Ecuador 2 – El Reunion

When mum and dad lived here, They hired a local Ecuadorian Indian girl, who at 17, came to look after me when I was born to help mum with her three children. Then along came Marcus and a move to Argentina and Adela decided to come with us. She stayed for the next twelve years, following us to the Bahamas and then Mexico, before eventually parting ways – we to Venezuela and Adela returned to Ecuador  to nurse her ailing mother, (who then lived for the next thirty years.)

I have only seen Adela once in the intervening years and that was twenty years ago here in Quito. I have always had a strong bond with her and often call her to have a chat. I have an emotional reunion with  her. She is now 70 and grandmother to 4 including little boy twins, who are only 1 month old. They very bravely all came to meet us. Adela her daughter Lupe and her two eldest (Joshua 12, and Ariana 7) and the two tiny little blue blanket bundles. This is Lupes’ first outing with her newborns. Mark warned the children that it was very likely that I would cry, when I met up with Adela!

We make our way, my happy-to-be-reunited tears rolling down our faces, into the nearest cafe to catch up on lost time. The children tuck into nachos and guacamole and we into delicious Ecuadorian coffees. We treat them to lunch and then we all go back to our room in our guesthouse.  We give them some presents, things we had picked up in NZ, which break the ice as all the children sit on the floor and assemble and play with Lego and build Jenga blocks. The children’s lack of a communal language doesn’t seem to hinder their play at all. I was very touched when Joshua who is a tiny 12 year old, smaller even that Gabriel, told me that his teddy which I sent him when he was born 12 years ago was the most beloved of his toys and he had been inseparable from.  So sweet and moving, a little pocket of Englishness in a humble Ecuadorian home.

It was lovely to see them and it was the emotional meeting you might imagine. Adela has a lovely grace and wisdom about her and looks amazing at 70. She is a lot slighter than I remembered her and of course we reminisced about Mexico and old times.  I teased her about Jose the moustached egg man and his green Mercedes and her weekly flirtations on Wednesdays, when Marcus and I would spy her from the top windows and tease her about being in love, in the only way that a 5 and 8 yr old would tease.

Jemima had to have 2 teeth out in Quito, which was a bit traumatic for her. She was complaining of tooth ache, so we got a recommendation of a dentist from our guest house in Quito. I had no issues with going to a reputable Quito dentist as so many Americans are now retiring  to Ecuador and there are bigger numbers of expats living here.  Dentistry and medicine in general have improved massively and in fact standards are  probably better here than in the Europe. Jemima had decay in one tooth, to which she seems susceptible, but the x ray showed that the next tooth pushing it’s way through needed space in a crammed jaw, so the best option was to remove it and the tooth next door. Poor little girl felt very frightened by the whole experience, which I remember all too well (I seem to remember having 8 out).

I have a nostalgic ‘missing my lovely dad, lump in my throat moment,’ when I walk into a Quito bookshop, on my own, a few precious lonesome moments exploring the neighbourhood., and there on a chair is the Ecuadorian Alpaca jumper my dad used to wear a lot, though it has been turned into a cushion, here on this chair… Well not exactly that one, but of the same mould. I get chatting to the owner, “Oh I have had that for at least 50 years, it used to be an old jumper. You can’t buy that quality or design any more.” That would be about right, I was born about 50 years ago…….

Ariana aged 7