Happy New Year! (Part 1) - Grapes, Monigotes, and Magical Unicorns

Tradition.  Bob as Baby New Year.

2015 has been a year to remember.  That is for sure.  We all know the stress levels a person gets to when a life changing event happens.  Just one and you are in the land of heart failure.  My wife and I experienced our share of them in 2015.  Needless to say we were suffocating in a very real way.  We journeyed through hell to get here.

I will not go into all the details. We got all kinds of well meaning advice but the thing about advice is; you almost never know what you think you know.  In any event it was mostly given with the best of intentions.  We learned a lot.

We got a lot of help too and that will never be forgotten. Without that help, the final life changing event of 2015 might never have happened.  We might not have made our move to Ecuador.  That would have been devastating in ways I can only see now.  We did make it though.  We do miss our friends and family very much but we would not change anything. I would gladly go through it all again if the end result were the same.  Well, maybe not gladly but I would do it.

My Spidey sense is tingling!

The U.S. has its New Year traditions.  New Years Eve is what I like to call Amateur Drinker's Night.  Everyone tries to get as plastered as possible.  We make our New Year's resolutions. I guess getting plastered makes it easier to proclaim every way in which we will make our lives better and then, promptly forget them.  Lord knows I have done my share of "forgetting".  It is fun.  It is a way of letting off all the steam built up just trying to get through that year.  It is also a way of building yourself up for that next one.  We all know life is hard but we also all want to live it.  That takes courage all on its own.

At midnight the ball drops in Times Square.  We count down as one voice, "TEN, NINE, EIGHT", the excitement is palpable, "THREE, TWO, ONE!".  We all scream "HAPPY NEW YEAR!". There is a toast (lots really), champagne, kissing, hugging, tears of joy (or relief), and laughter.  There are fireworks and even gunfire.  Family and friends.  Hope.



New Years Day brings its own traditions.  In the South it generally starts with a few Goody's or BC powders. Large hangovers necessitate large coffees (I personally believe this is when the Bloody Mary is most important), and large breakfasts.  The most popular New Year's Resolution in the entire history of resolutions is generally uttered at some point in the morning; "I will never drink again!".  Coincidentally, it is also the most ignored.  Black Eyed Peas get cooked for luck through the new year.  I hate them so I do pintos with cornbread instead.  A pot of greens (I make collards) is cooked for wealth and prosperity.  I have found they both work as well as the Mark Zuckerberg Facebook giveaway but hey, it is tradition.

Shared!  I've always wanted  magical unicorn.

2015 resolutions,  This year I resolve to do everything differently.  I will improve my quality of life and learn new things.  I will travel and expand my horizons.  I will lose weight and exercise.  I will make new friends.  Check, check, check.  Check, check, check.  Check, check.

2016 resolutions.  More of the same please!

The traditions are different here of course.  I will change mine.  Not totally. Black beans instead of pintos.  Easy!  In Ecuador, we celebrate New Year's basically all week.   Christmas time is literally the beginning of summer here.  In Crucita it means the filling up of the town as people flock to the beach to begin their summer vacations.  The Malecon (translates to pier but here it means beach road as far as I can tell) largely deserted during the week when we arrived, is now a hot spot all week long.  Music is louder, people cruise the beach, drinking and eating establishments are full.

The gang' all here and yes, Freddy Krueger is too!

It is not an organized celebration yet. Vendors start making and selling monigotes.  These are paper mache effigies in the likeness of popular cartoons, famous or infamous people, and animals.  They represent the bad things that happened in the old year (Ano Viejo). You can get them everywhere.  All week long they become more prevalent on balconies, tied to cars, riding pillion on motorcycles, and in the backs of trucks. They are beaten, burned, and exploded at midnight on the last day of the Old Year to make room for good things in the New Year (Ano Nuevo).

People drink but they generally spend the evenings with their families and begin the actual festivities at midnight.  New Year's Day (00:00:01) is when the celebration begins.  Yes, effigies are beaten and burned and exploded with fireworks.  By doing this any bad "mojo" is taken from you and yours.  This house is clean.

12 grapes, 12 wishes, 60 seconds, GO!

Then there are the grapes.  Twelve to be exact.  One for every month in the year.  You must eat all twelve grapes beginning at midnight and finish them before one minute elapses.  Each grape represents a wish which also must be spoken prior to eating the grape.  Twelve grapes, twelve wishes, sixty seconds. Failure is not an option.

It is imperative you are given a brand new pair of underwear.  You wear yellow on New Years Eve to bring wealth. Red is worn for Love.  You aren't supposed to buy them yourself.  They must be a gift to work properly.

Men are supposed to jump over a raging bonfire twelve times for luck.  I will skip that.  They also throw coins in the fire for wealth and rice in the fire to bring an abundance of food. There is a fireworks show and we are assured they are not the little fireworks we see in the U.S.  I am not sure what to expect or what that means.  They have been shooting off "personal" fireworks all month.  Mortars and such are definitely legal.

Then there are the "widows" of the old year.  Since the old year is dead, men dress up as the old year's widow,  They walk around the town but they are not sad.  They are glad the old year is dead.  In Portoviejo they stop traffic and ask for change.  In the parish of Crucita they also sell small items (we bought Chiclets gum) for a pittance.  We are a fishing/farming village and the men look like men.  It is so funny to see them running around acting (badly) like women.

We bought Chiclets from this widow.

So here we are.  On the precipice of a new year.  It is exciting is it not?  I will give you some advice.  I give it with the best of intentions.  Should you find yourself on the edge, on a precipice, it may be best to jump.  Not always, not everyone, but for some, not jumping could mean the loss of something very valuable. The scary part is you may never even know.  So perhaps the good news is that life is full of cliffs, crags, peaks, and precipices.  There is always another place from which to jump.  Adios!

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