We Could Be Heroes

It was mostly wet and rainy today. At around 10 a.m., in between downpours, we took the Ecovia bus line the few stops from our apartment building to Parque Carolina - Quito's Central Park. The Ecovia is a north-south bus line that uses low-emissions buses. Its northern terminus is near our building and it runs for 9 km (that's nearly 6 miles for you metric system novices) to the Old Town in the south of the city. I think we will be riding it quite a bit. Though, Rebecca will be taking a different bus line (called the Trole) to work. The Trole is the same ecologically friendly idea as the Ecovia, but is electric, and runs a different north-south route. Anyway, because they weren't wet enough when we got to the park, Maya and Jonah played in the fountains.

After the fountains, we watched some soccer games that were being played on these cute little mini-fields. The fields in this part of the park were made of asphalt, and although it wasn't raining at the time, it was wet and the players were sliding all over. But they also exhibited some nice skills. It was fun to watch. I showed my soccer mettle a few times, using my feet to stop balls hit out of play. That's pretty much as close as I've come to playing organized soccer. It felt good.

We then walked to what passes, I guess, for a playground. It was a bunch of rusty old farm and construction vehicles and some busted up rides that must have failed safety inspection at the fair. Imagine the airplane/helicopter/motorcyle/car ride that you'd see at a boardwalk and put a toddler on that goes around a dozen times sitting on the ground in the grass with some guy pushing it like it was a merry-go-round. Then imagine rust and broken pieces. The idea for this playground may have come from a Stephen King novel. I thought we might have taken a picture of the merry-go-round, but we didn't, so you get a picture of Maya and Jonah on the bucket loader. In this part of the park there is also a plane, maybe a 747 or a 727 or even a 707, but it's a real plane, sitting in the park with a ladder going up to the rear entrance and a slide coming out of the door where a passenger would normally board. The slide is missing a large piece in the middle, however, so someone put a fence around the plane. You just can't get to it. It actually looks like it would be quite a bit of fun (who knows what's inside) if it wasn't a guaranteed trip to the emergency room.

Around this time it started raining cats and dogs, so we hit a nearby restaurant for lunch. Maya had an enormous bowl of chicken soup. It came with a chicken leg sticking out of it. She didn't eat that part.

Jonah had his usual, white rice with beans. Here's a picture of him chowing down. Rebecca ordered something that she didn't really know what it was, even after the waiter explained it to her. I guess she doesn't talk to her clients much about food. But it turned out she liked it a lot. I had a heaping portion of rice with shrimp and calamari. Like a paella. It was good, but so enormous that a bunch of it is sitting in my refrigerator right now.

I ordered a cafe to drink and got a cup of hot water, a spoon, a jar of instant Nescafe, and a big bowl of granulated sugar. All that for one dollar. The beers were 80 cents and would have required less work. If only I had known!

After we ate and the rain let up we walked further into the park. Maya and Jonah held hands. It was cute. Rebecca took a picture.

After a bit of a walk, we got to the lake. Yes, this park has a lake. It's actually more of a channel that goes around a couple of islands. As we are walking around the lake and debating whether to take one of the pedal boats out, Jonah noticed that on the far side of the channel a boat was being pushed away from its moorings. He said something, and when we looked, we noticed some splashing around behind the boat. At first I thought it was a worker pushing the boat to the dock for a customer. Strange way to get the boats to where they need to be, but whatever, it's Ecuador. But Rebecca and I both noticed that the splashing was too erratic. It looked more like someone was struggling to swim than actually swimming. Sure enough, we see this young boy break the surface and it sure doesn't look like he is swimming/having fun or whatever. The banks of the channel were sloped and he must have gotten too close to the edge. With everything being slick from the rain, he must have slid right in. When he went under again, Rebecca yelled "Ayuda!" That means help in Spanish.

That got people's attention, no one seemed to notice before, and a woman standing nearer the bank had the guy she was with jump in, swim the ten or fifteen yards across the channel and pull the kid out of the water. It turned out this woman had two young boys of her own and actually thought one of them had fallen in. Anyway, this guy (we'll call him a hero because it sure looked to me like the kid would have drowned if this guy didn't jump in and pull him out) swam the boy over to the bank nearer to us, hoisted him up and the poor kid is on the verge of tears, standing there dripping wet. People start asking him where are his parents, who is he with, is he okay, etc. I don't speak Spanish very well, but even I could tell he was pretty mum about everything. He said he didn't have a mom or a dad. It dawned on me this was a street kid. He was about seven, I would say. There was some clown standing nearby (I mean that literally, this guy was dressed like a clown and performing tricks for passerby. We only managed to avoid him when he approached us because Maya looked at him like he was crazy) and the clown gave the kid some gum or something and we all just kind of stood around while the sopping wet kid walked away. I said to Rebecca, "Great, we saved him from drowning so he could die of pneumonia."

About ten minutes later, Rebecca and Maya see this kid shivering uncontrollably. Rebecca peels off his shirt and Maya takes off her jacket for him to wear. But it's starting to rain cats and dogs again and clearly, this gesture is not going to be enough. Working with the couple who pulled him out of the water, we decide they will take him to a nearby restaurant for food and to get warm and out of the rain, and we will go buy the kid some clothes.

So, that's what we did. I took Maya and Jonah back to our apartment and Rebecca hit a discount clothes store and purchased pants, socks, underwear, a shirt and a jacket for the kid. The other couple managed to figure out that the kid lives with his sister in Pinchincha, which is either another town, or another part of Quito. Either way, it's far from where he was, all alone. The other couple gave the kid some money for bus fare and we sent him on his way.

Despite everyone's efforts, it somehow feels like empty promises. This kid caught a break today, but I feel doubtful that further breaks are in his future. Rumor has it that after the hero pulled the kid out of the drink, the boat workers (who did nothing when Rebecca yelled for help) said stuff like, "Ah, he's just a no good street kid, etc, etc." Granted, I am sure they see and deal with kids like this more than we do. They see the begging, conniving, scheming side that is necessary for these kids to survive day to day. But attitudes like theirs don't leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling for this kid's future. Hell, maybe they even think the kid fell in the water on purpose!

Maya and Jonah seemed cognizant of what was going on and behaved very respectfully and quietly while decisions were being made, rather than behaving in their usual way of hanging on your leg and interrupting you fourteen times while you tried to complete a grown-up sentence with someone. Maya gave up her jacket with no questions asked. She did ask questions about where was his mommy, where does he live, and Rebecca and I were honest with her. We tried to make her understand how lucky we are to have the things we do, to have all the good fortune that we do and to have all the people who love us that we do. Hopefully, it's something that she remembers.

Really, it's probably more something that I need to remember. I need to set the example of our good fortune when Maya won't pick up the couch pillows from the floor or when Jonah keeps talking while I'm trying to read him a book. It's easy to get caught up in the ultimate objective, cleaning the place up, or getting the kid to bed, but I guess, the ultimate objective is really letting this little person know that I love them. And please clean up the damn living room! And please go to sleep!

Anyway, that was our day. While posting the picture of Maya and Jonah holding hands, I found a video of the decrepit boardwalk rides (and my kids on it!) Here it is.