Today we went to Museo Remigio Crespo Toral, which was an art museum where I learned about various aspects of Ecuadorian culture. This particular museum mostly consisted of paintings that were old and others semi recent. For about an hour, we walked through the museum, which was a beautiful building containing 90 or so rooms within in. It was under construction but the level we were on contained the art. It was old, with creaky wooden floors, and several different types of flowers painted on the walls of each different room. We learned the history of infamous Ecuadorian paintings. It was evident that Catholicism played a big role in their history and still flourishes today. The paintings were mostly of religious figures. I saw all sorts of sculptures of baby Jesus and a large nativity scene with small, fragile dolls that represented their religious views. This nativity scene is similar to the one in my host-family's house, which has gold christmas lights running through it and a little larger in size. It is a tradition Ecuadorians do to maintain the prosperity of their traditions towards their religious faith. In this museum, it was apparent that their religious traditions and beliefs have been a center aspect of their lives that emphasizes their faith, beliefs, and history.
The second part of today consisted of a lecture on Ecuadorians migrating and how it can effect their children. This lecture was very fascinating, full of information that made me empathetic and get a new point of view. I was captured throughout the whole lecture and it made me put into consideration how hard being an immigrant and being related to an immigrant can be. I learned that about 500,000 Ecuadorians leave to the United States every year. A large reason why they leave is to earn money to send back to Ecuador for their families they leave behind. However, the process isn't pretty. Sometimes, they know that they won't even be able to reach the U.S., risking their lives. Other times, they are simply there for too long. It takes about three years to work to pay back the people who got them across the border, plus another three years to earn enough money to go back and raise a family with a sufficient amount of money. In these six years, the mother and the father may just move on with their lives, or the father may not even return back to Ecuador. It was not only this that made me empathetic, but all the negative impacts it had on the children that were left behind. They are often left to take care of their grandparents, older siblings taking care of younger siblings, or children without their mothers, which is said to be more traumatic if the mom leaves. These children suffer with negative emotional, social, health, and affection effects. I really saw all these problems with family ties being broken through this lecture. It was like a looking glass that made me see a whole new side of the struggles that Ecuadorian families are facing. It also helped me want to diminish the little stereotypes/generalizing that occurs in the U.S. about immigrants, who are simply just trying to work hard and support their families.
To end the day, I got to learn a fun aspect of Ecuadorian culture, which was merengue dancing. On the top of the school in a room with one large mirror and a large window with a gorgeous view, I was given the opportunity to learn how to dance merengue. The music was fast paced, energetic, and beautiful in its varieties of tempo and instruments. We shook our hips, learned how to hold our arms correctly, and also learned intricate feet placements. It was fun experiencing this with a few of my classmates because we struggled, learned, and became pretty decent merenge dancers by the time the class was over. We laughed and had a blast bonding through this important part of Ecuadorian culture, feeling a sense of accomplishment when we were done. Although some were hesitant about trying it at first, we all put in as much effort as we could together, which made the experience unique and vivacious.
