Their wood-planked house sits on the side of a steep hill in San Alberto. Almost too steep to support agriculture, but the Spanish had taken over the flatter lands to build haciendas during the conquest, and this is where the farmers migrated with their families. Maybe for them the migration had proved to be worth it, because this land is beautiful. Silent, too. Hours away from the meat hawkers, car honks, cat calls and blasting music. There's only one noise that permeates throughout Ecuador no matter where you are: Barking dogs. Even the ones with homes, they've all gone feral.
The Torres family. Father, mother and kids age 16-28, all of whom show home at every opportunity to help out on the farm. The ones still in high school take the hour walk at dusk in time to prepare dinner, shut out the lights and wake early enough the next day to do chores before they make their descent. The ones with jobs stay in Cuellaje at the family's second home until the weekends. While American adolescents view their party-drenched weekends as proper justification for their grueling work weeks, the Torres family children trek home and spray fungicide, milk cows and prepare meals.
So that's what I did with them. Aside from providing some highly improvised entertainment, I tried my best to become accustomed and integrate into their way of life. If someone were to ever ask me where I learned my Spanish, my ultimate response would have to be: In Intag. But Spanish was just a gateway into all else I learned there. In Intag is where I learned the culture of real Ecuadorian people; where I composed my first song on guitar; where I learned the true process of preparing a meat dish; where I learned what it means to be truly alone, and isolated; where I learned how to reach out to those around me; and where I learned what a great blessing that skill can be.
I'd spend most of my days with Cecilia, the oldest daughter, and the only one who remains home all year. It was with her I grew the closest, eventually sharing dreams and frustrations and little life meaning. But I became most intrigued by the youngest daughter, Sylvia, and gravitated toward her whenever she showed home from school. When I'd pop out of my room she'd shoot me a sinister smile and say, "Heyyyy Tarraaaaa," and we'd giggle incessantly. When I'd stumble on treks she'd look behind and laugh and tell me to keep going, rather than the usual "Are you OKAY?? Do you need me to carry your bag??" It was probably unintentional, but she kept me challenged, and allowed me the space to learn on my own. Carlos was the oldest son, who was home on vacation. He had been studying for six years to become a priest. Although he frowned when I said I wasn't religious, he was the one who always took the extra time out to slow down his speech and make sure I was caught up with dinner conversation. He'd play music and sing for me his romantic songs and teach me how to play as well. The other two kids, of middle age, worked at the Internet center and hospital in Cuellaje. I didn't have the opportunity to spend as much time with them.
The mother, Claudia, bared on her shoulders the majority of the domestic weight, a weight unimaginable to a first-world citizen. I don't think this is often the case, but at the time I was there the men, including my host father Francisco, were working in the MINCA carving out roads in the mountainside. Claudia and Francisco would often times be falling asleep at the dinner table, but waited there until the dishes had been cleared from the table and all the kids had used the bathroom. Always the first awake and the last in bed.
And then there was Lucho. An old, grumpy man with a lion's face. I could barely make out the Spanish words he slipped between his front gums. Often times I'd catch him at the laundry basin, stripped nearly naked and pouring buckets of water over his head. He had some fear of the shower. At dinner, the whole family would talk about him to me and, sitting at the end of the table popping kernels of corn of their cobs, would never look up. No relation to the family, they only took him in some years ago out of pure compassion and the fact that his own family wouldn't take him back. He was a "malcreado" as they say.
This family worked to keep their land thriving while participating in a community with little to no financial security, a faulty infrastructure and corrupt behind-the-scene practices. This place is a hotbed on which to start laying the groundwork for development, yet practically none has entered. In other words, their latest installment was electricity. This family showed me more strength, courage, hope and happiness than I ever thought possible. They also showed me pain and suffering, anger and distress. They were raw, and they were human. And the experience cannot be matched by anything else.
The Torres family. Father, mother and kids age 16-28, all of whom show home at every opportunity to help out on the farm. The ones still in high school take the hour walk at dusk in time to prepare dinner, shut out the lights and wake early enough the next day to do chores before they make their descent. The ones with jobs stay in Cuellaje at the family's second home until the weekends. While American adolescents view their party-drenched weekends as proper justification for their grueling work weeks, the Torres family children trek home and spray fungicide, milk cows and prepare meals.
So that's what I did with them. Aside from providing some highly improvised entertainment, I tried my best to become accustomed and integrate into their way of life. If someone were to ever ask me where I learned my Spanish, my ultimate response would have to be: In Intag. But Spanish was just a gateway into all else I learned there. In Intag is where I learned the culture of real Ecuadorian people; where I composed my first song on guitar; where I learned the true process of preparing a meat dish; where I learned what it means to be truly alone, and isolated; where I learned how to reach out to those around me; and where I learned what a great blessing that skill can be.
I'd spend most of my days with Cecilia, the oldest daughter, and the only one who remains home all year. It was with her I grew the closest, eventually sharing dreams and frustrations and little life meaning. But I became most intrigued by the youngest daughter, Sylvia, and gravitated toward her whenever she showed home from school. When I'd pop out of my room she'd shoot me a sinister smile and say, "Heyyyy Tarraaaaa," and we'd giggle incessantly. When I'd stumble on treks she'd look behind and laugh and tell me to keep going, rather than the usual "Are you OKAY?? Do you need me to carry your bag??" It was probably unintentional, but she kept me challenged, and allowed me the space to learn on my own. Carlos was the oldest son, who was home on vacation. He had been studying for six years to become a priest. Although he frowned when I said I wasn't religious, he was the one who always took the extra time out to slow down his speech and make sure I was caught up with dinner conversation. He'd play music and sing for me his romantic songs and teach me how to play as well. The other two kids, of middle age, worked at the Internet center and hospital in Cuellaje. I didn't have the opportunity to spend as much time with them.
The mother, Claudia, bared on her shoulders the majority of the domestic weight, a weight unimaginable to a first-world citizen. I don't think this is often the case, but at the time I was there the men, including my host father Francisco, were working in the MINCA carving out roads in the mountainside. Claudia and Francisco would often times be falling asleep at the dinner table, but waited there until the dishes had been cleared from the table and all the kids had used the bathroom. Always the first awake and the last in bed.
And then there was Lucho. An old, grumpy man with a lion's face. I could barely make out the Spanish words he slipped between his front gums. Often times I'd catch him at the laundry basin, stripped nearly naked and pouring buckets of water over his head. He had some fear of the shower. At dinner, the whole family would talk about him to me and, sitting at the end of the table popping kernels of corn of their cobs, would never look up. No relation to the family, they only took him in some years ago out of pure compassion and the fact that his own family wouldn't take him back. He was a "malcreado" as they say.
This family worked to keep their land thriving while participating in a community with little to no financial security, a faulty infrastructure and corrupt behind-the-scene practices. This place is a hotbed on which to start laying the groundwork for development, yet practically none has entered. In other words, their latest installment was electricity. This family showed me more strength, courage, hope and happiness than I ever thought possible. They also showed me pain and suffering, anger and distress. They were raw, and they were human. And the experience cannot be matched by anything else.
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