The Geography of Quito

I have now spent two days back in the U.S. after my four months in Ecuador, which I feel has provided me with an adequate amount of reflection time to begin to write reflective blog posts. You know, the kind where I explain Ecuador to you.

But really, I think part of the reason I didn't write anything for so long was because I was afraid of saying ignorant things or claiming to be able actually represent Ecuador, but I also wanted to start writing about things that I've learned and noticed here that I want to remember and that I want to share with other people.

So this is my first attempt to get one of the things that made an impression on me (but would never be sure if people actually want me to start talking about for fifteen minutes when they ask me how Ecuador was) on paper and available if anyone is interested. I do not claim to understand some essential truth about Quito or Ecuador, I only claim to be repeating honestly things that I was told and things that I saw. I will try to make it clear how I came to learn/believe everything that I am telling you. To cite my sources, if you will. But I will not be using MLA format because that is so much bullshit. Or Chicago style or whatever it is. Or that third one. You just have to trust me.

Shaped by Mountains

One of my favorite things about Quito is that its surrounded by mountains in every direction. Always being able to see open green land made me feel less claustrophobic while in a city. It's basically been forced to take the form of the valley that exists (although lots of houses creep pretty high up on the slopes) which makes it a very long, skinny city, the length running North/South. Here's a decent view of the city's shape from one of the volcanoes that boarders it:

I've heard people say it's the city with the most disproportionate length to width in the world. I have no idea if that's true, but according to the internet it is about 19 miles long and 2 to 3 miles wide.

The Hierarchy of Safety

From our orientation meetings with my program (and the gratuitously frightening one at the U.S. embassy), I was introduced to what seem to be generally accepted as the three parts of Quito: the North, the historical center, and the South. I was also introduced to the hierarchy of safety of these places: the North is the safest, the center is pretty dangerous, and I shouldn't go to the South. In the embassy they explicitly told us not go south of the center. My friend from another program was given a map during her orientation that only showed the north and center. I was told that if I was going to one of the southern bus terminals I shouldn't wear earrings because that was where they ripped earrings right out of your ears (this is actually a real thing, my host mom has scars on her ears because it happened to her, but I have no idea in what sector of the city).


The North is the most modern looking, with KFCs and high rises and tons of traffic. The center, with all of the historic buildings and colonial architecture, is the most touristy area, along with a big area of bars and restaurants in the north. To be blunt, the impression I got from what I was told in the first few weeks was this: Criminals come to the center to rob tourists, so you have to be careful. If you go to the south, you are going where the criminals actually LIVE, which is just asking for trouble. 


The version of the South I received from people who actually lived there, as opposed to U.S. security personnel and upper-class host moms, was very different: it was more peaceful, it was more friendly, people talk more to their neighbors, everyone is out and about socializing on the weekends instead of in their houses.  


Here are a few pictures of the North:

The center:

 The South (from the one neighborhood that I visited):

I had the good fortune of being invited to the South to visit the parents' house of my best friend Glenda (the one with the dog in the picture above). Here she is again with her cat:

A Two Hour Commute

The predicament of my friend Glenda's was what left the biggest impression on me about the relationship between the North and South of Quito. I met her because she was renting a room in the apartment of my host mom, which is down the street from where she works as an English teacher. She moved there to be closer to her job, because when she lived at her parents house in the South, it would take her TWO HOURS by bus to get to work every day. For the first two years after she graduated college, she would commute two hours by bus to work and two hours home. This is a job where she was also required to be taking English classes in the morning before school started, so she would need to get to work at seven and she would finish between six and eight at night. That means leaving her house before five in the morning and getting back after 8 at night. She works six days a week.


The predicament was that she wanted to start saving up to go to college, but with the rent she was paying to live in my host mom's apartment she was just barely making ends meet every month and couldn't afford to save at all. She could start saving if she moved back in with her parents, but that means once again being in a bus for four hours a day. Here's a little context to what that journey involves.


This is the Ecovia (courtesy of google images):

I was told that this is the only line of public transportation available to get from the North to the southern terminal. Glenda told me that in the South, pretty much the only work opportunities are in the small convenience stores that are all over the place, so unless you own or work in one of those you probably commute North to work. This means that in the mornings and evenings, the Ecovia is absolutely PACKED. In order to get onto a bus that crowded, it is sometimes necessary to stand outside of the bus in the way of the doors, so that when the doors close they forcibly push you into the squished compartment. I have been on the Ecovia for several seconds where my feet were not touching the floor. I once fainted on the Ecovia, the plus side being that it is physically too crowded to fall to the ground. People will spend over an hour in these conditions, on a daily basis, to get to the southern terminal where they disperse into less crowded buses to get to various neighborhoods in the south.


Glenda told me one of the reasons she really didn't want to move back was that she'd felt such a change in her morning class while living closer to work. Since moving to the North, she became one of the best students and felt like she was always raising her hand and knew the answer. When she had to commute four hours a day she said she felt like a zombie and never participated. Despite many nights of brainstorming alternatives, she has ended up deciding move back with her parents with the hopes of saving enough to go college next fall.

Reflection about my Reflection

 It was nice to hear people from the South talk about how they liked it better, how it was more social, how it was more peaceful. It let me imagine that maybe poverty didn't have to affect their social lives or their happiness, could exist without being oppressive. But then I come to understand this simple fact about geography, and that to have a real job for many people means existing within your community only after nine o'clock at night and before five in the morning, five or six days a week. Bettering your situation, finding time to go to school while still needing to work, spending time with your family and friends, exercise, all seems pretty ambitious when you're dealing with a four hour, exhausting, commute every day. Whenever I let myself have a romantic ideas about poverty, it seems like if I actually come to understand something more about how it actually plays out, those comforting ideas get replaced by a harsher reality. I'm sure situations like this aren't unique to Ecuador, but I probably became aware of it here because I was in a city where I was actually making an effort to understand and get to know people living from different parts of the city.