Oh, Ecuador

Today- a brief break from proclaiming my love for my hornito or from waxing poetically about Alvaro's juice making skills.

Ecuador can be sneaky some times. There are days when I feel like I fit in- when I leave my house with my no-nonsense face on and nobody cat calls at me and I know where everything I need is at my vecino's mini-market. Or when somebody asks me for directions and I know how to direct them there. Or when someone compliments my English, assuming I speak Spanish.

There are other days when I don't fit in as well- when people whisper "Hello bee-oo-ti-ful" or "I love you baby" in English in my ear as they walk by. Or when somebody tells me that they live near a major hospital and I nod but am secretly thinking, "how can there possibly be yet another hospital in Quito that I don't know about?". Or when someone only wants to practice their English with me, even though I started the conversation in Spanish.

Or when I forget that Ecua-time is not Gringa-time.

Today I met with Carlos, a representative from a very successful, Direct Trade practicing cocoa co-op that makes their own chocolate here in Ecuador, not only "bean-to-bar", but "tree-to-bar"- the same cocoa farmers are the ones who are in charge of all of the chocolate making decisions as well. The interview went really well- he was articulate, responded to all of my questions without avoiding them and saying something else, and he had some total valid critiques of fair trade that I definitely agree with.

Unfortunately, he arrived an hour and a half late to the interview. 

He called me on my phone to say that he was coming from Tena to Quito today, and that we could meet at their café in the Mariscal at 12pm. He didn't arrive until 1:38pm. I rushed to get there on time and was there at 11:59am. I live 15 minutes walking from their café- I literally could have walked home and back 3 times in the time that I spent waiting. Instead, I waited for half an hour before calling him, and at 12:30 he told me that he was leaving the chocolate factory "ya mismo"- right now. He told me that the chocolate factory was about 20 minutes away from the café and that he would be there soon. So I continued to wait. At 1pm Hector, the mostly unoccupied cook and waiter who I spent most of my time chatting with, called as well and told me that Carlos said that he was finishing a conversation with a factory manager ya mismo. What? How is this possible? Wasn't he supposed to be in a taxi, having left the factory half an hour ago?

Ya mismo is possibly the thing that most irritated me in Chile when I lived there, and I should have known better here. Ya mismo is almost always a lie, and Chileans (and Ecuadorians) almost always recognize it as such and don't mention it. When you say that you're going to do something ya mismo- right now- it usually doesn't mean that you're actually doing it right now, it's just something that you say to make other people feel like you'll get to them faster. I think I've mentioned that both Ecuadorians and Chileans tend to want to avoid conflict, and as such it can be common for people to just flat out lie about what they're doing or about their locations so that other people don't get so upset that they're so far away. "Where are you?" I can ask from the university. "Ya estoy en el bus"- "I'm already on the bus" they say, as I can hear pots and pans rattling around and a tea kettle whistling. "When do you think you'll be able to meet me at this restaurant"? "Ya mismo salgo del trabajo"- "I'm leaving work right now" they say, although they have a work meeting scheduled in 5 minutes.

So I should have known better! I should have gone home and instructed Hector or Carlos to call me when he was five minutes away, which would have given me ample time to walk fifteen minutes down to his café.

I can definitely appreciate this "flexible time" culture when I'm running late, or when 8pm just seems too early to go over to a friend's place for a party. I certainly won't be the first person to observe that a lax attitude towards time seems to result in much less stress- a non-gringa in my position today probably would have taken advantage of the down-time to relax, chat with Hector, and not worry about it. I, instead, stressed for the first half hour that every male entering the café was potentially Carlos, and then proceeded to worry about the fact that I wasn't being productive as I was waiting. Eventually, I sat back, stopped worrying, and enjoyed my time with Hector and savored some chocolate samples (one with lemongrass, yum, one with ginger, super yum).

I guess eventually I'll learn to just go with the flexible time flow. In the meantime, I'll just continue sampling chocolate, one thing that I absolutely, unequivocally love about Ecuador.