We got up early this morning (5 a.m.) to drive to Quito to visit the flower market to try to order flowers for Juanita's niece' wedding next weekend. The market is a large open square of blacktop which is surrounded by large trucks around the edge, with their tailgates facing the open square. Vincent took a lot of photos and counted more than 30 vendors there. I was dying of curiosity to know how things are run at this market. It seems to be a city project, as there is a manager of the whole market, and each vendor wears a red vest that has the name of the market on it and a badge. Our visit was mostly unsuccessful, as the bride's chosen colors are a blue-purple only found in nature in statice and asters, plus white. We did see some dyed roses, but the vendors said there was no way they could guarantee those would be there next week. So I told Juanita how I would do it, and she agreed that that would probably work best. When I suggested the alternative of dying the roses herself, she said, no, she liked the first idea better. Why complicate her life, was her question. Why indeed? I wish I had thought of that question more often myself.
Afterwards, we drove to Camari's office. It is another fair trade group which Andrés jokingly called, "the competition." The offices were extremely nice inside, the place was swarming with employees, each of whom greeted us (I could swear some of them, more than once), and each other, with tremendous warmth and friendliness. Juanita's interview lasted about half an hour and happily, resulted in an order for samples. When that business was concluded, we visited Camari's shop downstairs, which had an amazing array of foods, especially vegetarian and organic things, and also the crafts they export to other countries. We asked Andrés to show us some of the things he and Juanita make for Camari, and he did. We are very glad they have more than one outlet.
We drove then to Sadecom to deliver the products for shipment later this month. All went well until the end, when we realized that one of the bags of product had been left at home! Here is one answer why things that were on the order and on the list for the shipment don't actually arrive (it happens sometimes, and no one could figure out why). Very important when you're driving an hour into Quito to remember everything you're supposed to bring.
Then we drove to a shop similar to a Home Depot and bought three light switches for the new part of the house and I promised Juanita I would show her how to use a paring knife for arranging flowers rather than gardener's shears, which is more tiring. Our final stop was a home supply place, where Andrés bought a few more tiles to finish the red bathroom, then we drove the hour back home. I want to try to describe the way things are done here. On every corner is someone selling fruit. On every other corner is someone selling textiles, housewares, jewelry, kids' clothes, anything you can conceive of is brought to the sidewalk and hawked either in the street or on the sidewalk or both. It's hard to see how driving is even possible. There are frequent contretemps, but no one blows his horn, and people just slam on their brakes and wait for the other car or bus or taxi to get out of the way. Every time we've been out on a major highway between towns, we've seen an accident, and this morning was no exception--a four-car pileup apparently involving the car in front stopping suddenly.
By the time we returned, shortly before noon, Vincent had shot his wad, in terms of energy, and Juanita made him a bowl of soup and rice with fresh garlic (which everyone in the world knows is good for killing all kinds of bugs.) He stayed home while we picked up the kids and went to the local restaurant for lunch. My stomach is not in really good shape, either, so I had only the soup and rice. When we came back, everyone was exhausted, even the kids, so we all had an hour nap.
We were off again then to Quito and an extremely large mall, where I think Andrés was trying to find a bank that was open. When I say large, I mean really, really large. All the banks we saw were thronged with lines and lines of people. So after walking up and down the mall twice (exhausting), we gave up and continued on. Because it is the day before Valentine's Day, the mall was filled with displays of flowers. We had to stop and admire each one, because Juanita and I are both flower nuts. Then we needed to take pictures of everyone at each one, really needed to.
From there, Andrés dropped Juanita and me off to buy sheets for the new bed, different size rings for the new jewelry piece they are introducing and a mysterious errand to a place where there was a cashier in a cage and Juanita exchanged five single dollar coins for a piece of paper. I feel at times as if I am simply bobbing along in the wake of all that passes and after the occasional swamping, I find a quiet space to wonder what is going on.
At last, we reached Juanita's sister's house, where I was swallowed up by her sister Olgita, parked on her couch and interviewed in the typical kindly, Ecuadorean fashion, shown the photos from the last wedding two years ago, and surreptitiously kicked and pinched by the two-year-old granddaughter, who took an immediate dislike to me, I don't know why. As the waves of family washed back and forth through this room, Olgita's husband returned home from work and talked with Andrés for a while. When Andrés was summoned back to the wedding flower planning, Papi, as the granddaughter, Sophie, called him, took up the host's duties and asked me about where things were in the U.S. He knew it was between two oceans, Canada and Panama. So I filled in a few missing points for him. There were a LOT of people in this house, kids and adults, grandparents, parents, cousins, sisters, boyfriends. I sat there for a while by myself when the hosts answered the phone, and I have to say I was grateful for the time out. Vincent says he really misses hearing English spoken, and although I do not have the same feeling, I do need to pause for breath from time to time and try to sort it all out--who is who and what is happening.
We drove home, arriving about 8, found Vincent awake and started making bread and tea for supper. Vincent related that the electricity had been out about two hours in the afternoon in the whole neighborhood. I've no idea how frequent this occurrence may be, but Juanita didn't seem at all surprised. In terms of length and busyness, this rivals any day we spent with Chris! Juanita gave me another hug, again making me glad we have come.
I have only to keep my eyes and my heart open, and I believe eventually I will figure out what's going on. Certainly this country seems to open its arms to us.
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