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
Tags: