On the red Formica table of the newspaper dining room, to the right of each seat, a glass of mineral water could not be missing. We drank the juices for breakfast, and the tails lived a little abandoned in the dark frozen basement. Glasses of mineral water were unavoidable every day, but it was during the carnival that they became a danger. The game was almost always started by mom. Like someone who doesn’t do anything wrong, he put his fingers in the glass and splashed some water on dad. He was fearless and told her in a calm voice: Don’t look for me. Mom mischievously insisted on splashing him, until he surprised her by throwing an entire glass of water on her. That moment of unusual contradiction was like a cry for freedom, in a house where military discipline reigned when sitting at the table. It was always an exciting time. We split into factions, Dad would go outside and hijack the garden hose, while Mom was the master of the sink faucet and all the dishes we could fill. Everyone chose one according to their size, I guess I could have carried a small enameled iron jug, because I didn’t even go to school.

‘It was a carnival like Sodom and Gomorrah’: what led Ecuadorians to commit impressive excesses on the last holiday?

About 2.5 million people went to different cities for the carnival holiday in Ecuador

I guess the adrenaline flowed like a waterfall: screaming, laughing, running and more laughing led us through a party that was as intense as it was wet; as crazy as exceptional; and, as beautiful as it is authentically Ecuadorian, because Carnival was a time of irreverence, a time to absorb among friends, among loved ones, among families. We never urinate strangers, it was a game, not aggression. The “savage” of throwing water was limited by respect for the other, the one who did not want to play, the boring one who remained dry. There was respect.

(…) let’s not let life in Ecuador become the rough text of the worst possible reggaeton.

Pepe Laso Rivadeneira in his book time and words explains the reason for such a wet ritual: “…because at this special time of carnival the world turns ‘upside down’ and through laughter and parody life is regenerated, played and interpreted, according to its own laws and the ambiguity of carnival freedom and opposes the official culture, the serious tone of the government in some kind of ephemeral victory”. And yes, the water game left us clean to start Ash Wednesday renewed, with a smiling soul, with a heart full of stories and with the feeling that we are all the same.

Vareíta, I feel that you are overcome with nostalgia, a friend told me. And what should I do if I don’t like the gift, I wanted to answer him, but I didn’t dare. And how will it be for us if we see that we are a society in which fear, little by little, wins the game. If we do not recognize ourselves in another. If the neighbor is no longer one who is close, but a potential thief, fraudster or liar who approaches (or applies) with bad intentions. We have stopped believing in institutions, in our representatives, in our culture and in our ideals.

We have an obligation to look for solutions. Let’s leave the fight for the ring, let’s see ourselves as a country, let’s not let life in Ecuador become the rough text of the worst possible reggaeton. (OR)