in my backpack.

Yes, it’s all just part of living in a different country, a poorer and smaller country.  Soon enough it will become just a small detail in the larger story of my time here.  But I don’t have that kind of perspective yet.  For now, it’s just obnoxious.  It’s aggravating to turn my school computer on ten or fifteen times a day as the school’s generator sputters and dies, then sputters alive again.  It feels ridiculous to buy candles in bulk.  It’s irritating to consult chart-heavy emails with the scheduled cuts.  It’s tiresome to hear students claim the power outage as an excuse for unfinished homework.  And, if we don’t get rain, it could all just be beginning.  Without some downpours, this rationing might last until February.  I’ll try to look on the bright side until then, but that’s a bit harder to do in the dark.

Quilotoa / Me vs. Quicentro’s food court

This panoramic took some real work ...

I live right next to a large mall, called “Quicentro,” that’s growing larger by the day thanks to a mega-renovation.  It’s clean and non-descript.  Besides a few imitation stores (“Sunglass Hot,” written in identical text to “Sunglass Hut”), I can wander its well-lit hallways and entirely forget that I’m in Ecuador.  But the illusion ruptures in the food court, and not because of the food options which include Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, and Dunkin’ Donuts.  Instead, it’s the gigantic photographs of Ecuador’s beauty that line the walls.  There are seals and blue-footed boobies from the Galapagos, the mighty Chimborazo, Pululahua crater, the patch-work farmland south of Quito, the blue domes of Cuenca’s signature church, Quito seen from the Teleferiqo, and a few more.  I consider these photos a checklist of sorts.  And most of them I could have taken, assuming I spent a few thousand dollars on both a better camera and training on how to use it.

But there’s one photo that taunts me.  The stunning Laguna Quilotoa, a beautiful lake that provides a compelling argument for knowing how to use the panoramic feature on your camera.  The lake formed in a collapsed volcanic crater nearly 12,000 feet high.  There is no entry or exit for the water, and it’s an alkaline lake.  (I asked Miriam what that meant but have since forgotten her answer …)  I’d avoided going mostly because of the lake’s remoteness.  Finally getting there required a two-hour bus ride to Latacunga, another two hours to Zumbahua, and then 45 bumpy minutes on a pick-up truck to the lake itself.  It would have been 40 minutes, but one passenger forgot his “guagua” requiring a turn-around.  We overheard this and assumed “guagua” referred to a little baby-shaped piece of bread which is common this time of year.  It was, in fact, a living baby girl who was amazingly unperturbed at having been left behind.

Finally getting to Quilotoa proved every bit as good as hoped for, in large part because of the great company of Miriam, Alec, Isa and some of Alec’s friends from Riobamba.  Rather than recount the whole thing, I’ll provide a few highlights below, though don’t expect any to top that “guagua” story.

-Before heading to Quilotoa, we visited Alec and Isa in Riobamba.  Both of them were spending three straight nights as actors in a haunted house.  Alec’s boss is a haunted house fanatic and returns from visits to the U.S with state-of-the-art haunted house technology.  He spends more than twenty weekends getting the thing together and has all his teachers work in it for its only open weekend, which attracts huge crowds.  Going through the serpentine hallways, we encountered Isa dressed as a patient in an insane asylum.  She let loose a primeval scream, especially since it was early and she wasn’t yet screamed out.  Then, recognizing us, she smiled sweetly and said, “Oh, hi guys.”

-High-quality ping-pong, while always fun to watch, becomes spectacular when viewed from above.  I learned this while watching Alec and his friend Tommy from the balcony of his school’s rec room.  Incredibly, three evenly-matched Americans (Alec and two friends) moved all the way to Riobamba and found great ping-pong.  Out of practice, I couldn’t keep up and lost multiple games without getting to double-digits.

Aerial View

-The hike around the crater rim was spectacular, although difficult.  The rim’s shape requires that you constantly climb steep hills just to descend again, climb again, and descend again.  But the spectacular scenery kept any of us from complaining too much.

-Eating a communal dinner at the hostel, we were treated to some wonderful tidbits of the kind of unbearable conversation that often occurs amongst international travelers.  A Canadian girl held forth on Obama, and how he’s a sham for keeping the same foreign policy adviser as Bush.  One guy insisted upon bringing the conversation back to marijuana at any opportunity.  Another girl rhapsodized about the mind-opening spirituality of “ayahuasca,” a psychotropic plant found in the Amazon.  All well intentioned, I know, and I’ve been involved in these types of vague, pretentious discussions many times.  Still, nearly every sentence made me cringe.  But the absolute best sound bite goes to this gem of a comment:

“You tell me how you survive a rave without drugs.  You tell me!”  (An Israeli traveler, angrily responding to Alec’s friend who audaciously claimed to prefer drinking to any drugs.)

-To save time, we hired a truck to take us all the way from Quilotoa to Latacunga.  We left early, bundled up, and held fast to the jury-rigged handholds.  Many of Ecuador’s mammoth peaks came out to greet us, making for an unforgettable two hours.

Colder than it looks

Makes your head hurt

Last week, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article about football-caused head injuries.  Like everything he writes, it was over much too fast.  I’m sure it’s all over the Internet, but you can find the full article here.  In short, however, it seems that the repetitive head trauma and the inherent violence of the game lead players to premature dementia.  I heard Gladwell a few days later on PTI (he is a very knowledgeable sports fan) and he predicted that football might not be around in ten or twenty years.  If this kind of research keeps pouring in, fewer and fewer parents will allow their sons to play.

So far, I’ve continued to watch football guilt-free, but it raises some questions.  The announcers drool over every crushing hit.  And I’m usually right there with them, leaning forward on the replays and calling over anyone else who is nearby.  I’ve spent some time on youtube watching Lawrence Taylor highlights, finding a certain satisfaction in the twisted beauty of human collision.  There’s an easy cache of justification arguments.  They know the risks.  Look at what they get paid. Yet those aren’t always true, and apply only to the anointed few who stay healthy long enough or succeed enough to play on Sundays.  I’ll keep watching as long it’s around.  But if the sport does somehow die, then I’ll try to remember the merits in that as well.

No head trauma here

Music for teenagers

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when music began to matter to me.  One middle-school year, maybe 7^th, I remember asking only for Nirvana and R.E.M albums for my birthday.  By 9^th grade, however, music mattered more than many other things in my life.  It was a bad year.  I’d moved to a new high school where everyone but me seemed to already have well-established friends and active social lives.  I worked hard to infiltrate groups that showed little interest in adding new members.  Eventually I would succeed, but I first endured many months of unwanted solitude.  Each day, I couldn’t wait to get home and listen to  “Uncle John’s Band,” and that comforting opening, “Well the first days are the hardest ones …”  I paid little attention to the lyrics after those first few words.  Still, I understood that song was about me, for me.

Using the marvels of technology, I’ve created favorite-song playlists for each of my three classes.  They are eclectic lists, and it’s jarring to move from AC/DC to Regina Spektor with no segway song.  Taylor Swift, Jason Mraz, the Beatles, Michael Jackson, and Coldplay all make multiple appearances.  There are also some surprises – Toto, Dire Straits, Eiffel 65, and Blink 182’s “Dammit,” likely the inheritance of an older sibling.

I’ll put the playlists on shuffle during certain moments of class.  As one song ends, all eyes peer towards the speakers, hopefully.  Some kids actually jump out of their chair when they hear their chosen opening chords.  I struggle to get through a day without music, but my enthusiasm can’t match theirs.  I’m more tempered, usually greeting even my favorite songs with equanimity.  I’m not a teenager anymore, and songs may never again trigger the catharsis once delivered by “Uncle John’s Band.”  But I get to watch it happen a few times a day, and that’s almost as good.