Dance, Ecuadorian women, and breast cancer

What?? Madeline posting three days in a row?? I know, I know, it's never happened before. Hopefully it will happen again in the near future.

Apart from my arm hurting a fair amount from the rabies vaccine I got yesterday (it was worse than last week's), it's been a pretty good day. I went to a meeting with the new Dance professor and all the other Dance minors, and I think we're all a lot happier than we were before. The new professor is nice, but the way she described in an email the changes she's planning to institute kind of had us all up in arms. She explained it all a lot better in person, and now I think things are going to be much better. B-W's Dance Department just switched from being part of Health and Phys Ed to being part of the Theater Department, and it needs some serious restructuring. I think her ideas for classes are good, and now the Dance Concert deal sounds good too. There will be two this year, and she and some guest choreographers will be putting the first one together, but students will be allowed to choreograph the one in February and choose all their dancers. We were about ready to start a revolution or something before the meeting today...

(Insert segway here. I've got nothing.)

In Orientation to Ecuador, we talked about women's roles in Ecuadorian society and also the Latin American concept of machismo, or manliness. Women have sort-of-kind-of been allowed to vote in Ecuador since the 1920s, but it didn't really become commonplace until the '60s. There are a lot of female political candidates these days, but few get elected. There have been a lot of small movements and groups that advocate for women's rights, but their efforts haven't been very unified. Domestic abuse is even more common in Ecuador than it is in the United States, but over the past decade or two, there has been a very strong effort, both socially and politically, to protect women and prevent violence against them.

Ecuadorian women do have a sector that is pretty much entirely theirs: the market. Nearly every city and town has a traditional market, selling everything from live animals to fresh produce to entire prepared meals. The vast majority of the vendors are women, and they take their jobs very seriously, forming little social circles with their fellow vendors and favorite customers. According to our Ecuador Reader, men, particularly foreigners, are often made to feel rather uncomfortable in the markets. We'll see how the five guys in our group do. One of our assignments while we're in Cuenca will be to make a traditional dish with the help of our host mothers, so we'll be expected to vist the market and interact with the vendors there.

I'm starting to feel like I'm actually going to be going to Ecuador soon. Sometimes I'll be sitting in class learning about markets and rainforests and all, and all of a sudden I realize I will be standing in those places in less than a month. I'm not sure it will truly sink in, though, until I step off the plane in Guayaquil.

Last thing for today, though certainly not the least important: Melissa Anelli, author of Harry, a History, webmistress of The Leaky Cauldron, host of PotterCast, and one of my favorite people in the whole world, is participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Each person on her team must raise $1,800. Through the generosity of the Harry Potter fan community, Melissa has already met her goal, but the rest of her team still needs help. Dontations are tax deductable, and she's offering some truly incredible HP/Nerdfighter prizes as incentives. I'm planning to donate as soon as I get something about my bank account figured out. Find out more info and get the link to donate here.