The boy
The
bus groaned as we stuttered slowly around the hairpin bend, engine protesting
loudly at the strain of its load. My travelling companion grinned as we
mimicked the sound.
“Gringo”, he teased, suddenly mocking my broken Spanish. “Why you come see my country?”
I sank back in the seat of the coach, swathed in the clothes and detritus that marked me out as a backpacking foreigner. I glanced absently out of the window, at the soaring foothills of the Andes that threatened to break into jagged peaks with every twist of the road.
From the moment I met the boy, I liked him. He had eyed me cautiously at first, staring through the crack between the row of seats in front. And then, silently, a hand extended in friendship that I met with a mouthed “Hola”.
We were in Ecuador, moving slowly south on a winding road that would take us out of the coolness of the Highlands and to a coastline that promised lazy days of sun and sea. We played games to pass the time, the barrier of our languages no match for the deck of cards I had hidden in my pocket and the sticky sweets I had bought from a street vendor in Quito.
We stopped at a roadside market for a rest and the boy led me by the hand, giggling at my reaction to the cooked cuy – roasted guinea pig – rotating on sticks on a makeshift barbecue. With a grimace I declined his encouragement to try some.
It was hard to tell his age. Dark brown hair framed a young smiling face, teeth missing in premature anticipation of adult molars. I saw the classic look of the Mestizo majority made real in his adolescent countenance, a product of the many peoples who inhabit this high land. He seemed to be travelling alone and it made me wonder what his life was like, if he often made friends with foreigners on this bumpy road.
The journey was long, village by village creeping closer to our destination. A retinue of entertainers kept us enthralled, every halt of the bus providing a temporary home for a menagerie of passengers and hawkers and a respite from the stifling heat. We would count them on and off one by one, chortling together as we danced with the stars.
Back in my seat I closed my eyes and I thought of my own son, just a few years younger than my newfound friend, and the times we would play the same games on the far side of the ocean. I saw our small terraced house ringing with the sound of his laughter, and suddenly a deep longing ached my insides.
“Gringo”, he asked once again, more insistent than before. “Why you come to Ecuador?”
Because, I said, it reminded me of home.
“Gringo”, he teased, suddenly mocking my broken Spanish. “Why you come see my country?”
I sank back in the seat of the coach, swathed in the clothes and detritus that marked me out as a backpacking foreigner. I glanced absently out of the window, at the soaring foothills of the Andes that threatened to break into jagged peaks with every twist of the road.
From the moment I met the boy, I liked him. He had eyed me cautiously at first, staring through the crack between the row of seats in front. And then, silently, a hand extended in friendship that I met with a mouthed “Hola”.
We were in Ecuador, moving slowly south on a winding road that would take us out of the coolness of the Highlands and to a coastline that promised lazy days of sun and sea. We played games to pass the time, the barrier of our languages no match for the deck of cards I had hidden in my pocket and the sticky sweets I had bought from a street vendor in Quito.
We stopped at a roadside market for a rest and the boy led me by the hand, giggling at my reaction to the cooked cuy – roasted guinea pig – rotating on sticks on a makeshift barbecue. With a grimace I declined his encouragement to try some.
It was hard to tell his age. Dark brown hair framed a young smiling face, teeth missing in premature anticipation of adult molars. I saw the classic look of the Mestizo majority made real in his adolescent countenance, a product of the many peoples who inhabit this high land. He seemed to be travelling alone and it made me wonder what his life was like, if he often made friends with foreigners on this bumpy road.
The journey was long, village by village creeping closer to our destination. A retinue of entertainers kept us enthralled, every halt of the bus providing a temporary home for a menagerie of passengers and hawkers and a respite from the stifling heat. We would count them on and off one by one, chortling together as we danced with the stars.
Back in my seat I closed my eyes and I thought of my own son, just a few years younger than my newfound friend, and the times we would play the same games on the far side of the ocean. I saw our small terraced house ringing with the sound of his laughter, and suddenly a deep longing ached my insides.
“Gringo”, he asked once again, more insistent than before. “Why you come to Ecuador?”
Because, I said, it reminded me of home.
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