El Campo

Today myself and “the Canadians”/some-of-my-only-friends-in-Ecuador went out to one of the Tia’s houses, in the countryside, where we saw how many families here actually live.

It took an hour by bus, passing deep cuts in the earth and tall pinnacles that mark the Andes. The drop off caused me to compare the dangers of transport by bus, car or plane. Air travel won as the least dangerous, buses came in second and cars took third. But don’t worry, wires run along the side of the road to catch any vehicle attempting suicide.

The lines on the roads are just guidelines here. When deciding to pass, cars often linger on the middle line. If there are three lanes headed in one direction, cars criss-cross and sometimes drive more on the dotted lines than in their lane. As I sat in the front seat of a speeding taxi yesterday, gazing out of the broken windshield, I wondered how many fatalities occur annually.

But let’s get back to the bus that took us out into the countryside today. First, we stopped and went to a small museum about indigenous life and bought some biscotti-type pastries in a little town populated with many more indigenous people. Afterwards, we hopped another bus up to the road of our friend’s house. We journeyed through farmland and hiked up a steep road finally reaching her stone driveway, leading us at a sharp angle up to her family’s little concrete two story house. She showed us their guinea pigs outside, which are commonly raised and eaten (the meat is rather expensive, often eaten at festivals). We were offered potatoes and roasted maíz and I was told that my Spanish is good “but I just don’t want to speak it” (not true!).

After sitting on the bed in the entrance room, gazing at a poster of teenage Leonardo Dicaprio and talking with our friend and her mother (to the best of our Spanish ability), we took a walk up the steep hills and along a small river to visit our friend’s two black cows. We passed men cutting down trees, pigs, sheep and lots of prickly plants. The sun clenched my skin and bit me in various places, mainly my cheeks, feet and the back of my neck.

I am now, what they call in the states, a “red neck”.

Here at festivals they actually have pink masks to wear, making fun of the Spanish conquistadors. Sunburn and color changing skin is universally such a crowd pleaser.

So there we were, hiking around the hilly countryside and taking in the views of the mountains and volcano in the distance. It all seemed very normal, despite the long distance we had traveled to get to that kind of scenery. We returned back to the concrete structure and I used the toilet that had no door, and therefore able to enjoy a view of the countryside during the experience.

Dehydration zapped me on the bus ride home. I returned to this beautiful guest house, fed myself a bunch of things, and am now relaxing on a wonderfully comfortable sofa in a well-lit room with wi-fi.

I’ve dealt with people’s different standards of living before, but this time I returned with a normal sense of just being thankful. I feel simply thankful that I don’t have an hour and a half bus commute along dangerous roads at 6:00 AM, or use bathrooms without doors, or worry about the quality of the water I’m drinking. I’m 26 years old and am not ridden with 6 or 7 children already, my houses have never had barbed wire surrounding them and I don’t worry about dogs biting me or being nasty. My living situations have always including carpeting, wood floors or tiles, along with painted walls and windows without bars in front…

(the list goes on)

It’s good to be thankful, and thankful we shall be.