Houses - by Eva

Today we experienced the daily lives of the CMT families by visiting some of their houses. A 20 minute drive up the mountain and we enter the first house, a nice condo with brightly painted walls of blue and green. The ceilings are low and the rooms dark. Electricity costs $100 a month, so candles dimly light the way. The landlady runs a candy shop on the storefront, and keeps her family upstairs away from the dangerously hot machinery. Her pride in her home was obvious as she led us from room to room.

The second house couldn’t have been more different. A single mother brought us through a garage partially filled with trash to a single room crammed with two beds and a tiny stove. She told us she and her five-year-old son live here and kept apologizing for her poverty. “Pobresa,” she said. Of course there was no need; she was opening our eyes to her struggle. We thanked her and left for the third house.

Barking dogs welcomed us into a yard with two small buildings and a shack. A 33-year-old widow greeted us and explained that her and her six children slept inside the shack which sheltered two beds. I tried to imagine the smiling woman herding six kids into bed and couldn’t. During our reflection I wondered how she feeds them. Her parents and brother live in one of the buildings and the other is a kitchen where they cook food to sell on the street. The property is high up, and looking out we saw a beautiful view of Quito: the bustling city surrounded by dramatic, green mountains. It’s ironic. A million-dollar view, yet these people have so little.

We entered the fourth and final house, feeling the dirt beneath our feet. It’s not a shack exactly, because the walls are made of brick. Nevertheless, eight people reside in the small space.

The bus ride back was silent as we comprehended what we had just seen. It strikes me how much effort the families put into merely surviving, cooking on their tiny stovetops, building a place to sleep, cleaning so their place is even habitable. We’re here in the four months of dry season- what happens during the wet season, the rest of the year when it’s constantly raining? Do their thin tin roofs keep out the water? Can they still make money selling things on the street? Do the unpaved roads and dirt floors wash out? I didn’t get the chance to ask today. It’s unbelievable how much we take for granted.

We returned to the CMT and organized donations brought from home. I went on a run inside the compound and as I passed groups of kids they started running along with me, laughing and smiling. The smiles were certainly contagious. After that we gathered for our daily reflection. We shared how each of us were affected. All of our eyes are now fully open to the struggle we couldn’t have previously imagined. Those laughing kids call those places home. That was hours ago, but the houses still haunt me.