A View From the Roof: by Gary Phillips

Last Time It was Time—This Time, It’s Noise

Virtually all Latin Americans have a love affair with noise. Ecuador is no exception. Last week one of our Ecuador vacation rentals was occupied by a couple who came here with some misplaced expectations.

They seemed to have had the idea that Ecuador is like Europe or the United States. It is not, and I doubt, will ever be. Moreover, I don’t want it to be like Europe or the U.S.

In my years of spiritual exploration, I have discovered that the “Universe” (you can use your own word to represent that All-Powerful Force that has our best interests at heart) will often set us up to face our deepest fears and anxieties, to trounce on our expectations to see how we respond. If we rise to the challenge, and face the situation with as much peace and equanimity as we can muster, the Universe will reward us with respites of peace and flow.

But if we fight and kick, most of the time, the Universe will kick back, demonstrating that we are not in charge, and that our purpose here is not to live in comfort, but to grow in harmony and Oneness.

So the couple, after several months of planning and countless e-mails trying to arrange things perfectly, arrived here in Cotacachi on the Saturday night before Mother’s Day. Well, Mother’s Day in Ecuador (and all of Latin America for that matter) is one of the most important holidays. And on holidays, Latinos like to party loud and long, often until 4 or 5 in the morning.

Cotacachi was filled with people from Quito and other places in Ecuador. There was literally dancing in the streets, traffic was heavy as a few youngsters with cars cruised the streets with their boom boxes booming. And the heavy drinkers were out until all hours of the night, proclaiming their love for their mother, or something to that affect.

Now, of course, besides noise, Ecuadorians also love their chickens and roosters and dogs. They love their guinea pigs as well, but guinea pigs are relatively quiet animals. Most every house in town with enough space for a few chickens has them. And when the natives are restless, the roosters love to proclaim, “I am ROOOOOSTER! Hear me crow!!”

If the chickens can’t sleep, nobody is going to sleep, which gives the dogs ample excuse, as if they need one, to join in a war of sound. The cacophony was enormous!

Well, you can use your imagination to fill in the rest of the story about the couple. . .

Ecuador Transportation Will Test Your Resolve

Noise on buses is another situation altogether. Ecuador has a wonderful mass transit system. Linda and I have lived here more than a year and a half and don’t have a car. We take the bus. But an absolutely must-have tool for riding the bus is ear plugs to bring a little relief from the many ways your ears can be assaulted on the bus.

The ubiquitous television in longer distance busses can be a source of enjoyment or considerable pain. This bus makes sure they cover all the bases, Che Gueverra, Jesus, and the statue of Liberty.

You will be subjected to fast-paced blaring music from the numerous loud speakers that always seem to be right over your head, or loud, violent TV programs blasting your way at the same time.

Then, just when you think it can’t get any louder, a vendor will get on the bus. What follows is often a high-speed, rehearsed speech designed to sell wares but which psychologically can wear you down so you finally give up and buy something just so the vendor will leave!

Sometimes a whole bunch of sellers will crowd onto the bus, pushing, shoving, yelling, hawking, cajoling, pleading all at once. Or a musician will serenade you up close, ear-splittingly out-of-tune.

A couple of nights ago we returned from Quito via bus and a miracle happened. I spent the last half of the bus trip in SILENCE! No music, no Jean Claude Van Dam kick-boxer movie on the overhead television; just complete, peaceful silence.

When we arrived in Cotacachi, I commented to Linda how quiet the bus had been. “Quiet,” she exclaimed,” the music was deafening.” So I still don’t know if it was just me, or if we moved into some kind of twilight zone of alternative realities.

Whatever happened doesn’t require an explanation. I am simply going to revel in my one quiet bus ride. Linda can have her reality as she wants.

No Need for a Snooze Alarm in Cotacachi

Cotacachi has two large Catholic churches, about five or six blocks apart. Each morning around 6 a.m., these two churches start joyously ringing their ample bells. This symphony continues every 15 minutes for an hour or more. One thing I can guarantee, you do not need your snooze alarm in Cotacachi!

And on religious holidays, when people do not work, the bells often begin earlier and ring longer. “Do not stay in bed,” the bells proclaim. “You have a duty to be in church.”

“What you resist—persists,” is a common phrase among spiritual seekers. If you come to Ecuador seeking peace and quiet, insistent upon finding it, what you will most likely find is sufficient opportunity to be irritated and frustrated.

The “Universe” always has one lesson to give. That lesson is this: Peace and quiet is an inside job.

I remember when I first started riding buses in Latin America, I would sit in my seat stewing about the sound, complaining about the loud violent movies, and vowing that I would never ride in another bus again.

Then one day, I discovered something. In a quiet and gentle manner, I asked the bus steward if he could please lower the sound just a bit because it was hurting my ears. Lo and behold, he turned the volume down so low that I could barely hear it.

Since then, whenever I ride a bus, if the music is overly loud, I simply ask someone to turn it down. Only once has the sound not been lowered. Occasionally someone else, who likes the music loud, will request that it be turned up, and so, before long, the music is blaring again.

Back in the 60s there was a book making the rounds called, “The Ugly American.” It talked about how Americans would go around the world doing things that would piss people off. For a long time it bothered me. “Why do we have to be so crude?” I asked myself.

Over my years of traveling, I discovered something that I think is very important. If we holler and kick and scream about how life is doing us wrong, and demand that it change, we will get back that reflection, and life will give us more opportunity to find things to holler and kick and scream about. Frankly, that is not one of my more pleasurable past-times.

But in most places in the world, and especially in Latin American, if we just quietly and gently ask for what we want, people will respond with love and care, and will do their best to please us.

Sometimes, their best does not match our expectations. When this happens, this is the opportunity the “Universe” is giving us to grow in love and harmony. That is why living and traveling in a foreign country is such an important tool for understanding ourselves and others—a cultural/spiritual crash course. In our own country, we can become complacent, missing God’s gifts in our unconscious fog of unknowing.

In Ecuador, those places where we are attached, where we are holding on to our ideas of how things should be or ought to be, are continually thrown in our faces.

Until one day, when either from wisdom or from sheer exhaustion, we finally surrender to what is happening and let that be okay. We give ourselves up to that greater power and acknowledge that our ability to control life through our demands is virtually non-existant.

From that point on, the glory and joy of experiencing life’s richness embraces us, and we realize, as Einstein said, that we live in a benevolent Universe, a Universe that has our best interest at heart.

Linda loves to care for her plants in the Cotacachi sunshine.

And that’s today’s view from the Roof.

Filed under: Ecuador Culture, Ecuador Lifestyle, Living in Ecuador, Retirement in Ecuador, View from the Roof