Transition South

I left Mumbai expecting to welcome my original life--a juxtaposition to the speeding motorcycles, 3 a.m. celebrations, and late night street vendors. I expected to be relieved. But for days and weeks I felt out of place. I lay awake in a bed that was both strange and familiar and listened to the silent streets and yearned for the familiar ruckus of a far away home. After eight months of a calm Canadian life I'm lying awake and listening to a backdrop of incessant Spanish screaming and music.

Maybe it's because I decided to move to Quito only two weeks before boarding a flight that I have so often woken up unable to remember where I am.

I've spent the last year living on three different continents and trying to, usually poorly, get by in four different languages. Culture shock feels like my natural state, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

After one week, I am settling into my new home nicely and extremely disappointed in the tenth grade version of me that managed to be consistently absent for Spanish class.

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I had my first day off today and wandered aimlessly around the city. The only way to get to know a place is to get lost in it--repeatedly. Once I gave up trying to get my bearings, I hopped into a taxi with the chattiest driver ever, which gave me an opportunity to stumble through some broken Spanish. He was very friendly, patient, and curious about where I was from, how I felt about Ecuador, what I was doing there, and where I hoped to go.

We stopped at an intersection where pedestrians crossed briskly, very aware that they did not have the right of way. We continued chatting while three men stood on each other's shoulders juggling blunted swords in front of the car. For whatever reason such spectacles were not an unusual way of making money.

We pulled up in front of the gallery, I paid him and he laughed when I caught him trying to short me a dollar. It's been a while since I've been in a country where you can be smiled at and stolen from in the same moment.

I stepped into the art gallery and the receptionist told me the modern art section was closed for four months. Ecuadorian time feels a lot like Indian time.

View from La Basilica