Musings of Ecuadorian Culture

I've officially received my proper working visa for Ecuador. Yay, I'm legal! It was certainly quite the process and I learned quite a bit about the culture here in Ecuador as well. Here's a list of some things that I've discovered during my time here so far:

1) If you know someone while you are waiting in line, especially at a government place, you can essentially cut in line and no one says anything to you. Think of this like a VIP treatment. It's daunting at first when you suddenly are granted permission to move up in line, cutting in front of people who have been waiting in line for at least an hour before you got in line. This happened while I was waiting at the Ministry to get my visa filed. It's entirely a normal process apparently.

2) It is important to make multiple copies of everything. We (in the United States) typically would make maybe one or two copies of documents so that we have one for ourselves and one just in case we need to prove something. Here, however, having three or four copies is highly recommend; it seems like the more that you make a copy of something, the better. It takes a lot of time, but it's worth it in the end.

3) Lining up 2 or 3 hours outside of a place is very normal. The Ministry didn't open until 8, but when I got there at 6:30 in the morning, people were already waiting in line and looked like they'd been there for about half an hour if not longer. I also see this at banks or other government run places. Lines can be 20 or 30 people deep yet people still wait in line, regardless of how long they need to wait.

4) It's a great idea to sell snacks to the people waiting in line. It's very typical to see vendors with a cart full of gum, soda, water, chips, sometimes even fruit or sandwiches. I've also seen people buy just one cigarette while they were waiting in line for I think I heard about .20 cents. You'll also run into people selling ice cream as you wait for the bus or in other similar situations. Great idea! And it's accepted for children to go into restaurants trying to sell gum for some extra change to the customers at a restaurant, as well.

5) Ecuadorians have come up with a great way to sell their products. If the company wants to sell something, they have someone get on one of the buses traveling between cities. The person sells their pitch, but they do it in a very unique way. They physically hand out their product to the people on the bus. You can decide if you want to hold on to it  while the person is talking about their product, but at the end of their pitch, they go around and either ask for the product back or ask for whatever cost they said for their product. Usually it's very little things. I've seen individual packets of green tea, toothbrushes, candies, bottles of water, among other things. There are also people that come on the buses to sell fresh fruit that you can buy usually for about $1.

Definitely some interesting things that I've learned about Ecuadorian culture :D