Although I was desperate for sleep I didn't manage to get more than a few minutes on our first day. Our bodyclocks were all mixed up and when Niko was asleep Luca was wide awake and vice versa. Our apartment is not huge but it has two bedrooms and two extra beds in the front room and seems to be pretty comfortable. We do not need many luxuries to be happy but I could see straightaway that two things were missing. The first was an oven. We had been told that the apartment was equipped with a "kitchenette" but in fact in practice this meant a small fridge and two cooking rings. Are they called cooking rings? I'm not sure. Lucie suggested "stove circles" but that's definitely not the right word. In any event two is not many when you are cooking for seven, and the lack of an oven is likely to be even more significant. Still. I am sure we will find a way round it. What worries me more is the fact that there is no heating at all.
I knew prior to arriving that Quito is more than 3000m above sea level and that temperatures and more springlike than hot. I had also heard that the nights are quite cold and this proves to be true. As soon as it gets dark the temperature drops dramatically and I can see this will be tough with no heating and two babies in the house. In the afternoon when all four of us are awake at the same time we venture outside in order to find a supermarket and manage to buy some basic necessities such as bottled water, pasta, bread and cereal. (Cameron insisted on Fruit Loops and I didn't have the heart to say no given the journey we had just had).
Frederic and the girls, Saskia (15) and Lucie (14) were due to arrive at midnight at the airport. I would like to have gone to meet them but I couldn't leave the children and certainly didn't want to wake them up, so at half past midnight I went downstairs to wait for their taxi to arrive. The hotel was quiet but Javier was sitting at reception and greeted me with a smile. He is a young man of 29 and I was surprised to see him still at the hotel, as he had already been there when we arrived in the morning. He told me that he was doing a 25 hour shift, with no time to sleep and only half an hour to eat. We started chatting and I discovered that although his contract says he should work 40 hours per week this is not respected and the reality is closer to double this.
We talked more about working life in Ecuador, and he told me that the basic minimum wage has been raised in the last few years to $240 per month. Once social security payments are deducted this leaves $219 dollars to live on, although as yet I have no idea what the social security covers because no-one seems to receive benefits of any kind.
I asked what Javier would like to do if he were free to do anything and he told me that he had alwasy wanted to be a doctor. In fact he had completed school and then gone on to the first year of medical school, but did not go into the second year because he simply could not afford to. I asked how much it would cost to study medicine. He thought for a while and concluded that he would need about $200 per month. $80 for rent each month in addition to weekly costs such as food $30, transport $5 and "copies" $5. I asked what he meant by copies. He grinned at this. "Copias, copias, copias." he said. Copies of what? The answer was simple. The vast majority of students in Ecuador are not able to buy the necessary books. The books Javier needed in order to study medicine often cost more than $100 dollars each which was simply impossible for the ordinary person. So instead they took the one library copy and spent hours each week copying it. As Javier explained, if each page cost 5 centavos to copy this meant that he could copy the entire book for less than $20. A crucial saving.
I thought back to my own studies. If I needed a book I bought it. I always prefer studying with my own books as I am free to mark them as I choose, but even where I did not need my own copy there was alwasy one available in the library. It seemed so unjust that someone who wanted to study, and seemingly had the capacity to do so, was being denied the opportunity to do so because of a few dollars a month. It later transpired that Javier has a wife and two young children to support, so any thoughts of giving up work in order to study are nothing more than dreams. As he explained simply "Si no trabajo, no comemos." If I don't work, we don't eat. The equation is not a difficult one to understand.
Javier is clearly both a hard worker and a kind and patient man. Whenever I am searching for a word in Spanish he is happy to try and find it with me. I can't help thinking that his natural bedside manner would have been a great comfort to the sick and it is a great shame that he is confined to working as a general helper in a hotel for only $50 per week. But as I will find out I will meet many Javiers during my time in Ecuador.
Talking to Javier about his life is so interesting that I hardly notice the time passing. I realised with a shock that the time was almost two thirty. The plane from Lima carrying Frederic and the girls was delayed and it was the early hours before their taxi finally pulled up outside the hotel. They looked tired, but happy to have made it, and we all hugged each other as though we had been separated for weeks. I was over the moon to see them. Frederic paid the taxi driver and he drove off. He had been charged $20 for the same journey that had cost me only $6 earlier that morning. Still, given what I was beginning to learn about the economic reality of life in Quito, I was hardly surprised.
I knew prior to arriving that Quito is more than 3000m above sea level and that temperatures and more springlike than hot. I had also heard that the nights are quite cold and this proves to be true. As soon as it gets dark the temperature drops dramatically and I can see this will be tough with no heating and two babies in the house. In the afternoon when all four of us are awake at the same time we venture outside in order to find a supermarket and manage to buy some basic necessities such as bottled water, pasta, bread and cereal. (Cameron insisted on Fruit Loops and I didn't have the heart to say no given the journey we had just had).
Frederic and the girls, Saskia (15) and Lucie (14) were due to arrive at midnight at the airport. I would like to have gone to meet them but I couldn't leave the children and certainly didn't want to wake them up, so at half past midnight I went downstairs to wait for their taxi to arrive. The hotel was quiet but Javier was sitting at reception and greeted me with a smile. He is a young man of 29 and I was surprised to see him still at the hotel, as he had already been there when we arrived in the morning. He told me that he was doing a 25 hour shift, with no time to sleep and only half an hour to eat. We started chatting and I discovered that although his contract says he should work 40 hours per week this is not respected and the reality is closer to double this.
We talked more about working life in Ecuador, and he told me that the basic minimum wage has been raised in the last few years to $240 per month. Once social security payments are deducted this leaves $219 dollars to live on, although as yet I have no idea what the social security covers because no-one seems to receive benefits of any kind.
I asked what Javier would like to do if he were free to do anything and he told me that he had alwasy wanted to be a doctor. In fact he had completed school and then gone on to the first year of medical school, but did not go into the second year because he simply could not afford to. I asked how much it would cost to study medicine. He thought for a while and concluded that he would need about $200 per month. $80 for rent each month in addition to weekly costs such as food $30, transport $5 and "copies" $5. I asked what he meant by copies. He grinned at this. "Copias, copias, copias." he said. Copies of what? The answer was simple. The vast majority of students in Ecuador are not able to buy the necessary books. The books Javier needed in order to study medicine often cost more than $100 dollars each which was simply impossible for the ordinary person. So instead they took the one library copy and spent hours each week copying it. As Javier explained, if each page cost 5 centavos to copy this meant that he could copy the entire book for less than $20. A crucial saving.
I thought back to my own studies. If I needed a book I bought it. I always prefer studying with my own books as I am free to mark them as I choose, but even where I did not need my own copy there was alwasy one available in the library. It seemed so unjust that someone who wanted to study, and seemingly had the capacity to do so, was being denied the opportunity to do so because of a few dollars a month. It later transpired that Javier has a wife and two young children to support, so any thoughts of giving up work in order to study are nothing more than dreams. As he explained simply "Si no trabajo, no comemos." If I don't work, we don't eat. The equation is not a difficult one to understand.
Javier is clearly both a hard worker and a kind and patient man. Whenever I am searching for a word in Spanish he is happy to try and find it with me. I can't help thinking that his natural bedside manner would have been a great comfort to the sick and it is a great shame that he is confined to working as a general helper in a hotel for only $50 per week. But as I will find out I will meet many Javiers during my time in Ecuador.
Talking to Javier about his life is so interesting that I hardly notice the time passing. I realised with a shock that the time was almost two thirty. The plane from Lima carrying Frederic and the girls was delayed and it was the early hours before their taxi finally pulled up outside the hotel. They looked tired, but happy to have made it, and we all hugged each other as though we had been separated for weeks. I was over the moon to see them. Frederic paid the taxi driver and he drove off. He had been charged $20 for the same journey that had cost me only $6 earlier that morning. Still, given what I was beginning to learn about the economic reality of life in Quito, I was hardly surprised.
BIG HUG for ALL you guys!!!!!
ReplyDeleteLovely family!!!!!
Joel