Top 24 Cultural Norms of Ecuador
1. Children make up games with pointless rules, no mystery, and are somehow still surprised when they win or lose.
2. Even if entering room for no more than 30 seconds, it is necessary to greet and depart with a hug and kiss from EVERY person in the room… Making the greetings longer than the stay itself.
3. No good conversation is complete without a 3 liter of coke and tiny plastic cups.
4. Don’t even think about eating leftover food or drink cold… You will so get yelled at!
5. A typical response for “No entiendo” (I do not understand), is a raised voice… As if that helps.
6. If you say you like something once, you will see it at every meal. Example:
-Breakfast: bread, ham, cheese, yogurt, and caramel.
-Lunch: meat, bread, rice, juice, and caramel.
-Dinner: soup, bread, rice, coffee, and caramel.
7. Mysterious phones (hanging on walls outside) ring, only to be answered by mysterious men running out of nowhere.
8. People always answer the phone with a “hello” giving you false hope that they speak English.
9. All food makes you EXTREMELY gassy… From both ends.
10. The millions of stray dogs know your sleep schedule and feel the need to “serenade you to sleep”.
11. You name one stray dog, and suddenly they think that all the other stray dogs in town have the same name.
12. Work days don’t last long due to frequent pan and coke (bread and coke) breaks.
13. There are no one-stop-shops in Ecuador: One must buy all the groceries from one place and then bus, walk, and search for the bread store… Passing 50 others on the way there because those didn’t have the perfect bread.
14. Stoplights and stop signs are optional.
15. A thrilling “game” to play in Ecuador is road chicken. We North Americans love being driven around, dogging other cars head on.
16. The buses are made with a special whistle horn that can be blown at passing “gringos” (derogatory term for white girl used in latin America. We have good senses of humor 🙂
17. Good kids throw rocks at stray dogs, and are taught to do so from infancy.
18. No matter how terrible your voice is, they will still ask you to sing in front of the whole church.
19. Fishing for toilet paper, that should not have been placed in the toilet, is a common sport.
20. When you burp or fart in public, no one flinches.
21. You can confess your deepest secrets to people and they will laugh or agree with you even though they don’t know what you are saying.
22. People pray quietly and rapidly as if they are racing each other and always conclude with exactly three “amens”.
23. If you are craving a snack during your siesta time, don’t bother going to the store because the store owner is also taking a siesta.
24. Be on time? What is time??
We brainstormed this list together… Isn’t my family beautiful?
In Him,
Catalina
