A Trip To Ecuador

Maddy Chandler

We walk on roads flanked by earthen mounds, resurrected the night before last Burning tires and cylinders of raw lumber are interspersed between the piles of gravel and dirt, serving as intimidating and effective roadblocks The whirring of motorcycle and car engines is absent, leaving a void that renders the city unrecognizably silent Acrid smoke forces our eyes to draw water. When we arrive inside a small cafeteria through a backdoor entrance, the owner quickly slides the dead bolt into place This is the first day that I begin to feel trapped.

It is nearing the middle of the night, and we are on a rental bus heading for the small Ecuadorian volcano town of Otavalo On the stereo a local station plays Katy Perry and Flo Rida between commercials for “fruta fresca, cereales, y todo que deseas en un supermercado local!”

“Well, I guess this is the last time we’ll be speaking English tonight, ” Clara, the girl from Raleigh whom I have only met today, grimaces

“Yeah, you're right. Are you ready for this?” I can’t help smiling in anticipation of the next two weeks

“I don’t know Honestly, I am not great with my Spanish, so we’ll see how this goes. ” We both laugh despite our sleep-deprived state. Our group is now nearing 24 hours awake, but as I glance around the bus, I notice that nobody is asleep. We are all anxious to meet our host families.

As I am lugging my backpack out from the underbelly of the bus an unfamiliar voice calls out my name. I turn and find myself facing Senora Mediavilla I recognize her from the photo she sent me through Whatsapp of her and her family She hugs me before reaching to take my bag from me and bring it to her car

When we arrive at the gated facade of her house I feel my body begin to tense up as she unlatches one grate after another, followed by a large deadlock whose opening click reverberates through my body. The kitchen is tiny, but no different from my own in that it is the heart of the house In and around the kitchen the rest of the family waits up to greet me with hugs and introductions

“Hola!” a girl who can’t be more than five shouts from behind her older sister's legs. I don’t recognize the two young girls from the family photo, but I can easily pick out Senora Mediavilla’s children: two young men and a girl my age, along with her husband, who promptly introduces himself to me with a handshake The youngest girl who is wearing bright red lipstick, clearly self-applied, and a big grin, runs up to hug my legs

“These are my nieces, ” Señora Mediavilla says. “They wanted to stay up to see you. ” My body unclenches itself as it gives in to ease and then exhaustion When the nieces leave with their parents for their house, my host mom shows me to my room My roommate, who arrived the day before, claimed the larger of the two beds, leaving me with the slightly curved Spongebob-themed bed Regardless, I have never been more grateful to see a mattress Slipping on wool socks and pulling on a down jacket to remedy the absence of a heater, I am asleep almost immediately after my host mom latches the door.

They told us in advance to expect rain daily during this time of the year, but I wake to streaky sunlight I open my eyes to a strange room 2,500 miles away from my own and dewy air, scented by waterfalls and frying eggs The breakfast placed before me as I sit down at the kitchen table is enough to suffice as breakfast, snack, and lunch A heaping mountain of slick papaya, a four-egg omelet with peppers and onions, yogurt, banana, granola, two juices, and one cup of piping milk. I finish everything placed in front of me to the pleasure of my generous host mom, setting a dangerous precedent

*

After a half-day of introductions and Spanish classes, I receive another impossibly large meal for lunch at a local restaurant, complete with appetizer, soup, juice, salad, chicken, rice, beans, plantains, and dessert The bill comes to three dollars total, with the inclusion of a 50% tip Walking back to the school with my group, dogs of every genetic variation follow us with their eyes from the porches of fragrant panaderías. Others pay us no attention, weaving in and out through our group and even through our legs. In the park surrounding the enclosed school young boys shoot baskets while older women use exercise machinery nearby. Everything in the small city is fizzy and gold-hued, a place I would willingly spend the rest of my summer in if I had the chance

On June 11th I checked my bag for the last time. I set my alarm for two-fifteen am, and I left for the airport with only the stuff I was able to squeeze into my oversized backpack In the backpack, I toted a headlamp, Deet bug repellent, a flashlight, extra batteries, a whistle, and a sleeping bag All things I would never end up using. My first week items, the clothes I would wash and rewear countless times during the Spanish immersion portion of the trip occupied the space above these impossibly tightly packed items

The first week of the trip was scheduled to take place in Otavalo, Ecuador and to be an opportunity to take Spanish classes during the day and to spend time with a host family at night The second week was to be an adventure: backpacking through the Amazon \Cloud Forest with local scientists for tour guides and a focus on herpetology, geology, biology, sustainability–promises of wild animal sightings and rainwater showers

I was filled with expectations and hopes. I had packed and prepared meticulously and printed schedules with each day planned to the hour. Schedules that would become increasingly irrelevant as the trip advanced

On my second day in Otavalo, by the time I sit down to eat my once more heaping plate, I have already been up since the crack of the South American sun, having run around the bustling outdoor track between rounds of haciendo plancha with my host mom. As I take a sip of my tomate de arbol juice, Cami passes her iPhone to me so that I can choose the next song up for judgment We discovered over breakfast that we both love Reggaeton, and now I am attempting to convince her that Maluma is better than Bad Bunny as she counters by playing “Gasolina” and other classics. In the middle of our

heated debate, my phone vibrates in my lap

The message is from Lesley, the trip leader, and reads, “Plaza de Ponchos is closed due to a smallscale strike by the indigenous community We have rescheduled for tomorrow See you as planned @9 at the front of the school. ”

This is the 13th of June, one day after our arrival, and the day that the Ecuadorian protests of 2022 officially begin By the end of the day, the immense and iconic indigenous marketplace--Plaza de Ponchos--is still on strike. Regardless, when our host families come to gather us from the deserted school (the regular school day had been canceled due to the strike), many approach Lesley, swearing a speedy end to the disturbances and a return to normalcy by morning Our trip leaders too predicted the strike to be so brief and isolated that the market was rescheduled for the next morning

Tonight Cami asks me to go to her friend Ana's house with her for dinner and board games When we arrive after walking the two blocks from Cami’s house it is already dark outside but inside the house radiates light and the aroma of frying tortillas At the dinner table, I find myself speaking Spanish without having to think, laughing along with the family at the sarcastic jokes of Ana’s older brother, and holding conversations with her parents surrounding their work and my family in America By the time we have depleted the two-liter bottle of Coke, the conversation has turned its focus on the strike. Cami and Ana lose interest and head off to Ana’s room prompting me to follow, but I respond that I want to help clean up and that they should go on without me Five minutes later I am still seated at the dinner table, glued to the conversation taking place between Ana’s father and brother about the strikes in the nineteen-nineties. The two agree that the same thing is beginning once again and that the nation must brace itself.

“What happened in the nineties?”

The father glances up at his wife who is taking up the plates and she shakes her head, but the brother doesn’t catch on and begins to explain what he has only heard stories of from his parents Soon enough the father too has joined in to emphasize and validate the points made by the brother.

“No water, ” the younger man shakes his head knowingly

“That’s right, they shut it down, we had to drink from the rivers, and collect our bath water there too. ”

“But at least there was water to boil and drink, food was another story ”

“That’s right They closed all the roads Nobody in or out, no food in or out. ” The father grimaced at this memory from his own youth

I don’t know how to react I laugh because I think that it is an elaborate joke but nobody laughs with me

“Well, our group leader said it will almost certainly be over by tomorrow ” I say it more for my own sake than for anybody else’s but now it is the men’s turn to laugh

I.