After a busy weekend, neither of us felt like going anywhere. However, I knew that if I didn’t take this chance to see the championship game among the Otavaleños in a remote village, we’d regret it. Vaughn (age 6), not being familiar with the concept of regret for cultural experiences forgone, started to dig his heels in after the third time I asked him to come with me. Thankfully Jamie, in a moment of inspired-mom-creativity, whispered to Vaughn that if he’d go with me, he could take the pictures and tell a story to go on the internet.
So here we are! Below are the pictures, taken by him (except when he’s in them) and his words explaining them.
Indigenous Fútbal is what this story is called because they won’t know what we’re talking about when we say fútbal.
No, I didn’t want to go to soccer because it bored and annoyed me. Then, mommy said I could hold it [the camera] and so I felt good.
This is my mommy giving it to me.
Dad, you know who that is! It’s you getting the backpack ready.
That’s the fake corn in the stairs. [It is fake] Because mom said.
Here’s my shoe.
Okay, that’s a pig face. I see a lot of these around.
When we got to the field we saw trophies and people.
Then people playing soccer. They call it fútbol.
At the field a guy was holding a big stick with lots of cotton candy. We took little bites of the cotton candy. Well there was one big stick, but I didn’t get the big one; just a small one.
I was happy kinda.
We walked with lots of people. The men with long hair were drinking beer. They kept asking daddy if he wanted more beer. He sometimes said, “Si”.
They were putting music on.
Yea and the lady was putting ribbons on people.
I was drinking water because I was thirsty from eating empanadas.
I took a picture of this dog. It makes me think of Lucy, my dog.
Because other kids were tumbling in the field, I did too.
The sun was sunsetting.
I was trying to get a picture of the ball flying so high.
We started to leave to find a taxi or a truck.
But then we saw some niños playing fútbol.
I went and said, ¿Puedo jugar con tigo?
They said sí!
We started playing and wining by kicking to the goal. They say “gooll”.
We found a truck actually and I was trying to take a picture of that house, but there was steam [dust] in the picture.
The truck was so fast. I was holding onto a pole so tight.
Cows and police were in the way. They kept walking and then the truck stopped.
We were in Quiroga and waited for the bus that goes to Cotacachi.
On the bus I looked at my fake money. I got it from the cotton candy.
We made it home with my fake money. So that was good.
