Impressions

Impressions of the Day

Habas under my fingertips after peeling them for an hour with Jenny in her kitchen, watching her get teary-eyed, talking about being away from her kids for two weeks, wondering how my parents will actually feel when I'm not home for Christmas. 

The young man next to me on the bus jumping up from his seat to help an old man, wobbling with his huge sacks of god-knows-what, board the bus and sit down. 

Quicentro shopping mall and all the arcade games in English, clearly made for the US, thinking that we have some things that just don't deserve to be imported.

A beautiful german shepard following me home for 6 blocks. Feeling terrified (rabies...) and crossing the street multiple times, trying to walk with other people to get away from it. The dog waiting outside the house until Manuelita convinced me we should go look at it. The dog following us as we walked around the neighborhood hoping someone would recognize it or know who it belonged to. (It was so afraid of buses that it cowered at our feet whenever one came by so there is no way that it's a street dog.) Wondering what to do with it until another woman came by and the dog followed her down another street and out of sight.

A night of drumming, a bonfire, dancing and amazing Ecuadorians who speak so eloquently about Pachamama and the power of women and how the "modern" world with all our achievements and advanced technologies still doesn't give us that fundamental missing piece of community, of feeling connected, of love. A night of blessing ourselves with a sacred fire, passing incense sticks around a circle of 40 people, of singing and looking up at the sky.