Our Christmas and New Year was a bit different here in Ecuador than we are used to back in England.

There are no Christmas cards.  The people don’t eat a special Christmas Dinner – many had roast guinea pig but that’s a typcial Sunday dinner here.  Christmas Day seemed just the same as any other day of the week.  Lots of people were out working in their gardens, and the local cafe was open as usual.  There weren’t even many presents!  Most of the children received some biscuits and sweets.

The last day of school was on Thursday (3 days before Christmas).  In the morning the children gathered together.  Some children got dressed up as Mary and Joseph, and shepherds and wise men from the Christian Christmas Nativity story.  They all then walked through the village to the big Catholic Church.  The girl dressed as Mary was riding on a donkey, just like in the Christmas story.  There was a musician and singers.  Right at the back was a llama with some Christmas paper tied to him.

Everyone then sat in church while the rosary was read.  This took about an hour.  Then everyone walked back to school.  Including the donkey and the llama.

Back at school the children went into their own classrooms and got changed into special outfits.  Each class performed some kind of dance that showed a different part of Ecuador’s history, culture and traditions.  Some acted out a bull fight.  Others dressed up and did the dances of some of the native indian tribes that still live in Ecuador.

The following Friday (after Christmas Day) a small fair was set up in the church car park – a small merry go round, table football, a trampoline and someone selling toffee apples.  In the evening there was an all night disco with dancing in the community hall.  All weekend there was lots of music and dancing and fireworks being let off.

On Saturday (New Year’s Eve) something really different happened.  We were a bit shocked.  Let me tell you what happened and then you can decide what you think of it.

On Saturday morning there was a cock fight!!  Men (and some teenagers) breed cockerels just to make them fight each other.  This used to happen in England many many years ago but it has been illegal in our country for a long time now.

Two cockerels are put in a ring together and allowed to fight.  Their owners stand close by and a referee is in the ring as well.  If one bird it getting really hurt or looks like it doesn’t want to fight any more the referee blows his whistle and the owners of the birds separate them and check if they are alright and still want to fight.  The fights are divided up into rounds so the birds only get to fight for a certain amount of time before the fight ends.  Eventually the referee decides which bird is the winner based on a ‘points’ system – which bird did not surrender or which bird fought the best.  The rules seemed a bit like boxing.

Some of the birds got really badly hurt and will need a lot of care by their owners to help them get better again.  Do you think it right to make animals fight and hurt each other just so people can have fun watching them and betting on the result?  Does it matter that cockerels naturally fight each other?  Fighting is how they protect their hens from other cockerels taking them away.  This is quite normal in the animal world.

On Saturday and Sunday afternoons there were “bull fights”.  A young bull was let loose in a ring with at least two or three people (mostly men in their 20′s, 30′s and 40′s).  The men waved cloaks or just ran about in front of the bull until the bull charged at them.  Then they dodged the bull so they didn’t get hurt.  There was one event for children aged around 9-12.  They ‘fought’ a young bull that was aged about 6 months.  This very young bull hadn’t grown any horns yet but you could still get very hurt if he hit you with his head and knocked you over.  If that happens the bull will then try and head butt you some more and maybe stand on you and you can get really badly hurt.  The women took a turn in the ring with an older bull.  That one had horns.  Then the older men had a turn in the ring with one of the bigger bulls – he had horns too.  A few times someone got knocked over by a bull. Then the young men would dash around and distract the bull until it charged away from the person who had fallen down.

These bull fights were a ‘family’ version of the more famous Spanish bull fights were a bull fighter (almost always a young man) fights the bull in the ring until one of them dies (the bull always gets killed though).  The bull fights we saw were not like that.  Some people suffered from bruises when the bull hit them but no-one got really badly hurt.  And none of the bulls got hurt.

What do you think though?  Do you think it’s right to tease an animal for fun?  Does it make any difference that most of these people are farmers and this is a ‘safe’ way for children and teenagers learning not to be afraid of the animals and learning how to handle the animals so they can be more confident farmers when they grow up?

One more thing happened over the weekend that wouldn’t happen in England.  Several of the men and teenagers have been building go-karts over the last few weeks.  These are just flat wooden boards with small wheels in each corner.  To stop the cart you pull on a lever and make a piece of wood rub against the wheels.  They then rode on these carts in pairs, down a steep mountain road with seven ‘hairpin’ bends.  These are bends in the road where the road doubles back on itself.  If they had gone round any of the bends a bit too fast they would have hit trees or bushes.  On some bends they might have gone right over the edge and down the side of the mountain.

Some people might say this was too dangerous and try to stop other people doing this.  What do you think?  Should people be allowed to take risks like this if they want to?  What if they get hurt?  Do you think taking risks like this helps people to learn about their own limits and how to keep safe from danger?

Do you think these things are adventures?  What is the difference between enjoying adventure and taking silly risks?  What about if other people or animals get hurt?  What difference does that make to what you think?  What if you get hurt?  Whose responsibility is it then?

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