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October 12 is the Dia de la Raza. This commemorates the date when Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas and historically celebrates the Hispanic influence on the continent. Many countries have sought to change the focus a bit. For example in 2011 the Ecuadorian government decided to denominate it the Día de la Interculturalidad.
It ceased to be a national holiday years ago (in preference to October 9 which marks the date Guayaquil declared independence from Spain. However this year the government moved the holiday to the Friday which happened to be October 12 so most of us had the day off anyway.
In the countryside around Guayaquil the people celebrate October 12 as the Día de los Montubios. A Montubio is a mestizo rural dweller who either owns or works on an hacienda, rides a horse, wears a wide brimmed hat, eats stew for breakfast and has probably eaten twice before you or I have even woken up. Actually I wake up at 5am but I can only stomach a bit of yoghurt before I go to work.
While the encroachment of the city and technology have undoubtedly impacted on life in the whole coastal belt, the traditions remain strong and every October 12 anyone who considers themselves montubio is determined to celebrate it, usually at a rodeo.
Yesterday we went to a rodeo at a place called la Y (literally a fork in the road) on the way to Salitre. It was scheduled to start at 11am but they go underway about 2:50 pm. That was basically because they were waiting to fill the stadium with about 3000 people which they finally did. It is chicken and egg though because if I go again I’ll get there about 2:30pm. I don’t know what the horses thought about the wait but I don’t think the people sat in the midday sun were so impressed (although being Ecuadorian they just got on with consuming beer and ice-cream and made the best of it). The only entertainment was the amorfinos blasting out of the speakers. Amorfinos are melancholy songs accompanied by acoustic guitar and part of the montubio heritage. There was only one covered area – a bit of cloth had been hoisted up on canes to protect the directivo – made up of the local hacienda owners who were organizing the rodeo. Maria Fernanda used a three pronged attack – we had a baby, I was a reporter (for this blog!) and the unspoken effect of me being the only gringo around. That got us into the shade next to all the trophies and a journalist from Hoy.
The stadium was circular and consisted of seven rickety rows constructed from planks of wood. The structure was made of metal and felt pretty stable. Beer sellers scurried around like rats under the stands filling crates and buckets to pass upwards to the thirsty throng. There was a high mark-up which I don’t resent, but I wondered how much of their profit would have been left by the end of the day and how much would have been drunk away.
The crowd was mainly families - often extended to 3 or 4 generations, using umbrellas as parasols. Generally everyone looked pretty scruffy so the organizers stood out in their crisp white shirts and pleats topped with a felt or leather hat.
When the event finally started, all the competitors rode into the arena, did a few circuits, waved to the crowd, some fell off, some horses said no, the compere droned on and the judges chose the best presented team. Then the reinas had to be judged – there were three beautiful young women who demonstrated their horsemanship and two young girls who crawled under and over their horse, doing somersaults and various other tricks. Quite impressive but it took ages to finally choose a (worthy) winner. Then they finally got down to some proper event.
It was all a bit disorganized but everyone seemed to enjoy it, except for the part when the Ministry of Agriculture put on a boring, unfunny play to try and “teach” the grown adults what to do if they had a blight of snails on their land. By then Naomi and Santino were hot and bothered and we decided to leave.
I spoke to one of the organisers, Oscar Almíbar. He explained they only put on this one rodeo during the year and it was all through private initiative. He was pretty confident that the montubio heritage remained strong and pointed out that his son was riding out with the group in the arena. The horses looked well treated and the competitors clearly knew what they were doing. Everything is a bit amateur and ad-hoc but that is part of the charm – like when the organisers started arguing that the trophy for best presented horse was too big and gold and should be substituted, despite it being a donation already engraved with the category, or when they made the riders limp slowly across the arena get their little present because the judge couldn’t be bothered to move towards them. The crowd kept eating and drinking, the band played on, and the compere used the time to promote other upcoming events.
