Bus......

One day when I arrived in Cayambe, a Saturday...I was totally late and I missed the Oyacachi bus by like an hour. It turned out to be one of the best things I have ever done.

Here in the Cayambe Pichincha/Napo region there are some strong movements...one of them is Leftist Labor and the other is Evangelical.

After realizing how late I was in Cayambe I got a room in a hostal $6, put down my bag and started walking the town. I wandered back to the place where the bus would leave the next day...it was dark lonely and quiet. For me walking at night is not such a big deal...I see women and men in Quito with their bags slung over their stomach not back. These are my tricks...

1. Walk with confidence
2. Carry hardly any money
3. Be intelligent, alert and have a plan
4. Know where the police are
5. If you feel unsafe you probably are in danger...go where there is a significant population of women and children.
   

But it also helps that I am medio tall and of a bigger build. However Size is definately not everything and I sure as hell don't know how to fight...a gentle football game is enough to scare me.

Anyway near the bus stop I found a place called El Colliseo which is a indigenous evangelical meeting place of grand proportions. They were selling food for 1.50 I got a mountain of cow stomach and rice and egg with aji and salad. Not bad....
Church people are generally not stingy with food...money is another thing but food, that they consider a basic human right..

There was a group of conservatively dressed women probably 15 women, tending the kitchen and one man who was considered in charge. I was gently watched and exactly after my last bite a woman came to wisk away my plate and clean what was one of the limited spaces, for the next patron of the church. It is a forceful gesture from a beautiful, small, strong woman.

One of the women cooking was with me at the door and was extremely convinced that I should enter the coliseo...much more so than I was, being the only gringa in sight.

Of course eventually slowly I went in with a group of people and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible about it. Once inside I found William Parion the president of the community, already there watching the festivities. I introduced myself and then the next time he passed he smiled energetically. Later with good luck I also found Edgar Parion my neighbor and he indicated where exactly the bus would leave from.

Later I drank something with milk, sugar, and choclo(huge white maize) from a thin plastic cup that wrinkles and almost collapses in your hand when you move it. To acompany the milk chocolo drink we ate "pan" which is bread in English, but folks from the US will know it as frybread. This was the main alimientation of Native Americans after conquest of Indigenous lands. Limited ammounts of flour of questionable quality arrived as a gift from the government that had stolen the territories of Native Americans.

Here is an excerp from a paper in the US where I live...

'Games notes that fry bread is more a survival food than a native tradition.
"In the concentration camps called reservations, the agents woul give you flour, " Games said, "and that's what you used to make fry bread."'

-Food for the spirit
~Bart Ripp
Tacoma News Tribune

Really sad eh?

Anyway I bought a bike in Cayambe and it is really cool. I hope it will make the daily commute to the station a little easier...But I think I will paint it ugly white, same as we do in Holland eh? Makes its less attractive to steal...


The next day after my religious experience...I made it to both the market and bus. The market in Cayambe runs throughout the week, for anything you could possibly need that walks flies or squaks. I got up super early and left to bargain...but who wants to bargain at 7AM? You have the whole day to sell your goods, why deal with a single gringa? Still I walked around until I found what I wanted....potatoes; small, purple and cheap. I bought from a woman from Ibarra, we were talking for about 10 minutes, when suddenly a man yelled in our direction "Papas, Papas Catoooorce!" at just the right time. So I ended up getting out of there with a huge sack 50kg of potatoes for 15 bucks. Astonishingly cheap. But you are 12 blocks away from where you need to be with 50kg of potatoes. So you hire a bike cart and the man pedals and ride on top of the potatoes. Really fun. Of course later my neighbors taught me that 10 (0.20 USD cents a kg) is more reasonable but hey you gotta be happy about what you can get.

Cayambe has a really well organized transportation coop. They will never overcharge you...and they do a damn good job at getting you where you need to go.

After this I got to the bus and after hefting the earthy potatoes into the luggage compartment with help from the cyclist, I boarded to find my buddy sitting in the back of the bus already at 7:30AM. He introduced me to his friend who is also in Quito at the carpentry school. Oyacachi has a different dynamic...even when the teenagers go to Cayambe to have a good time, buy things and divert themselves....they are awake at 6,7,8 AM and go to the one bus from their community before it leaves and sit there, conversing with friends and neighbors...almost singing to each other "Eeemanaja?" How are you..."Aleeeja." Good. They go to the bus and sit in it...its a foreign idea for me...sit in a vehicle when you will not be traveling anwhere in it. I go to the bus to go... I was totally confused when my new friends got up and left the bus as we started to move... they still had business in Cayambe but came to the bus...as if they were closer to their home and more comfortable. This is unique, to sit and talk to each other then leave.

I guess its the same reason why I put in this video. It's just nice to have friends that recognize you. We are social animals.