1-15-09

1/15/09
This morning was pretty much like every other. Took the bus to school, went to class, learned some things, the usual. However, after school the day started to get a little more interesting. First of all it was the first time I had ridden home from school without the boy who lives below me (Dave/David), which I wasn’t too worried about it was just different. As I got to the stop near where I switch buses the traffic started to get really horrible, as in we were barley moving. The traffic in Quito can get pretty bad, but this seemed extra awful so another girl and I decided to get off and walk to the extra 2 blocks. We ended up beating to bus to the stop, and there we split to go in our respected directions. This split happened at a large intersection where cops were directing traffic, something that I have seen before during rush hour. Just as I was about to start crossing the intersection because the cop had motioned for the cars to stop in the street perpendicular to my path and the other cop motioned for the cars parallel to me to start going, 2 motorcycles slipped by and started to cross the intersection. Right away I kind of smiled because motorcycles are pretty crazy around here, they will hop up on the sidewalk and weave around cars to get though traffic faster and it is usually amusing to watch them dominate the street. But, before I knew it a taxi hit the second cycle and the cyclist was sliding on the pavement. I am pretty sure this is the first serious accident I have even witnessed, and I was accordingly shaken up. I crossed the street, extra cautiously and sat down at my bus stop to breathe and reflect. Before I was able to reflect a young Ecuadorian boy came running from the busy street and face planted on the sidewalk in front of me, an older woman helped him up and told him to be more careful. Once again in shock I try to take a breath, but then I saw my bus. Bus stops are not very organized and sometimes they get jammed, which, because of the traffic ours was. Some women were flagging the bus down so I assumed it was going to stop near them, but I was mistaken. The bus went far beyond the stop and I had to run to catch up. By the time I reached the back of the bus it had already started moving so I attempted, and luckily completed, my first moving entrance onto a bus. Finally I was able to sit down and reflect on the semi-crazy events. Soon I saw the ambulance going towards the direction of the accidence I just witnessed, hopefully to help the cyclist. At this point I once again started to notice the usually slow traffic. Since I have only been riding to Quito buses for 2 weeks I thought maybe it was just a really bad day for some reason, like what happens when the brewers have a home night game. But then I noticed the Ecuadorians looking around worried and angry. At this point I started to realize something was not normal about this day. Finally we reached a last intersection in my root, but the lights were not on and there were no cops controlling it. In the states when something like this happens, usually everyone just treats it as a 4-way stop and it is fairly organized and safe. This was definitely not the case here… every car was just trying to squeeze its way through the complete mess of an intersection and as a result it was taking forever. Eventually I reached my stop and got off (thankfully the bus driver came to a complete stop this time.) As I was walking back to my house I started to realize that there was not light on in any of the buildings and finally realized that the power was out. I got to my house and immediately wanted to share my adventure of a bus ride with David so I knocked on the downstairs door and a young girl, whom I had never seen before, answer I asked her where David was and she obviously did not know who I was talking about. I walked into the living room and saw more dark figures that I didn’t recognize. I eventually found David’s dad and he told me David was in his room. So I went to share my stories, Dave had just woken up from a nap so he was a little disoriented. Soon the lights came on and David’s mom came over and told us there was some special catholic ceremony happening and that is why their family was there. Dave and I were not completely sure what was happening but we went upstairs as instructed and were greeted by a priest and a large statue of the Virgin Mary. We were then herded into the living room to sit down. Dave and I were both pretty confused since neither of us knows Spanish very well nor know very much about Catholicism, and he had also just woken up. We sat though what was probably about 20-30 minutes of the priest talking about who knows what, I’m assuming religion. All I really got was the Virgin Mary is pretty important, other than that I was not paying close attention. After the ceremony we had a special queesh that was very tasty and some black tea. Eventually the Virgin left our living room (at which time the lights went off again) and my parents explained that the Virgin was going to other houses in the family. I still don’t understand exactly what happened but it was a good cultural experience, I think… and it was a very fitting end to a very odd day. The next morning I learned that half the country and about 70% of the Ecuadorian population lost power that night. Pretty crazy.