I'm headed into my eighth year associated with Ecuador. I'm an Associate Ecuadorian. But I still don't know poopy-poo.
Still un-housebroken, still rough around the edges, still mushy in the middle, I stick out like a sore thumb, a thore sumb, a prickly stub, a discarded butthead.
Recently it's been different here.
We're coming out of a long lockdown, a time when it was illegal to be out on the streets in search of anything other than medical care, pharmacy goods, bank cash, or food. And super double plus illegal to be out on the streets before 5 a.m. or after 2 p.m. And the Fuerzas Armadas were watching. Also the police (the regular, city police), and the transit police, and maybe the civil guard, and possibly the provincial police and quite likely also the national police.
At the hotel it was just Waleed and me, two spooks in the dark holding down the fort.
He'd go out early nearly every day, and I'd hold back, hitting the streets only to pull cash from an ATM, and to buy food. But then he speaks Spanish well for an Arab-Canadian, and I can't, because deaf. Nearly deaf. And I'll never become un-deaf so poo.
I don't know what-all he was doing outside every day, but I studied my Spanish upstairs on the "terrace" (the sort of verandah-thing where there is a view and where there is also warmth on sunny days). For exercise I'd hike laps from my apartment in the building behind, into the hotel, around the lobby, up and down the stairs, and back to my apartment. Five laps took around 10 minutes, and required heavy breathing, so it was good.
Pretty good. Better than only sitting, and I seem to have maintained my strength and most of my fitness, for now that I'm free again I can go anywhere and still do whatever it was I used to do without suffering.
But others have suffered.
The hotel staff is all gone. Let go. Unemployed. I feel for them.
Originally the shutdown was to be for two weeks. But it was a hard shutdown and lasted close to two-and-a-half months, and many businesses have now closed, and many people are still at loose ends. The world has disintegrated. Turned to chaff. Is blowing in the wind.
At least the hotel hasn't closed. At least this one has not. I still have a place to live and the owners are in, cleaning, refurbishing, and planning to reopen when they get customers. Which may be a while yet. Maybe two more months. Maybe three.
Too bad.
Too bad for many reasons, but I am glad to see the hotel still open because that way I still have a home, though I've been pulling cash from the machine and lining my nest with it in case. I can move out if I need to, in case, if there is another place still open, if I really need to move out.
And I've managed to share some of that cash with the former employees — a little here, a little there, as they come around. As I can find them. But I really hope that they can all come home soon and make this a living business again. And reverse at least some of the scatter.
Ever find a snake in your soup? Supposed to happen to everyone sooner or later.
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