The current bit of rain coming down and the stock pot of water I poured from my window onto the garbage fire have helped somewhat but my Quito house is still reeking strongly of toxic garbage fire smoke so despite the wet weather I’m spending as much time outside as I can before I try to sleep tonight.
With my poor eyesight and how dark the cloudy nights are, plus my endless gasping for breath at altitude, I move hilariously slow after dark here. I went walking after work and eventually made my way further south than I have this week to where the old city starts changing to the rougher southern barrio.
My lunch today at a cafe near my place was not edible and so I’m starving, I don’t see a lot/any open places but a nearby street corner has a young guy grilling skewers of chunks of beef hearts and chicken gizzards (not uncommon here and in Peru) over a fire fed from torn up wooden pallets. A handful of young people are huddled in a doorway on the steps of the closest building with their offal on a stick, staying out of the light rain.
I get one of each and stand around awkwardly, the kids on the steps shuffle to make room for me and I sit down with them. This is definitely a different part of Quito than I’ve experienced before but they seem better than ambivalent to my presence. The 30 seconds or so I wait for the meat to cool is just long enough for me to exhaust all my conversational Spanish and I eat in silence with the occasional bit of teasing from the young people.
It’s very dark in the stairway so it takes me a bit to notice that one guy is using a sewing needle dipped in ink, taped to a pen to tattoo his buddy’s face, just below the eye. I can only assume he’s adding a line of tears, one for each year since she broke his heart.
As I’m finishing my meat (which I’m not wild about) a very scrawny young white guy with tons of face tattoos walks up with three giant machetes in hand. I’ve seen him around a few times this week, he juggles the knives at red lights for pocket change. He orders skewers and walks over, everyone knows him, he stares at me. I tell him I’ve seen him juggling a few times this week and he’s awesome (he is) and that I’ve yet to contribute. I hand him enough to cover his food and a bit more. He thanks me in American accented English and sits where I was sitting. He’s the first North American I’ve talked to since I got to Ecuador.
The gang send me off with a friendly mix of goodbyes that clashes with their tough appearance and I make my way back home again, feeling really good despite the eternal shortness of breath.
A Bit Gone 