The Market

Let me paint you a picture
a picture that I know that you'd like
I'll let the colors run
it dries and then its done

A little bit ago one of my dear Quaker friends and life mentors told me (I am paraphrasing here): Take time to take a walk and enjoy where you are. You will regret not doing that when you leave.

This is something that I have been thinking about a lot in the past couple of weeks and I find that it may be the best advice anybody has ever given me for my exchange and life. When I really open my eyes and heart to what I am doing I am always filled with positive emotions, happiness, joy, amazement, and just general good feelings. I see things that I have never really seen before, but just passed by in the craziness of the first few days in Ecuador and then were just part of normal life.

With this in mind I am going to describe to you my walk to the market today and maybe you can have a little bit of my slow walk, taking in, with awe, my surroundings.

It started with just a normal day after school where I was sitting on my bed trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my afternoon. The one thing that kept popping into my head was the fact that I wanted fresh fruit, but alas, we didn’t have any in the house. So I took matters into my own hands. I threw on my Chaco’s and as I ran to the door yelled to my sister that I was gong to buy fruit. I started down the street. The first think that I noticed was the graffiti sprayed on the walls of the house at the end of the street (some things don’t change from country to country), but then I realized that I just walked by it and read it with out a second glance. Spanish anyone!??? In the next couple of blocks I took in the kids playing on the street, the woman grilling out (only difference was she was grilling out plantains), and just the general hustle and bustle of life in Ecuador.

As I stumbled upon the main street in our town I came to the work of my sister. She was chilling on the steps waiting for somebody to come into the store. We stopped and had a conversation for a bit before she asked me where I was going. When she heard I was bound for the market down the street she handed off her duties to the other girl working in the shop and joined me. There were two things that I took out of this interaction that really impressed me. The first was that I was able to stop and have a real conversation in Spanish with somebody who spoke as much English as I do Russian. Second, that it was totally normal to stop and talk to my sister as if she was my sister. I am feeling more and more apart of this family every day. I am expected to do chores, ask where I am going (and some times be told no), and have none of that guest slack cut for me now. I love feeling like I am part of a household and the joy and struggles that come with it.

As we wandered down to the market we passed many street venders selling everything from tamarind juice to large amounts of meat skewered on sticks with lots of mayonnaise. When we arrived at the market the air was mixed with the all to common order of raw fish and fresh fruit and vegetables of every color and size that were engulfing us. There were mangos, pineapples, avocadoes, potatoes, unrecognizable berries, bananas and plantains by the hundreds, oranges, apples, green beans, cabbage, carrots and passion fruit (just to name a few). All pilled into long rows of colorful veggie and fruit laden stands. We went out searching for my passion fruit and mango to make some fresh fruit juice. The first stand we stopped at nobody was there. We continued wandering to the next stand where I got 6 passion fruit and 2 mangos for a dollar and exchanged a wonderful conversation with the old lady working the stand. We trotted back out of the market and back up the street to my sister’s work. The whole time I couldn’t stop beaming, I am living the life of my dreams, in Ecuador! The air was fresh, I was in good health and life is good.

I wandered back home engulfed it the joy of fresh fruit in my hand and my feet pending the slate streets in Guaranda. Life is fantastic. I just need to take time to see it sometimes.

Livin’ on the loose.