Marching For Peace in Quito

On Thursday night I was taking my standing Salsa lesson in Quito. I happened to look out the window and saw hundreds of people marching down the street. Without much of a thought, I reached over, grabbed my jacket and went running out the door.

The were a lot more people outside than I had expected. I saw a family fairly close to me, and asked why people we marching. “We are here for peace,” she quickly told me, and pulled her children along. I looked around for my dance troupe, but they did not join me. I was a little shocked, ran upstairs to say good-bye and hit the streets. On a personal level I wondered if it was bad to leave everyone at dance lesson, but then decided there really was nothing more bourgeois than dancing in a foreign country while the citizens take the streets.

There were a few other gringos on the street, but in reality, this mostly was an Ecuadorean march. There were families with kids, nuns, single people, anarchists, communists, old men (none mutually exclusive) in the streets that night. I never felt out of place and everyone was extremely nice to me. During one chant telling gringos to get out of Latin America, an old lady grabbed my arm and said, “Oh, not you, you’re with us.”

The newspaper said there were hundreds of people, but I am telling you it seemed more like 2,000! There were a ton of people and it was very peaceful. A few jerk bag anarchos lit an American flag on fire at one point, but the reality was this was not a popular move. This lasted all of about one minute.

And guess what? Now we have peace! I was surprised I did not see more gringos at the march (there were a few), but I will file that thought away for later. The psychology of a North American abroad is really a fascinating discussion of privilege. However, let’s have that another day.

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