Today started like many other days too in that we were told to be there at 8.30am on the dot and we actually arrived at 8.20 which for me is unheard of (Helen is perpetually waiting for me as no matter what time I'm up by the time it comes to leave for work, I'm late!)! Thursdays are also particularly hard work as we start in Sergio T, with our 'Under the tree group' which literally takes place, under a tree! And after spending a few hours getting absolutely filthy, caked in dust from head to toe, we walk down one of the steep paths into the valley, across one of the lower parts of the sector to take a very loooong bus ride to our afternoon session in Nueva, which thank God, is in a school - not very well equipped or clean, but nevertheless we have a room, walls, tables and seats and even luxury of all luxuries, toilets - manky but nonetheless they are toilets! So Thursdays are always shattering.
Today, surprise surprise, we didn't leave at 8.30am as planned to make the 1 hour journey out to Sergio. We actually left at 9.45. However, after a lot of organisation of the camioneta we were on our way with another luxury item for 2011.... Sergio Toral Art Club was about to have a 'tableta' which to you and me is a large slab of MDF wood that we were going to be able to use with stools to create a table under the tree. Now, believe me when I say that compared to bits of plastic sheeting on the floor, anything that vaguely resembled a table was gonna be seriously good. So, we finally departed with our little plastic stools, the MDF and a few boxes of Pascua bread for delivery to Juconi families as a New Year present. Pascua is literally Christmas bread which is like brioche I think (I have one in the fridge that I was given but there's enough of a carbs overload here without that too....not to be ungrateful tho!).
Now we were merrily going on our way when we realised that the MDF was raising up really high at the back and banging down repeatedly on the top of truck. Alexis gets out to tie the string tighter as it's obviously not secure (string I mean really but there was obviously no rope around so we're stuck with string and a big piece of board?!?). After the third time stopping he is driving slowly to try and stop the flapping wood scenario and then all of a sudden we hear a giant thump. I look back and realise the MDF has left it's mooring and is sailing through the air of the large road, basically a motorway style 4 lane road, that we're travelling down. Ecuadorians like to drive close despite the various items that people have sticking out of their cars and the MDF narrowly misses the car behind, there was literally inches in it but luckily the driver behind saw it happening and swerved in time. We stopped and tried to pick up the MDF. When Alexis had finally negotiated the traffic and retrieved the board we secured it again. But basically Alexis and Veronica (the Juconi Educator for our am session) realised that the problem was that the board's movement kept cutting the string. So, me being Little Miss Adventurous and I'll try anything once, offers to jump in the back and sit on the side to hold the board in place. Alexis and Veronica look at me puzzled like "are you sure?" and then are like "chevre", i.e. cool. I did realise how dangerous it is however, and so say to them that my signal that I'm about to fly off with the wood is to knock hard on the window. So, off we go again.
At first, Alexis is going along relatively slowly and it's all fine and I start to wonder what all the fuss has been about but it doesn't take me long, or much speed, to realise that this board is certainly not much ado about nothing. As soon as we have the tiniest bit of speed, the board starts rocking like a crazy thing. It's momentum nearly knocks me off the side so I decide quickly that the safest option is to squeeze myself into the space between the stools and the side of the truck, i.e. being inside the truck part as opposed to on the ledge of it! However, even with this strategy the momentum is just too great and I literally feel like I'm about to be blown off. It takes all of 4 minutes for me to be banging feriously on the back window of the pickup.
So we stop, again. Alexis decides that the whole back needs to be reorganised and we decide to rest the board flat on the stools with the two boxes of Pascua on top in and effort to weigh it down. However, it was quickly obvious that this was not going to be enough to weigh down the force of the board in the wind, so there I was again up on top of the back of the truck but this time sitting on top of the board sandwiched in by the two boxes. Now THIS was an experience. I was happily sitting on the back watching the world go by and this way I saw and experienced much more of the trip than I ever do when in the main part of the vehicle. Now probably for most Guayaquileños the sight of a gringa, sitting on a wooden board on the back of a pick up with her hair blowing around mentally and holding on to two cardboard boxes was a sight to behold. Some cars started to pass by the camioneta, only to slow down and witness this strange sight. Others beeped and a couple of other pickups carrying groups of men off to do manual work, laughed or smiled on their way past. In one pickup, an older guy looked at me and nodded sagely as if saying good work chica! (And later in the sectors, I got a couple more nods, some thumbs up, some smiles and some "holas"!)
Once we were almost at the entrance to the Northern sectors, which is called Entrada Ocho (Entrance 8). I suddenly thought that I needed to put my pandilla, or vest, which clearly identifies me as JUCONI as I thought that the site of a gringa sitting on the back of a pickup obviously laden with goodies not identified as such might make us rather a target for being robbed. As we waited to cross the intersection into Entrada Ocho I knocked on the window and shouted for Helen to pass me my vest. Once she'd passed it out of the window I was struggling to put it on whilst holding on to the boxes securely and I saw a guy on the pavement thing between the two directions of traffic. He was working there with his son and they were both looking at me with puzzlement. I smiled and he smiled and nodded his approval but shouted for me to watch out for the sun - I had chosen rather a hot and sunny day to expose this lovely blanco skin and was at serious risk of heatstroke! I told him I needed some sobra - shade, and then we were on our way crossing into the sectors.
I've always loved Entrada 8 - it is so colourful, full of smells, people selling every type of food and vegetable you can imagine plus meat and fish out on display, chickens hanging up and all sorts of cooking going on. It's always absolutely full to bursting with people, noise and an assortment of crammed vehicles. But to experience it on the back of the pickup rather than in the pickup was much better and I felt the joie de vivre of living so directly in the moment. Further up Entrada Ocho, which is long, where some of the stalls give way to huge amounts of discarded rubbish and dirt in whichever direction you look we were stuck in another traffic jam and I realised I was being frazzled so we had another crafty window passing manoeuvre and I got hold of my suncream and Juconi cap.
We then got stopped by the military who were asking Alexis something that I didn't get but they waved us on. I was surprised as in all the times I have gone up and down that road, I have never ever seen the police, let alone the military and it does kind of freak you out having a man with a machine gun poking around in the stuff you're carrying in your vehicle. Minutes later, we were stopped again, this time by 3 soldiers who waved us with their machine guns into an open patch at the side of the road along with lots of other vehicles. Some very senior looking officer approached us with other soldiers and Alexis had to get out of the car to explain that we worked for Juconi and that the stuff in the pick up was for an Art Club we do and the boxes of Pascua were presents for the families. He started prodding at one of the boxes, so I opened it up to show him the Pascua loaves and he seemed satisfied and waved us on our way. I later found out that the reason for there being so much more traffic than normal and for the military presence was that the Government have started demolishing some of the sectors and there is a new ban in place as of 27th December 2010 in which no more 'invasiones' as they are called, into new land that is currently not built on will be permitted. It seems like they're been a kind of amnesty before and now there is to be no more building on unsettled land. The military therefore, are stopping any vehicles carrying anything that looks like it could be do with construction to stop people building new houses... Wow.
However, the most difficult bit of the journey was to yet to come. Once you leave the half decent road of Entrada Ocho which goes on for miles and you turn up to Sergio, the journey is all done on rough dirt tracks which have mountainous potholes in them. Plus there's the steep hills. On the motorway before Entrada Ocho, I had suddenly realised that if the board was to suddenly flip up, I would go with it, flying through the air into oncoming traffic. It suddenly hit me that I wouldn't stand a chance. However, on the potholed tracks to Sergio was when I felt the most unsafe. Here, despite my protestations, Alexis couldn't go any slower or he wouldn't have had enough momentum to overcome the mini mountains on the track. So I was bumping around like a nutter, holding on with dear life to the boxes... like they were going to save me - I mean really! To be honest, they were sliding around quite a bit with all the movement in the back and I was anything but truly horizontal most of the time. I realised that if the boxes were to go, I'd be going with them.... Ahh! After negotiating a few of the hills with my hands glued to the sides, we got stuck with a truck coming the other way and these tracks are not designed for two! Then it was time to take the steepest of hills directly into Sergio... we passed by a couple of women who smiled but made faces like saying "Are you mad?" and by this point I definitely thought I was! Alexis had to accelerate to get up and over the potholes and to overcome the steepness of the hills without slipping all the way back down but this meant that I was suffering rather in the back and clinging on for dear life!
When we finally arrived in Sergio at 11am bearing in mind we're meant to start at 10am (Ecuadorian time keeping!), I felt like I needed a lie-down after all the drama. Everyone else wanted to unload as quickly as possible but after all that I'd experienced I was adamant that I wasn't getting off that camioneta without a photo... so here it is!
All of that, and then it was time to set to work in earnest with our second Art Club of the New Year after yesterday's session in Balerio Estacio...we've been doing Speed Art, like speed dating but with Art but you can find out all about that in a few weeks once I've updated the CMAP blog.
All I will say though, is wow, not only are the sectors completely transformed because the two episodes of heavy rain in the last few weeks has turned everything from brown to green so they almost look pretty in places, but most importantly the kids. Ahhhhh, it has been so nice to be reunited with the kids this week. I didn't realise how much I'd miss them all, little cherubs...well, hardly! But all gorgeous in their own special ways.
Oh and just in case you wondered, the fireworks are back! They're all going off again because today is Dia de Los Reyes, i.e. 6th January - Three Kings Day. So basically after 2 days of respite since NY, I reckon we can safely say that they'll be fireworks lighting up the sky until at least the end of the weekend!
And on that note, I have to go and see what all the noise VERRRY close to me is about!
Ciao, Liv x
Very colourful account of your ha(iry)larius experience!
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