Day 29: Thursday 20 May – A wild Aikido training in Guayaquil

Today we arrive a bit later than usual at the office. I start with the usual things I do when I get to connect my laptop to the web again and after that go upstairs to administration to do some surveys and ask for some information concerning the funds I’m working on here. When I go up to the general manager to confirm that the form is filled in correctly, some disagreement about the use of the funds between him and Miguel. So we go downstairs to the meeting room so he can explain what he wants. Halfway, however, they kick me out because they have another meeting.
After Lunch I work out the surveys I have already done and I agree to the plan for the coming weekend. With Sarah and Riwal, I’ll go to Cuenca on Saturday and after that through Guayaquil to Puerto Lopez. From where we will take a boat on Tuesday to Isla de la Plata to get a taste of the Galapagos. This means I won’t be posting anything for a while again. Later I go to a café nearby to have some juice and humitas.
Later in the evening I take a taxi south ways to have my first Ecuadorian Aikido training. Herbert is waiting for me at the corner and shows me where it is. It is a small dojo with one big blue (and dirty) mat spread all over the floor. The only thing that is familiar is the photo of Osensei on the wall. I take off my shoes and walk across the mat to the very small changing room. I notice there are showers, but forgot to take a towel with me. But later I see that nobody uses the showers here.
The training is in Spanish, but I master the language enough to be able to follow the lesson. We start off with a short meditation and continue with stretching exercises on our knees. Then we stretch our legs even more than we normally do in Wageningen. The sensei almost does a complete split. We skip any breathing exercises and start doing some basic techniques without the final control. Most of the techniques are slightly different than I’m used to and I feel a bit stupid when sensei has to explain things to me.
What’s new to me is defending a karate kick. In Wageningen we normally work with the hands, not with kicks, so this is more difficult for me. What follows after that, are some presentations of the others, because there is a presentation on Monday. They all have their specialties, but what strikes me most is how one guy is really excellent in defending knife attacks. All of it is a bit wilder than I’m used to. When thrown, the ukes don’t roll, but generally fall. The carefulness we know in Europe is not really present here.
After the training we meditate a while again, say ‘arigatogozaimasu’ (a polite thank you in Japanese) and shake each other’s hands. We change clothes again and one of the others goes with me in the bus to my house, just to show me how to get home.
At the house I’m hungry, but first call Mariela, because she couldn’t reach me while I was training. Half hour later I turn on the gas to boil some rice… no gas. The girls maintain that it’s the electric ignition that’s failing and that they need matches. They try – and fail. No gas. This needs some explanation: here in Ecuador there is no such thing as gas lines. Everything works with gas tanks. And so we need to buy a new one. I eat some fruit and crisps and read about Cuenca in the Rough Guide. Take a cold shower and get in bed.