It’s sometimes difficult to explain what I do here, how the time passes so quickly, where the time goes. Every day I walk along to same road and gaze out to the mountains on the left. The days don’t change in length and seemingly the seasons don’t either but the visibility of the mountains does. Some days the clouds obscure them totally and it seems as though there are no mountains and other days as I descend the hill down the road towards the house, that we are living in a valley with a vast range of mountains sweeping across the landscape, distant forests of trees clinging to the mountainside and my imagination runs riot with huge rivers and wild animals..
But no day is really the same. It seems every day is full of things I want to do and things other people want me to do and somehow usually it just about works out. And things can be so unexpected. Last week I went over to the far side of Tena, further than the airport and even closer to the mountains and there my friend lives. Well more accurately many of my friends once lived too. I passed happy afternoons in the river there, New Year parties, my birthday, taught English songs to friends of family members. Today I was there to help translate some material for a webpage. As usual, like any favour takes, it took at least triple the amount of time you think it’s going to!
As I left at 6.15 it was getting dark. I had a sneaky suspicion I had the missed the last bus. (Local buses seem to working after dark?!) As I approached the corner where the bus stops next to the football field a gentleman walked towards me with a child in tow. I greeted him ‘Good evening and asked if he knew if the last bus had gone. He replied ‘Ya mismo’..meaning right now (or possibly within the next hour!). Subconsciously knowing I was in for the long haul, I launched into some mountain chat. I am always curious to know what local people say is in the mountains. From the Amazon in Tena there are no roads or communities living further than an hour out of Tena to the West towards the mountains. The area is uninhabited and by all accounts inhospitable. I’d heard stories of people going in search of gold, of some thrill seeking tourists who’d contracted a helicopter to take them and all their rafting kit into the mountains to some of the wildest rivers and there one of them fell victim to the spirits of the mountains and was killed. The spirits do not take kindly to ones they do not know.
How many days does it take, I asked. And it’s cold at night, right?! This much I had gathered. We continued to talk and the myths and legends continued.
We talked, I waited, it got darker and darker and the mountains became silhouettes on the horizon and then eventually lost their definition completely. Conversation turned to language. It appears I had chanced upon one of the Director of the Bilingual Kichwa/Spanish education system who was battling for the betterment of the authenticity of Kichwa spoken by youths nowadays. I found myself engrossed in a conversation about linguistics and the development of language. He was firmly in the camp that language should not change, I was sitting on the fence between the camps, but with one hand gently stroking the new developing language camp.. at least it’s language being used, I thought.
When it was dark, he suggested he was going my way and as if from nowhere (well actually a rather convoluted conversation with someone on the corner who later appeared to be his wife) a brand new shiny pickup truck fresh from the factory floor appeared. A very welcome gesture as I was less than keen to be stranded by a phantom bus.
And as things turn out, I knew the family. As I got in the car I saw a familiar face. A lovely girl, a friend of a friend (well my ex-boyfriend’s cousin) who had celebrated my 22nd Birthday with me, welcoming me into the traditions of Ecuadorian birthdays by pushing my face into my birthday cake. She’s now married and the boy in the front of the car her son.
Tena is a very small place sometimes, perhaps made to appear smaller by the giant mountain parimo. I don’t think most people ever think about going there. People huddle safe in the town but I always gaze out towards the mountains planning an adventure… one day….
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