dreamdust

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Symbolism, Jesus and knickers

21 June 2006

Flying with Iberia from Madrid to Quito, we had Spanish-speaking cabin crew. I soon had “gracias” and “paella” down, but had terrible trouble with the simple greeting “hola”. For the first day or so on the flights or in Quito, anyone hailing me with “¡hola!” would be greeted with “‘allo!”. The vowels just would not go in the right place.

On our second day in Quito, our guide Sofia took us on a tour of the city. She was very interesting and exceedingly knowledgeable, regaling us with all kinds of anecdotes and facts that I can’t remember any more. But! There is one thing I remember and absolutely love: see that there flag of Ecuador? The yellow strip symbolises the sun and the blue strip symbolises the sky. Can you guess what the red strip symbolises? … THE BLOOD OF THE REVOLUTION!

Oh, the Ecuadorians like their symbolism and their revolution. On the Liberty statue you’ll see a condor breaking the chains of oppression and a lion with an arrow in his side. The lion represents Spain and the arrow is Ecuador. Ha ha, got them damn Spaniards.

Another place we visited in Quito was the Compañia de Jesus church. There were lots of pretty little girls in their white communion dresses floating about outside, surrounded by various well-dressed, rich-looking relatives. Once the service was over, we went in to admire the enormous amount of gold decorating the interior of the building. Several tonnes of the stuff adorned, well, everything. Sofia told us some more facts, but I have no idea what they were. Something to do with calla lilies. They were everywhere and the girls in the white dresses had been holding lilies too. I don’t know, maybe it was the church of lilies and gold and Jesus.

Photography was not allowed in the church. After all, why would you want to allow photography when you can sell postcards in the gift shop instead? We duly did our bit to keep the coffers of the Catholic church ticking over and waited to pay for our cards while a group of German-speaking tourists finished their shopping. The ladies of this group were evidently highly security-conscious and kept their wallets close to them at all times. Standing in the gift shop we were treated to a grand show of unzipped shorts and too much underwear on display as they returned their wallets to the secure confines of their knickers.

I sure there must be a joke in here somewhere about getting one’s wallet snatched.

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