Field Notes from the Miami Airport

Written when I was in the Miami Airport, not surprisingly

There are a lot of fat people. A lot of very fat people. And not old-person fat, the fat that gathers around the face as it ages, but big belly backfat fat.

There are more black people and the majority do not seem to be isolated from society so taht they may be motivated to commit crimes.

No babies, only strollers and crying.

Soda tasted like syrup, like melted popsicles.

When I look at the young people I feel happy. So many of them are pretty but not in the monocrome way that imples for Quito. For girls that is Abercromibe shirt, cheap tiny jeans, and very long hair. for boys its cheap giant jeans and oily hair done into whips and dallops. Here, girls wear all black and have short hair and boys wier red cowboy boots and have wide shoulders and flipflops. And I'm no longer one of the tallest people in the room!

The shuttle bus we rode on between terminals was cleaner than the hospital I worked at .

Cellphones are just as prominant and annoying, but they are bigger.

More bookstores, more books, more varitey in food. Although I won't I didn't get my hopes up when I saw a restaurant at a distance with the same colors as Cebiches de Rumiñauai. A hotdog-and-fries place? no way.

It's silly that our first place to speak english all the time is Miami, because people here are speaking Spanish all the time. We go to a pizza place for lunch,

"Yo quisiera..... Oh shoot, I'd like"

"que querias?"

I say gracias when I get my change, Jameson asks, "what is aji in english" and the counter guy hands him the hot sauce silently.

I'm almost sure I got throught customs without a hitch because the attendant decided to test my spanish against his. But it is strange, not to be quite so noticed for my pale skin and skinny jeans. To have it be her fault and not mine that a latina lady is yelling "SKUSE ME GERL" when she pushes past me in line. It is strange to be back. Of course it is. Of course it will be.

Going to the bathroom is a way less involved, personal process. I almost feel like I'm doing some medical as opposed to personal but social and shared. I walk in the bathroom, no door to push only a bend of corridor. No one asks for my 15 cents and gives me toilet paper. The bathroom is empty and very clean. Only one person per stall, no children waitting outside, no one doing thier hair or chainging clothes or diapers.

And I put my pale ass on the seat, pee, and the toilet paper is right there. I let it drop from my clean fingers into the previously potable water below. I stand up and water from the automatic flush hits my ass as I'm pulling my pants up. The door lock is modernist plastic and slides as if greased. I stick my hands under the spigot- no guesswork, no broken handles, just clean lukewarm water. A puff of soap to kill less jerms than I've had contact with in months. Paper towels? Not my jeans?

I'm used to hitching up my pants to knock on Jimmy's door for the toilet paper- he and his friends use it for earplugs during band practice. I'm used to finding blood or beets in the toilet, there's a lot of both in the house. It's part of the routine to wad up your papel hieginico and put it in the little yellow wastebasket by the toilet, and its part of chores to take that garbage to the curb. I wash my hands with non-potable water and bar soap with cracks filled with grime. For my zits, I pour some agua oxegenada (and that is peroxide!) on some paper towel and wipe my forehad, face, back and armpits. And I shower, sure, and I wash my hair and stuff. I'm not a dirty person. But I think my higene needs have devinitely changed in Ecuador. I felt damn uncomfortable in that bathroom, not happy to be in a nice place but like I was in a place I should be, like a classroom for the very young or the very smart. Or an operating theater or a temple.

I'll have many opportunities to contemplate this. Yesterday, I ate approximately 6 servings of fruit, 4 of which were mango. I guess I will have time to reflect very FIRMLY on Ecuador REGULARLY. Ha ha ha poop.