The Love and Culture Shock

There is a club in Downtown Quito that people like to call "exclusive". My friend and host here in Quito doesn't go there very often, but we went one Friday night with a group of her high school friends, preppy young people with knit sweaters and polo shirts, the latest i-pod and a repertoire of American music and travel experiences, perfect English and private school educations...the frat boys of South America.

I didn't know what exclusive meant until our group of 15 or so poured out from several cars onto the sidewalk before the club. There was a crowd of people but no line.

How do we get in? I wondered. We made our way to a metal gate where a stern-faced man dressed in a suit stood with a clipboard and earphones. It took me a few minutes to realize that people were only getting past that metal chain through invitation. Several walked right on through the moment they arrived, greeting the bouncers, not thinking twice of the crowd on the street corner that parted to make way for them. It took about a half hour of waiting and standing idle, made up in my dress and high heels, for every inch of my ánimo and pre-party glow to dissipate. Why would people want to wait for this? Why would people want to be a part of this? Fed up, I walked down the street and sat on a stoop, pouting.

My delicate American sensibilities of equality and democracy (however, hypothetical they may be) were in the process of being thoroughly offended. In the next hour, Paz's knit sweater friends succeeded repeatedly in coaxing me back to the crowd after my proclamations of taking a taxi home, walking across the street to another club or sleeping on the stairs of a neighboring building until the joint closed. They had to tell me more than twice to be quiet as I complained out loud in a host of languages about the absurdity of the club's policy, loud enough for all the bouncers to hear. "You don't understand," the friends told me, "this is how things are done here."

"They only let you in if they know you, if you look like you'll spend a lot of money," another person in the crowd told me.

My friend was one of the first few to get in: familiar, well-mannered, made up in a black lace cocktail dress. Her sister, a club regular, was already inside. While we were waiting, they were working hard inside, talking to the owners, trying to gain the entrance of the rest. Apparently they weren't the only ones attempting to pull strings. It was an hour and a half before the last of us were "invited" to come in. A few smart ones had already gone home or found a better club to go off to.

Apparently my defiance was also hypothetical. In the end, I did get into the club. I did end up dancing with my friends awash in the pop music blaring inside. I did end up drinking from their glasses and paying the 10 dollar entry fee. I even ended up enjoying myself.