El poder de la Quiteña

Kisses fly from body to body to body because cariñoso is a community standard

Mande, a people whose identity was once ripped from their bodies by subservience to incas, to los hombres blancos.

But beneath this white paint, pokes out hints of a rainbow too brillante to be completely obscured by europe’s ominous shadow

Frases como achachay y wawa pepper their speech with their raices, they can not escape the powerful draw of the sunshine on the mountain.

My host mother tells me of the beauty of su sobrina “que bella, ella es como una gringa!” she exclaims from a beautiful brown face, the only one of her brothers and sisters

Blanquimiento de la la raza is a poison that slowly exterminates the memory of taitas

Wawas who will wonder what it means to be mestiza, will watch novelas where no one looks like them. They will be stuck in an inbetween, a la frontera.

Never white enough for privilege but lacking the knowledge of their colourful past

De una, a community that loves to say yes, but hates to say no

So they will say si because the happiness of the other is more important than their comfort

But they want to be able to say si a todo, to do everything, because they are a gente fuerte, with lungs of steel

Bodies that carry them through mountains filled with stories of resistencia

Resistencia is in their blood because they hold in their mind the voice of abuelitas who say;

Ponte una chompa antes de morir de frio

Come no mas

Descansa no mas

Mijito, probrecito, ito, ito

Quito may be filled with small bodies pero estos cuerpos son llenos del espíritu de la naturaleza

De la conocimiento de los quatros elementos

De su barrio

De injusticia

De una raza mezclada del dolor y la felicidad