Recognition - Part 2 of 3

(Ecuador trip, March 2011)
Part 2

I awoke from a deep sleep. My knee was stiff and sore. Days of walking hospital corridors during my brother-in-law Chuck’s brief battle with cancer had left my back and right leg spasming. Sometimes I could barely straighten my leg and resembled a round, middle-aged flamingo. Arline was already awake. I sat up, grabbed my folding cane and hobbled into the bathroom to shower in the dark. I’m sure that switch in the shower was grounded, but it still freaked me out a little.

Back in Texas, my boys and all of my husband John’s family would be getting dressed for the funeral. My heart ached for them and I said a prayer.

After breakfast, we made our way back to Quito, stopping again in Nanegalito to buy some guavas. Real guavas, the long pods that you twist open to dig out the fruit inside (Arline called them pea pods on steroids). A quick stop at Pululahua to gaze down at the farms on the floor of the long-dormant crater, and we got back to Quito in time for our dental appointments.

Self-employment makes it hard to get health insurance, let alone dental. But working for myself was a lifelong dream. I couldn’t have done it without John’s encouragement. He insisted I reach for the stars, always convinced I could... When my mother-in-law and nephew insisted I come on my dream trip even it meant missing Chuck’s funeral, I heard echoes of John in them.

The dentist, Dr. Moscoso, is a distant relative of my brother-in-law Germán. That makes him shirt-tail kin to me if the shirt has a very long tail. After the gentlest cleaning and fillings I’ve ever received, he sent me to the building next door for x-rays.

Despite Dr. M’s careful instructions on finding the x-ray office, I promptly got lost. It seems I had entered on the mezzanine rather than the ground floor. Eventually, I stumbled on the right office. They had me fill out some forms and soon a young, white-clad x-ray technician came out, holding my chart. “Señora Sha-u... Señora Sha-a... Señora Sha-i-u...” she called, petering off into resigned silence. Spanish has no words ending in “w”. Taking a deep breath, she tried again. “Señora Carol!” To her relief, I obediently stood up.

I’ve had a number of names throughout my life: last names, nicknames, special names like “mom”. Somehow it seemed appropriate that on this trip, I became just “Carol” again.

Meanwhile, Germán and Arline had been looking for me (apparently they had also searched the mezzanine) and were now slightly convinced I had disappeared into the thin Andean air. While Arline waited in the car and presumably pondered her own adventures – ask her sometime about the doctor, the cop, the nurse, three cleaning ladies, two brooms, two mops, a bucket on wheels and a Swiffer – Germán went looking for me.

Blissfully unaware that my dear brother-in-law’s blood pressure was on the rise, I wandered leisurely back to Dr. Moscoso’s building. When I saw Germán coming toward me I thought, “Wow, what timing!” He was probably thinking something rather different.

Everyone said I wouldn’t recognize my town. But on the drive to the dentist’s office, I easily found the English Fellowship church, now almost hidden by new buildings – new to me, but old enough to show the wear and tear of time. And there was where I fell on my bike and passed out, when I was seven. And there was Villalengua Street, where I once lived. Small school children passed me on the street and I realized that their parents might not have been born before I left. The sharp cutoff to my memories made me a woman from the past, catapulted into the twenty-first century and greedy to recognize, under more than a quarter-century of brick and mortar, the city I called my own.

On Friday, after brunch at my sister’s of humitas and quimbolitos and naranjilla juice, we hopped in the car and Germán drove us north (Becky wasn’t well and stayed home.) When I left Ecuador, Carcelén wasn’t in the sticks - it was the sticks. Now, we drove through Carcelén and Calderón and it wasn’t until Guayllabamba that we left the bustle of city behind. Patchwork farms began dotting the mountainsides. We passed a goat tethered to the edge of the road. Little homesteads perched on ridges far above us.

The mountains hadn’t changed. The shaggy hillsides have long memories and it was all incredibly more comfortable than I’d feared. Germán commented, “The mountains recognize you.” The wind in the eucalyptus leaves agreed.

We stopped in Cayambe for bizcochos with manjar de leche and queso de hoja. Yes, I had a mental checklist of all the foods I had to have. Arline described it as “eating our way through Ecuador.” I call it “sense memory” (it somehow sounds less fattening.)

As dusk fell, we drove into Cotacachi, that lovely little town famous for its leather goods. As it turned out, none of us was in the mood to shop yet. Still, the drive was worthwhile. The town is beautiful, we had a delicious supper and I was accosted on the street.

At first I wasn’t sure I was being accosted. Then a weathered old hand reached out and grabbed mine. I looked around – and down at an ancient Otavaleña. Her face was so wrinkled that it wore a permanent smile. She asked again, “De dónde es, lady?” Where are you from? “De los Estados Unidos”, I told her. From the United States. Both hands flew together, clasped at her aged breast. She broke into a beatific smile. All five teeth flashed as she exclaimed, “Ay, de Nueva York!”

No, I gently corrected her, from Texas. Her smile got bigger. “Junto a Nueva York!” and I didn’t have the heart to argue as she rearranged American geography to make Texas and New York neighbors.

Leaving Cotacachi, we returned to Otavalo to spend the night. I had made reservations at the Hotel Otavalo, where my family always used to stay. We pulled up in front of the wrought-iron gates. The lights were on, but the gates were padlocked shut. There was a bell to ring, but it was more than 10 feet inside the locked gates. The reception area was well-lit, but there was no one there. I shook the gates lightly and called out a tentative hello. A slight rustling answered me, deep inside the building.

From around the corner popped a small, wizened guard. “There’s no one here,” he told me kindly. Rather than point out that he was someone, and was indeed there, I asked “Where are they?” “They’re gone,” was the disheartening reply.

“Where?”
“Away. There are no guests.”
“Why are there no guests?”
“Because they took the rugs out.”
“Why can’t there be guests if the rugs are out?”
“Because they took the beds out with the rugs.”

And in the face of that irrefutable argument, I went back to the car and we opted for Hotel Indio Inn, owned by an acquaintance of Germán’s. As it turned out, the Indio was a wonderful hotel. The two atria were peaceful and airy, the rooms were nice and there were fantastic chairs, each carved from a single tree trunk.

Reclaiming my home between worlds is about reconnecting all facets of myself - not recovering a perception of who I was. Those gates are also long-since closed and the padlock is in place - as it should be.

The next morning – oh, what fun! Otavalo is home to one of the best artisan markets in the world (in my unscientific opinion.) Arline showed me a rather large tote bag she’d brought and announced, “I’m going to take this, just in case I get something.” I expected to buy just a few things, myself. Not much. Germán walked us to the market and then took off to visit friends in the area. We dove into row after row of stalls.

A couple of hours later, Germán came back and offered to take our purchases to the car while we continued exploring the market. It took no urging for us to hand over the five or six large bags of goodies each of us carried. We had accumulated a few more by the time we stopped for lunch. I don’t think Arline ever did use that tote bag in Otavalo; it was just too small.

The road back to Quito was no longer rediscovery. It was recognition. The world I left was there, unchanged by my absence and unaltered by my return.

After resting up, we had one more outing planned for Saturday. It wasn’t on my list –something Germán wanted us to see. Taking Teresa with us, we made our way south to downtown Quito. As soon as we passed Naciones Unidas Avenue, the memories flooded in. Germán left the main thoroughfare and entered a neighborhood. It looked intensely familiar. We passed a street sign... “Asunción!” I yelled, “Two blocks over, and about six blocks down... on Caracas... I used to live there!”

We passed the Plaza Grande and pulled into a parking lot halfway up La Ronda. Germán explained to Arline that La Ronda was one of Quito’s oldest streets. Narrow, steep and cobblestoned, it winds down the hillside, lined by beautifully restored Spanish colonial buildings. There were crowds of people. And wandering musicians. And street theater troupes. Every restaurant was open. Stalls sold steaming cups of canelazo, potent and delicious. My cane in one hand and Germán on the other side for good measure, I made my way down to the bottom of the hill. Arline walked ahead, arm in arm with Teresa. At the bottom, we found folklore dancers performing and sat down to watch.

I glanced around. Down there was Cumandá, where my high school friend Gwen and I- no, I’d better not tell that story, to protect the guilty. The Angel of Quito stood tall above us on nearby Panecillo. The dancers finished and we went to find a restaurant. When the singers came by, I asked them to sing “El Chullita Quiteño” for me.

We made our way back up La Ronda, stopping to enjoy the performances. Families, groups of teens, lovers young and old strolled, stopped, laughed, walked on. The life of the city – my city, ancient and yet new – pulsed around me and I recognized myself.

By the top of the hill, I was no longer using my cane.

(to be continued)