IL Postcard
Cuenca’s Favorite Expat Café
Date: 11/28/2007
Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007
Cuenca, Ecuador
Read more about Ecuador in International Living Postcards--your daily escape
On Friday nights, expats gather at Cuenca’s Café Eucalyptus. Officially, we come for the live radio broadcast of a blues program hosted by a U.S. disk jockey. Unofficially, we come for the half-priced drinks and to share conversation. Tall tales are welcome, even encouraged.
On a given Friday, it’s not uncommon for three dozen gringos to show up at the Eucalyptus. Some are in town temporarily: visiting professors, language students, tourists, volunteers, and folks considering relocating to Cuenca. Mostly, though, we are part of the growing number of expats living in the area.
Like expats everywhere, we relish the chance to mount our soapbox and tell our stories. Just as important, though, is the opportunity to share information. We exchange reports on everything from new restaurants, shops, gallery openings, musical performances, low airfares, a good, inexpensive orthodontist to a furniture-maker who keeps his schedule and the new rules for getting a driver’s license. News and gossip flow as freely as the cervezas and mohitos and it’s up to the participants to sort it out.
Even though I enjoy Gringo Night, it’s good that it happens only once a week. For the most part, foreigners living in Ecuador socialize with Ecuadorian friends. Because our numbers are relatively small compared with expat communities in Mexico and Central American countries, we rarely gather en masse. There are no gringo-only clubs here and no nightly cocktail parties.
As a friend told me recently, “Once a week is about all we can stand of each other.” Although there may be some truth to this, most of us would admit that we have come to appreciate our countrymen and countrywomen far more than we did back home and we look forward to our weekly gathering. In a strange land and new culture, friendships with the homefolk assume heightened value.
Gringo Night at Café Eucalyptus is a variation on a theme that probably plays out in a number of locations throughout Ecuador. For many expats, these occasions provide an indispensable link to our heritage. Mostly, though, we enjoy the chance to have fun with our friends.
David Morrill
For International Living
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