Gringo Luggage

“Es mas fácil”

‘It’s easier’, it means.

I’d met her 20 minutes ago and we had yet to really share a language.

Though I understood enough, and followed my host mom away from the bus and other volunteers, carrying a large suitcase and a stretched backpack toward downtown Tumbacco. 

She is pulling my smaller, but equally heavy suitcase. Her other arm is supporting her sleeping toddler, and she is taking it all in stride.

I tell her that she is a ‘super-mujer’. Super woman. She smiles tiredly: ‘a-hah’.

Together we navigate the sidewalk in the dark. Scooters wiz by. People stare.

We stop on a corner to cross, and something goes off in my head, and seemingly hers too: that it is not such a hot idea to stand on this corner with 140lbs of gringo luggage. It fits nearly every criteria that our safety officers lament against.

Internally, I shrug, and resign myself to fate. More scooters zoom by, the night alive around us. 

After enough time to evaluate many preceding decisions (and scooters), the family red sedan appears. And we load in seconds flat.

“Tranquilo, Ike (EE-kay), tranquilo” my host dad, a sharp empath, assures me.

“Tranquilo.”

It means calm. And I try to follow, again.

May 19th, 2023