I just want to say thank you to everyone reading and commenting. It means a lot to me that you all are interested enough to tag along, I hope you´re enjoying it, keep the comments and suggestions coming, much love.
I have now been in Ecuador for three weeks. I have eight weeks left. I have finally finished my spanish classes, and I am now equipped with the language level of a nine year old (I tried to read a book for 11 year olds, but it was very difficult), which is not great, but enough to get around and understand half the people I talk to half of the time. I have a lot of notes I want to share about Quito, but I don´t want to exhaust you or abuse too much blog space, so I have consolidated everything into a list/poem of images. Quito is in many ways, the same as other big cities, but it has its differences, and these are images that struck me as singular or different. Vamos;
Volcanoes and dogs, airplanes brushing bluffs, Christ enmeshed in walls of gold, tin rooves and crumbling stone sprinkling sides of mountains, dogs fighting on rooftop ledges, humping in the park, couples tucked away under eucalyptus shade, stand up from Itchimbia and see the city, condors hidden in Pichincha, but always flying in my dreams, a river meadow, its slopes above filled with corn and tilted tinned houses, pigs rolling in the yards, cows grazing under the noise of the buses above, but dimmed by the small rush of the brown dirty river, houses pink, houses blue, houses yellow, houses colorless and weathered, rich and poor, new and old, always construction, shadows of colonial Spain, plumes of aromatic smoke, guinea pig and corn roasting over coal, hot cinnamon liquor in styrofoam cups, the city´s 150 foot winged virgin watching the north, her aluminum back to the south, an active volcano standing taller yet, 60,000 students in one place, el controlador whistling gordita, gordita, a young girl on a dirt path smiles at me hello, trailed by three stray dogs, and I know I finally found a place without gringos, full families tending stores, the kids tend the register while the mother steps out, affectionate fathers, babies wrapped in blankets, slung across the shoulders of indigenous women who forever look handsome in their colored dress despite age or shape, viejos playing volleyball in truck lots, cypresses standing tall in the parks, cut at odd sides, buses that rarely stop, just slow down, a small fire in the tire shop, boiled chicken feet, fried pig face, racks of fruits forever new to me, the sun cool but strong, buses and taxis always about to run you over, fumes that turn your boogers black, not much police, but alway security, the Monte Carlo fronted by guards unsure how to wear their shotguns, mountan forests that echo and creak, like doors opening and closing around you, the natives always ready to take down the president, men affectionate with other men but still machisimo, holding each other´s stomachs while they talk, teenage couples holding hands, kissing on the corners, young mothers, children, always children, on the buses, in the stores, on the backs of mothers and laps of fathers, and never pushed at a distance in carriages.
For me these images are very vivid, but do any of them strike you? Or make you think of something or somewhere else?
I have now been in Ecuador for three weeks. I have eight weeks left. I have finally finished my spanish classes, and I am now equipped with the language level of a nine year old (I tried to read a book for 11 year olds, but it was very difficult), which is not great, but enough to get around and understand half the people I talk to half of the time. I have a lot of notes I want to share about Quito, but I don´t want to exhaust you or abuse too much blog space, so I have consolidated everything into a list/poem of images. Quito is in many ways, the same as other big cities, but it has its differences, and these are images that struck me as singular or different. Vamos;
Volcanoes and dogs, airplanes brushing bluffs, Christ enmeshed in walls of gold, tin rooves and crumbling stone sprinkling sides of mountains, dogs fighting on rooftop ledges, humping in the park, couples tucked away under eucalyptus shade, stand up from Itchimbia and see the city, condors hidden in Pichincha, but always flying in my dreams, a river meadow, its slopes above filled with corn and tilted tinned houses, pigs rolling in the yards, cows grazing under the noise of the buses above, but dimmed by the small rush of the brown dirty river, houses pink, houses blue, houses yellow, houses colorless and weathered, rich and poor, new and old, always construction, shadows of colonial Spain, plumes of aromatic smoke, guinea pig and corn roasting over coal, hot cinnamon liquor in styrofoam cups, the city´s 150 foot winged virgin watching the north, her aluminum back to the south, an active volcano standing taller yet, 60,000 students in one place, el controlador whistling gordita, gordita, a young girl on a dirt path smiles at me hello, trailed by three stray dogs, and I know I finally found a place without gringos, full families tending stores, the kids tend the register while the mother steps out, affectionate fathers, babies wrapped in blankets, slung across the shoulders of indigenous women who forever look handsome in their colored dress despite age or shape, viejos playing volleyball in truck lots, cypresses standing tall in the parks, cut at odd sides, buses that rarely stop, just slow down, a small fire in the tire shop, boiled chicken feet, fried pig face, racks of fruits forever new to me, the sun cool but strong, buses and taxis always about to run you over, fumes that turn your boogers black, not much police, but alway security, the Monte Carlo fronted by guards unsure how to wear their shotguns, mountan forests that echo and creak, like doors opening and closing around you, the natives always ready to take down the president, men affectionate with other men but still machisimo, holding each other´s stomachs while they talk, teenage couples holding hands, kissing on the corners, young mothers, children, always children, on the buses, in the stores, on the backs of mothers and laps of fathers, and never pushed at a distance in carriages.
For me these images are very vivid, but do any of them strike you? Or make you think of something or somewhere else?
Sam, thank you for sharing this with us. It faintly reminds me of sweet times, living in different places but none as colorful as Quito. We can picture it, even smell it reading this list poem.
ReplyDeleteYour posts make me want to leave Boston and go exploring. For now, I'll keep on living vicariously through you and your descriptive writing of your endless adventures.
ReplyDeleteYour poem is reminiscent of the people of Vietnam as I read it, not because of any real similarities (none, really), but because of how foreign, and in many ways better, the people are to each other. You always notice the things that are better, don't you? At least in the way people interact with each other?
ReplyDeleteSam, I propose you share with us one of your more anecdotal experiences. I'd love to see a fleshed out, but blog-worthy, narrative of a kind.