I woke up to activity in the surrounding rooms. I only got a short glance at the house the night before, and chose now to explore it- but I knew there was someone there who I didn´t know. How was I going to meet them with no Spanish skills? I walked out to see a small, dark skinned woman grinning at me. This was Consuelo. ¨Hola,¨ I blurted, desperately trying to remember what little Spanish I had learned. Unfortunately, words like ball, sink, and moon weren´t much good at the present moment. After having a conversation which consisted mostly of Consue talking at me and me repeating ´´I don´t understand,¨ I heard a word I remembered learning- desayuno.
Breakfast.
¨Si! Yo tengo hambre,¨ I said excitedly, happy that at least Rosetta Stone had enough sense to teach their customers important words to keep them from starving. Incredible business model, that is.
After breakfast, and some exploring of the house (which was a very nice, custom built one level home with a central courtyard and covered from head to toe in hardwood floors), Irene´s brother called me over. I had met him before in North Carolina when he had come to visit a few months prior. We had a mission- we were going to pick up Irene, who was working at a summer camp for the next week or so. We hopped in the car.
I was immediately shocked at how different driving in Quito is during the day from how it was driving at the wee hours of the night during a weekday. There were people everywhere, naturally, but even more surprising was the traffic. I was told it was crazy here, but I wasn´t exactly prepared. There didn´t seem to be lanes, as much as spaces for cars to cram into. I saw taxis and busses stopping in the middle of flowing traffic to pick up customers, resulting in a flurry of amazingly rapid curses in a language that was still foreign to me.
But what really shocked me was the multitude of people just… existing on the sides of the road. There were men and women, not to mention children, just sitting at the side of traffic. At every light, something was for sale- oranges, crackers, candy, newspapers... I felt like the local supermarket had a drive through. The most unusual were the street performers, though. The first I saw in Quito was a kid, maybe 7 years old, who jumped in front of our car right after we hit a red light. Wearing an old sweatshirt and a spider-man mask, he started juggling. The weirdest thing about this was that he was actually pretty good at it. He had obviously had time to practice. After his impromptu performance, he ran up to the driver´s side expectantly. Irene´s brother, Gabriel, rolled down the window and handed him a dime. He went on his way.
¨Are those kinds of things common?¨ I asked.
¨Oh yeah, they are everywhere,¨ replied Gabriel.
I couldn´t help but feel bad for those kids- working on the side of the street for a few cents, put there by who knows what circumstance. It was only later that I learned more.
A lot of kids in Ecuador don´t have constant access to education. The system is very different from the states; there is no set age for work, and conditions are often bad for people in impoverished situations. In the weeks to come, I saw kids performing all sorts of tasks for money- from begging, to helping park cars, to watching those cars to keep them protected from ´theives´, though I am not sure what a six year old will do to stop a car from getting jacked. One thing that I noticed and continued to have reinforced in my mind is just how many things kids are doing to make ends meet. Not all of them, however, work to earn money to eat. I quickly learned from talking to some newfound friends that some of the kids go and use the money to buy glue so they can get high. Knowledge of the existence of such a self destructive cycle in children that are too young to even think of girls made me hesitant to give any of them anything- but eventually I did as all the others do, and go with it.
In the time spent in Ecuador, I saw all sorts of street performers. From that first kid to juggle with his spider-man mask, to tightrope walkers, mimes, acrobats, and firebreathers, I saw almost an entire circus on the streets every day. Eventually it became a normal sight, something to blend into the city. I guess people can get used to anything.
Speaking of getting used to things, allow me to shed some light on the city known as Quito, Ecuador. The city itself has many interesting and unique features that make it one of a kind. Quito is the second largest city in the country (behind Guayaquil), and is the highest legal capital in the world. The elevation at the city square is 2800m (almost 9200 feet), almost twice as high as Salt Lake City, Utah. Because the city is nestled inside of the Andes (and surrounded on every side by volcanoes, mind you), it is exceptionally narrow. The city is only 3 miles wide, but almost 25 miles long. This makes traffic a nightmare, especially getting from one side to the other. The city actually sits directly on the equator (perched barely in the northern hemisphere), meaning seasons are virtually nonexistent. Quito is known to be in ´eternal spring´, as the days are hot, with the nights being slightly chilly. Every once in awhile, a nearby eruption disrupts some of the city. The last one was in 2006, which covered the city in ash and shut down the international airport. Actually, Quito is the only capital in the world that is endangered by an active volcano. Certainly makes the whole travel thing seem a little more exciting, to say the least.
While doing some research, I also came across some statistics for employment in the city. The illiteracy rate is about 3%, but the unemployment is 9%. Way more surprising than this is the underemployment rate. Underemployment, as I soon learned, is a situation in which either 1) a skilled person is working as unskilled labor, 2) a person looking for a full time job can only find part time employment, or 3) a person is one of too many employees in a company, and as a result gets paid less than full time, or only has seasonal work. Do you want to know what the underemployment rate of Quito is?
Fourty-three percent.
That means that (including unemployment) more than half of the population does not work full time. The implications of this suddenly allow the multitude of people on the street to make sense.
Anyway, I am getting off topic. When I woke up that morning, I decided to administer a little test. With the city being almost two miles high, and never having been that high before, I decided to test my stamina. I started doing jumping jacks and pushups to see how quickly I would run out of breath. The results were pretty definitive- almost immediately I started to get short of breath, and had to stop. It´s amazing how much you take oxygen for granted when you have it. I am just lucky I didn´t get altitude sickness.
