Bus to the coast

5-29-08 – Esmeraldas, Ecuador
Well I’m not in Quito anymore, Toto. No, in fact I’m far from the bubble of security provided by Yanapuma’s Spanish classroom – and the craziness started the moment I walked out the door. Late last night I flagged a taxi to the bus station, and valiantly parted my way through the sea of prostitutes who were also trying to bosom their way in. One grabbed my hand and tried putting it somewhere it shouldn’t be, but my arm jerked back only to discover another on the other side. It was a strange sensation - like going through a car wash and having those big brushes drop down from all sides.

Other than a 1AM showing of “The Animal,” the trip itself was uneventful – seven hours and pretty smooth. Esmeraldas is going to be a different place – this much was evident the moment that old bus pulled into town. For one, it is much hotter, much poorer and much more run-down. Here on the coast the blacks out-number the mixed-race mestizos, the Quichua-speaking indigenous people don’t exist, and there aren’t any whites. Although not as dirty, the streets feel like those in Congo, with big guns in the hands of police that you hope are upstanding. Even with oozies on the corners, I still get the eebie-jeebies taking money out of these ATM’s after having scuffled mid-day with a thief last year in Dar es Salaam.

This morning Maria from Yanapuma presented me to the director of the hospital, who seemed a little confused about who I was and why I was there. I’ve been told, though, that non-communication is the Ecuadorian norm, so it should be okay. The hospital itself is… interesting. In line with every stereotypical third world health care facility, its hallways are packed with patients waiting to be seen. But the new twists for me were the gates within gates within those hallways, all guarded by guys with big muscles and small shirts. Tomorrow morning I say hi to those guys, squirm my way through their gates and look for Pediatrics where I’ll be working with the director who is wondering why I am here. This realization brought on the OSP (the oh shit phase) for a couple hours this afternoon when I was restlessly walking up and down the street trying to familiarize myself with the city – but a well-placed internet café and a quick pep talk from some of you all brought me out of that.

The houses look like tornados ripped their faces off – it will be interesting to see how that manifests itself through disease-presentations over the next month. Like I said, there is a lot of poverty here – even the kids have empty in their stomachs. The hostel I’m staying in, however, is quite the fancy-pants place to be – wooden floors and hot running water. In fact, the room I’m in even has an air-conditioner and 3-pronged outlets (as opposed to the older, non-grounded two-pronged outlets most everywhere else). I’m paying out the nose, but people say it’s the closest safe location to the hospital, and I’m okay with safe. I’m also okay with balconies that overlook the Pacific Ocean, and five-minute walks to beaches where little kids run around in their underwear playing soccer.

Fortunately for me there are three other foreigners from The Netherlands who are also working in the hospital. They’ve been great today in giving me a few pointers here and there. Unfortunately they’re going back to The Netherlands tomorrow. I just got back from dinner with them. Because one doesn’t speak Spanish so well, they asked if we could all agree to speak in English for the evening, then they spoke in Dutch the rest of the night.

Oh, by the way, last week I went to a semi-final South American Cup match in Quito. Ecuadorians are fanatic about soccer – so much so that there are barbed wire fences… inside the stadium. Alright, that’s about all I got. Later.