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Published: October 4th 2006
(This is the real first entry, from my first day...)
A day that started with a 3:15-a.m. cab ride from the East Village to JFK ended in a little apartment on a fairly quiet street in Quito, Ecuador. Thanks to Xanax, I was able to stare out the window rather than shutting my eyes as we descended, which was good - it might have been one of the most striking things I’ve seen. Mountains and clouds on mountains, green on mountains, and the city sort of popping up in between them. On the last leg of the flight, I talked with a woman named Magdalena, who was returning to Ecuador after working as a nanny in LA for four years. This would be her first time seeing her family since she left, and they would all be waiting for her at the airport. When we landed, around 20 brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews, and Magdalena’s parents and daughter swarmed around her, and after she introduced me as her new friend, they all hugged and kissed me. They gave me three phone numbers to call if I needed anything, and then her sister insisted on taking me to my place. It
always amazes me how warm and friendly most people in Latin America are…
The apartment is more like a small apartment-hotel. It’s run by a woman named Cecilia and her Argentine husband, Mario, who both live on the premises. Cecilia is motherly and pretty strict -- she’d like a phone call if you’ll be home very late (she says she’d be startled at hearing the gate open in the middle of the night), and I get the feeling she would rather her female renters don’t have male overnight guests (I guess after all, this is a fairly conservative, Catholic country). She says Quito is getting more dangerous, and the place itself is like Fort Knox - I had to do a few trial runs with all the keys before heading out. (That is not at all surprising, I know.) My apartment is cute, though not as quaint as I’d imagined… It’s sort of 70s-sterile, with a view of a decrepit garden, but it’s almost twice the size of my one in Cambridge. It’s got a stove, oven, fridge, desk, couch, TV (about three of the seven channels seem to be music videos) - everything you’d expect. The best part
is the bathroom, which has a funky shower/tub with a step in it and a skylight above it (and hot water, thankfully).
The highlight of my first evening, after a bit of a TV show that seemed to be the Virgin Mary’s gardening hour, was a trip to the supermarket, the unfortunately named SuperMaxi. It’s a great place, though - lots of fruits and vegetables, good yogurt (yogurt always seems better in other countries) and fresh bread. There were quite a few Americans and Europeans there, a few who, like me, spent a good 15 minutes in each aisle. I stocked up on apartment basics and cooking staples and four different kinds of strange fruit, and what would probably have cost $60 at Whole Foods came to $22. (The US dollar is used in Ecuador, so no changing money!) I came home and cooked my first meal, rice and eggplant in garlic oil. I also discovered, to my great relief, that the electricity is indeed the same as in the US, so my laptop did not explode when I plugged it in. And that iTunes works (why wouldn’t it, I guess) - muy importante!
More soon….
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Jaimito
non-member comment
te echo de menos
Sweetie, you're truly living la vida latina down there already. So glad to hear it and to see that you're alive and well. Enjoy it, and I can't wait to read your blog more often. Muchos besos... James (And in the interest of your mother indeed reading this, allow me to say this: You have one hot mamacita of a mother back in Westport!)