Clown Trashcans and Cheap Drugs...

Great use for a clown.

Walking around town is proving to be an interesting experience.  Details, details, details...there are so many little things to observe and digest.  It would be a shame to not at least try and appreciate the simplicity of life here and incorporate that into your own life.  Those are the details, simple yet vital to the big picture.  Take this clown trashcan, for example.  Creepy, yet amusing and ironic.  Simple and elegant.  I'm not a big fan of clowns so this is a sort of redemption for me to see a clown's mouth open and waiting for me to throw in my waste...sorry, but clowns just freak me out.  This is something that I'm sure is taken for granted by the locals because I've seen quite a few of these trashcans around town.  We walked right by this clown can and I had to go back a take a picture.  So many questions need to be answered regarding this one.  Maybe it has no significance...maybe it has some deep-rooted meaning...maybe I'm just weird.

Another great detail that intrigues us about this place is that the young kids here are happy and safe.  There are kids everywhere in town walking arm-in-arm, holding hands, smiling, laughing, not wearing seat belts, traveling by themselves on long bus rides to other towns...they have no leash!  And these are little kids...we would be locked up in a heartbeat or worse for the sorts of things that parents allow their kids to do here...unspeakable acts, madness!  This is the sort of simplicity that is the culture here.  They don't need to worry about things like the safety of their children...the kids are empowered and responsible.  I admit, America is a dangerous place for kids and we have been conditioned because of the nut jobs roaming the streets that our kids are to be overprotected and on a very short leash.  It's too bad we can't be more like Ecuador from what I've seen so far.  We may not have been as "free" as we thought we were in the States. 

Cheap (prescription) drugs is another wonderful detail.  Laura needed to refill one of her prescriptions the other day and we had been told that all we needed was to go to any pharmacy in town with the bottle and it would be refilled.  Surely, it can't be that easy...can it?  I know what the process has become in the States...forms to fill out, identification must be shown, long waits, accusing stares from the pharmacist not to mention the expense.  Well, here's how it went here:  Laura walked into a pharmacy in town and showed the girl, who spoke no English, her prescription bottle and asked in broken Spanish if it could be refilled.  The girl said yes, checked a couple things on the computer and turned to go to the back to retrieve a small packet.  She placed it on the counter and Laura asked how much it would be.  "Dos dollars," she said politely.  Laura, clearly in disbelief, repeated it back to the girl with a questioning tone...the girl said the same thing.  Laura paid the two bucks hurriedly and we left thinking we had just committed a crime.  The whole process took roughly 5 minutes.  Laura looked at me and smiled as we walked up the sidewalk...we both started to laugh!  There were no questions, we didn't show passports, no government officials took us into a dimly lighted room...simple!  Just as a reference, that prescription would have normally cost around $50 in the States.  Cheap drugs, indeed!

We got pretty adventurous yesterday and took a bus up to Ibarra...by ourselves.  Ibarra is a city with a population around 125,000 and is about twenty minutes north of Cotacachi.  We had been up there a few days ago with Mauricio, but this was sans chaperone.  The buses here are very colorful and run constantly to anywhere in the country very cheaply.  Our bus ride was forty-five cents a piece for me and Laura and Eli was twenty-five cents...so $1.25 total for our excursion one-way.  I felt a little silly being so anxious about taking the bus as I sat in my red velour seat watching all the young children get on and off the bus so effortlessly.  At one stop, an older woman came onto the bus holding three ice cones to sell...another younger guy got one the bus and made some quick announcement (in Spanish, of course) and then walked around to each seat handing out candy.  I looked out the window at one point and saw a billboard advertising a beautifully presented fried guinea pig on a plate with a side of rice and beans.  It was a great adventure filled with so many amazing details.

I'm beginning to notice since we've been here that life in the States is very unnecessarily complicated.  As hard as we try to make life easier it often has the opposite effect.  We are constantly struggling to control our surroundings and we have failed miserably.  The more laws, controls, rules, regulations, programs, technology, security, etc. that are put into place to simplify our lives eventually end up handcuffing us.  Ecuador is a very cool place.  People here are happy and free.  It took me less than a week to notice that little detail...I can't wait to see what I notice next.