No Me Olvidas
Two characters specifically asked that I not forget them, so I will memorialize them here.
In the small plaza at the center of Vilcabamba, a group of young twenty-something men sit in benches and squat on the cement. There’s nothing much to do on a Tuesday afternoon. One waves me over intently.
“Jackie Chan? Do you know kung fu?” he quizzes me in garrulous Spanish. He is certainly the most bold of the group.
The men are really boys with a dose of machismo – as we chat, I am reminded of my students in Hunan – behind that facade of manliness, exists sort of timid openness, that could easily hook onto something or someone with a strong sense of direction. Despite a slurred manner that suggests they’ve all been drinking, they pay rapt attention to me, giggling frequently.
Jose is from Columbia. He’s in Vilcabamba working as an errand boy for various tourism needs.
A group of young girls walk by across the street, eating ice cream. Some wear halter tops, as seems typical for this area. At any rate, the plaza is the one place in Vilcabamba to be seen, for locals. The boys start hooting and making catcalls – I am amused at how excited they actually get. The girls, in turn, completely ignore them.
Jose turns to me and asks, “You like? Very nice, right?”
“They’re very young!” I exclaim.
“Hey! No problem!” he assures. “Yeah, you don’t drink, you don’t smoke – do you … ?” he makes an “O” with one hand and sticks an index finger through. The others twitter half-sheepishly.
I’m not sure how to respond, and certainly not in Spanish!
For some reason, they all want to keep talking to me. Jose, in particular, doesn’t want to let me go. Finally, after we have a few more laughs, he tells me not to forget him.
“No me olvidas!”
A few days later ….
We are walking uphill, with some difficulty, on a street going towards the Condor reserve outside of Otavalo. We pass dogs lazing around, children squatting in groups whispering to each other, and a passerby here and there taking an interest in the two tourists who have decided to come this way on foot.
Seeing us pass by, one man calls out, “Extranjeros!” He ambles towards us directly.
He looks like he might have been drinking, but then again maybe not – it’s hard to say for sure. He asks some basic questions, speaking and responding very slowly, but his eyes seem clear. He carries sadness with him, however.
He finds out we are Chinese, and has Mom write down his name – Francisco – in Hanzi. “You are welcome to come to my house,” he says. He asks what I do in the states. I tell him I’m an engineer.
“I’m an engineer too,” he says. “Of bread. I work in a panaderia in town.”
Without warning, he tells me that his girlfriend has just passed away. Tears well up immediately in his eyes, and I feel like he is in great need of consolation. “I’m really sorry,” I say, but in Spanish it comes out sounding flat, emotionless – I myself am shocked by the way it sounds. I translate the story to Mom, and she sighs and offers a sympathetic look. I still feel helpless.
Francisco collects himself somewhat, and slowly the conversation moves onto another topic. Again, he says, “You are welcome to my house!”
“Your house? Thank you,” I say, a bit uncertainly. For some reason, an image of Kasimjahn flashes through my head.
“My house is Ecuador,” he continues, not to answer any question my response had contained. “You are welcome to my house. But we are brothers and sisters around the world, am I right? Brothers and sisters everywhere. Don’t forget me.”
I take this as a cue to end the conversation. “Adios!” I say.
“No!” he replies abruptly. “Never ‘adios’. That’s when you part forever. Just ‘hasta luego’. We will meet again.”
“Hasta luego,” I repeat. With this he seems satisfied, and with a sad smile, starts moving away down the hill.