Every once in a while I am absolutely shocked by some aspect of Ecuadorian culture. It´s not too often because I consider myself pretty used to Ecuador and Ecuadorians, but every so often, something comes up.
Jairo was at church and I stayed home, ordered by my husband to ¨get some rest¨. Right. So there is a knock at my door and there are my neighbors who live in the apartment under ours. I greet them, wondering why at 9pm they are knocking on my door. The husband begins a tirade almost instantly about the trash. Apparently he believes that we should take our one bag of trash down to the street today because, I don´t even know why honestly, even though the trash doesn´t come by until two days from now. ¨You should have taken it out yesterday¨ he informs me. What? (It wasn´t full yesterday. We´re only two people.)
I am unsure how to respond. He´s yelling at me know, as I try to comprehend why one innocent little bag of trash (not even the bad smelling kind) should cause such rage. The wife is looking at me sympathetically. I´m not sure if she came for his moral support or mine.
Trying to be calm I explain to him that I am actually 6 months pregnant, and seldom do I take the trash down the three flights of stairs to the street. This tends to be my husband´s area, and he is not home. Maybe my neighbor would like to come back when my husband is home?
No. He will not be appeased. He informs me that I had better give my husband a talking to and strongly encourage him to take the trash out. (Yes, because I so often give my husband a talking to.)
I calmly inform our neighbor that the trash will not be passing by for two days, and I´m certain that when it does my husband will take out the trash as he always does. (Am I in the twilight zone?? Or Punk´d?)
He now informs me that if I leave the trash there for two days it will attract flies, and the flies will go into his house, so I had better talk to my husband.
Now at the point of tears from having been yelled at for so many consecutive minutes about something so ridiculous, I lose it. ¨Are you kidding me?? Do you know how many times your dog has come up and pooped on my patio and you have never once come up here to clean it!! Do you think THAT doesn´t attract flies!!! Why are you here?? Go away!¨
His answer? ¨We decided to get rid of our dog.¨
Oh, well that just erases everything that just happened. Seriously, am I in an alternate universe?
Finally, unable to continue watching the massacre, his wife steps in. ¨Our dog won´t be a problem anymore because we no longer have her. I´m sorry about that. You, of course, are not in charge of taking the trash down, so if it becomes a problem, we´ll just help you take it down to the street. Don´t worry about it.¨ Then she gives her husband a look that says, ¨Please, let´s go now!¨
With that, they are gone. I close the door and stand in shocked silence for a few seconds until the tears start flowing. Angry, angry tears.
Now you know as much as I do. Does any part of this story make sense to you?
Jairo assures me that he will not let the neighbors talk to me like that again. Apparently the story made no sense to him either. He looked like he was ready to go down and talk to the neighbors, but I think we both know that no rational response would be effective. We both tried for a while to understand what the problem even was, before giving up and talking about something else.
I just think it should be obvious: This huge pregnant belly is here to tell you that I do not need any extra stress in my life. Who yells at a pregnant woman?
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