Dreams Come True in Ecuador

Last week I had the honor of being "madrina" for the Hospital Civil Alausi's sports teams during a province-wide tournament of hospitals.

Team Madrina: Lucita, Me, Dra. Ximena, Kati, posing solemnly after my loss. Actually, just kidding... thats just how everyone here takes pictures.

What the heck is a madrina? Why am I wearing an incredibly tight dress and sash? I'm glad you asked.

Ecuador, like many other Latin American countries, loves to objectify women. LOVES. And what better way to objectify mujeres than seemingly random beauty contests? For every occasion there is a beauty contest. Each community has an annual contest corresponding with their particular founder's day, and those are like the most important contests, but they also have madrinas for less critical events like this province-wide, health institution sports tournament.

Madrina, which means "godmother" in Spanish, is a woman that gets chosen to represent the team/institution/community during the contest, which typically opens every multi-day event (and every event is multi-day). The process by which the hospital chose me as madrina is completely unclear to me; all I know is that one day I received an official written request (an "oficio") from the director of the hospital asking me to be madrina. After I asked many, many questions, I agreed to do it... because this is a once in a lifetime deal. I'm 26, soon to be 27! I'm probably at like my beauty peak! If other people think I can win a very low-stakes beauty contest against other provincial hospital employees, I obviously have to embrace this opportunity.

So I was a madrina. I got a sash. I wore a very tight, short, strapless dress for about an hour in a gym. I had to walk around the gym several times in heels and smile for countless pictures. I introduced myself into the microphone in front of 200-odd people. Then I had to stand with the 5 other madrinas, while a panel of judges sitting at a card table assessed our qualifications. What those qualifications are exactly is a mystery for the ages.

While they were judging, a woman asked each one of us our name and wrote it down. When she got to me I said, slowly, "Ch-l-o-e." The woman stared at me blankly. I repeated my name and then started to spell it. The woman began scribbling "S-A-L-Y." I looked at the paper and said, "No, no, it starts with C." She glanced up at me and said, "It doesn't matter" and then moved on to the next madrina. It was at that moment that I knew I wouldn't be chosen as Reina, or Queen, of the tournament.

Instead, two women from Riobamba were chosen as Reina and Runner Up or 2nd Best or Princesa or something. The 2nd Best teetered around the gym in her 3 inch heels and the Reina never smiled. Not once. After I lost, everyone on my team (well, all the women at least) said, "What the heck! OMG you are so much prettier than her!" Which I guess is what you say to someone who has just lost a beauty contest. It's the only consolation there is really.

Fortunately, my self-image was not shattered and a couple hours later, our basketball team went on to win 45 to 9. The next day I played soccer too! And I wasn't the worst on our team! If only the madrina contest included athletic ability in their evaluations, I'd surely have won.