the great side of quito and the not-so-great side of quito...

Hmm, well I have two recent things to tell y’all about.

Yesterday Nancy (Caroline’s fantastic childhood nanny) came to PUCE just as my morning class was getting out. She brought her sister, her brother, and her sister-in-law with her. What a cool family! We went out for an enormous lunch and I got to learn all about Nancy’s life in Quito. Caroline has told me tons of great things about growing up with Nancy and childhood trips to Ecuador – I always though she must be exaggerating about how great of a time she always had – but I know now that there was no exaggeration at all. Nancy and her family are wonderful. We didn’t get to spend too much time together because I had an afternoon class… but on Saturday I am going to see her again. The family is having a wedding in Quito and then a reception about an hour outside of the city. Nancy has invited me to come along and see what an Ecuadorian wedding is like --- I’m so excited! We’re going to stay the night outside of the city on Saturday and then on Sunday we’re going to Papallacta before returning to Quito. Papallacta is cool – it’s the same place that I went with IES to the hot springs. There is a lot to do there and I’m looking forward to going back. I’m looking forward to the entire weekend in general. :-)

The other thing that has happened recently isn’t as exciting, not in a good way at least… it was more of a learning experience, and a little bit of a scary one. I spent most of the day today with my friend, Laura. She’s one of the first friends I made when I arrived in Quito and I’m sure she’ll be one of the friends I stay close with after returning to the U.S. After our morning Spanish class we decided to walk to the IES center (a little over a mile) and have lunch with some of our other friends. We made it to the center okay – we walk between PUCE and IES at least 3 times a week – and spent about an hour at the center. After lunch we went back out into the city to look for a camera store that one of the directors had told Laura about. After Laura had got what she needed we were walking back towards IES on a road called Amazonas. I live two blocks off of this road (about ½ a mile down from where we were walking) and I know it pretty well from going back and forth between home and PUCE on the bus. But, this was the first time that I had walked this stretch of it. As we were walking Laura was telling me about how one of our other friends in our program had said that this area could be dangerous at night (it was 2:00pm). We were chatting and walking for quite a while and I noticed three men about 200 feet in front of us who were also chatting and walking in the same direction. Two women were coming from the other direction towards us – when they passed the men they stopped for about 30 seconds and started talking to the men. It seemed strange to me because they were all really close to each other, as if they were friends passing each other and saying hello, but they didn’t do the traditional Ecuadorian greeting upon first meeting (a small hug and kiss on the cheek). After about 30 seconds the women continued walking in our direction and the men continued ahead on ahead us, glancing back over their shoulders at the women and at Laura and me. Laura and I were a lot closer to the men at this point because they had been stopped for so long with the women. I didn’t think much of how the five people had stopped – it seemed odd to me but I didn’t really think much of it – Laura was telling me something and I had been listening to what she was saying. The two women passed us. Laura was on my right and they passed to our left. The woman closest to me turned just as we were passing and grabbed my arm harder than anyone has ever grabbed me before. I instinctively grabbed on to Laura and tried to pull away from the woman. She started speaking really, really fast, “por favor, no pasan, no pasan. Necesitan venir con nosotros, los hombres son ladrones. Tienen chuchillos.” Roughly translated she was telling us to turn around because the three men ahead of us had just robbed them and had knives. Really, we didn’t have much of a choice as to if we were going to turn around and go with the women or not; she pretty much pulled me with her. We turned around and went the other direction with the women (they were careful to sandwich us between them because they had already been robbed and it was obvious that Laura and I aren’t from Ecuador) and they took us about ¼ of a mile back down the road until they could get us onto a bus. As we were walking they told us that the three men had came up really close to them (as I saw taking place) and held them at knifepoint the entire time. Once they were happy with what they women had given them they let them continue on – making sure they were leaving and then looking to me and Laura.

We’ve been told at IES to be really careful about robbers and violence that takes place in Quito – it happens and it’s not something that is going to go away. So far everyone in our programs has been okay. But the experience today just goes to show how out of your control these situations can be. The two women who helped us, both natives to Quito, were completely taken by surprise with the three men. What’s more, where we were walking is one of the busiest streets in Quito and it was 2:00pm in the afternoon with tons of people nearby. It just goes to show that you can never, ever let your guard down – not even for a second or two.

The good thing is that Laura and I (and the women, too) are okay. We were a little shaken up but otherwise we’re fine. We were lucky that the women grabbed us like they did and that the men didn’t try anything funny when the women took us. Like I said earlier, Laura had needed to go get something for her camera and she had a lot on her that could have created trouble with the robbers. Plus - they were dangerous to begin with. Plus - we’re obviously gringas. I’m hoping that we won’t have anything like this happen again while we’re in Ecuador… one story is more than enough for me.

But again we’re both fine. We got back to the IES center and told the directors what happened in a very Spanglish splash of a story. I don’t think I’ll be walking that part of Amazonas ever again, but other than that I’m trying to think of this as just another day abroad and another lesson learned. It was an interesting afternoon.

p.s. – no one is allowed to tell grandma this!! Or Mary and Helen.

So it has been an interesting couple of days. Tomorrow I am going to go climbing – finally!! – and then I have to get ready to leave with Nancy on Saturday morning. I probably won’t post again until Sunday night or Monday – whenever I get back into Quito and have time to write all about the fantastic wedding and reception and trip to Papallacta.

(Brother… last night I went out with some of my friends to karaoke. Haha, you totally would have been proud of me! Except that the selection of English songs in a Spanish speaking country is kind of small – we had quite the variety of your typical “American” songs to chose from and I think the Ecuadorians we met are never going to want to hear another English song again. Or see a pack of 15 white kids who can’t sing to save their lives… :-)