Carnival: Ecuador Style

Brazil has Rio De Janiero and Carnival, the US has the 4th of July, Mexico has Cinco de Mayo, and Ecuador has Carnival for the first two weeks in February. Each festival or celebration has its´ own reason and sophistication, but not in Ecuador. Carnival is purely a reason to mess each other up. I have no idea why Carnival is celebrated and have yet to find someone who does know the reason. While we had been warned, Andy and I had no clue as to the craziness of Carnival until last weekend when we ventured into the nearest psuedo-city to find the grocery store had been completely re-arranged to accomodate all of the Carnival celebratory merchandise. I am not talking about when at Wal-Mart they change the holiday aisles and decorations, that would be understandable, but no. Andy and I walk in and the whole store has changed. The checkout cashiers have moved to a whole different side of the store. Now, in the middle of the store there are tables stocked with aersol products that seem to be a mixture of silly string and shaving cream. The purpose of this is to spray people on the streets, but this is not the only thing that occurs. We have also witnessed people throwing water balloons at cars and at people on the sidewalk, and we have even seen people dropping balloons from 2nd floor balconies on people walking on the sidewalk. We even witnessed shaving cream on eggs being thrown at people, and the best was a truck filled to the brim in the cab and in the back with teenagers. The youngsters in the back were armed with buckets of water ready to throw them at unsusupecting victims as they walked or drove by. We have heard in some places after gettng drenched in water, you can then expect flour to be thrown in your face.
While most of the debauchery is saved for adolescents and young adults, we know they also hold a special place in their Carnival mischievous hearts for gringos. So, as Andy and I are going into the interntet cafe, a group of young boys are throwing water balloons by the front door. They don´t think we see them and begin tying off balloons. All of a sudden, there is a balloon malfunction, they look at me, I smile, they know we know, so they smile and let us through the door. Crisis 1 averted.
As we get ready to leave, Andy is beginning to get nervous, "I don´t want to get hit with a water balloon," he tells me. To which my response is "What are we going to do? We can´t stop them." As we get ready to leave, the boys hit a bus with a balloon and all run inside, past us to hide. Andy and I leave quickly and walk as fast as we can away. Crisis 2 averted.
Our first order of business upon leaving is to get Andy some food because it has been way too long since breafast and he is getting very grouchy. We get bread and head to the bus stop. As we are walking, we notice that on our bus stop corner are a couple of mobs of teenagers, and there is a poor girl justing getting creamed with water. Andy stops dead in his tracks, bread in hand, "I can´t do it. I don´t want to be messed with." All hope has left his voice, only exasperation. To which I reply once more that there is literally nothing we can do about it. We´ll just have to take it as it comes. But all the while in the back of my mind, I see how this is going to play out. The food has not hit his bloodstream, so Andy is still easily agitated and irate. We are going to get mauled by Carnival-ers and Andy is gointo freak out--stomping his feet, throwing his bread and yelling, "C´MON, Really? C´mon!" Which will then make us a walking target for any and all other attacks until the bus comes.
Andy stands, staring at the scene for twenty, thirty seconds before we begin walking. "Don´t freak out. Don´t freak out," I try to send Andy telepathic, soothing messages as we walk. As we get closer, people´s eyes start to glance towards us nervously--they know we are targets. Right as we get to the corner, some other person takes off running and all the Carnival-ers take chase. We are safe for one more day at least.
The Carnival (i.e. the time it is ok to purposefully hurl innappropriate things in people´s /stranger´s faces) lasts until February 16th when it ends with two government holdiay days and a large majority of people head to the coast for the weekend. We have decided to lay low and not travel. We have one more day of being targets--wish us luck!