The View from the Doorway

by Roxanne Recinos (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Ecuador

Liminality. A word unknown to most outside of anthropology. “Threshold,” Dr. Dorsey drives into our minds. “If you remember nothing else, just remember that it is a threshold.” I write it down numerous times over the course of the semester. Several years later and it is still a word that often inhabits my thoughts. “What is that accent?” Guzman asks me in Spanish, after he invites me into his yard. I’ve been wandering the dirt roads of Dos Mangas, too nervous to approach any villagers after an uncomfortable encounter with an old man. His brother nods behind him, his words echoing, “What is it?” Their mother, diminutive in stature yet dignified, sits beside me with a quiet grace, and despite being fully grown men, the brothers are again like children competing to be the first to guess the correct answer to a riddle. “Mexican?” I ask hesitantly, as if I myself am a contestant, unfamiliar with my own voice. I answer again, more firmly, “I’m Mexican. I learned my Spanish on the border.” It’s partially true, although by blood I am more Guatemalan. My father’s ancestors knew and cultivated that land, a land I have an estranged inheritance to. But having only set foot there once, it feels like a lie. My half Mexican mother’s heritage is more familiar. The brothers continue. “No, no,” Guzman rushes over his words. “You sound Colombian. Your voice has a ting!” His brother clarifies, “it’s pleasant!” “Huh.” I’ve never heard a ting before. "Yes, a ting," Guzman reaffirms, making an upward motion with his hand. "A ting!” I walk down the steep stairway, one that I fell down twice, and open the door to the pressing humidity. The others are already waiting in front of the casa comunal, or communal home, in which we live that doubles as a truck stop. One of the familiar white trucks pulls up and we climb in, bumping elbows and knees with the long-unspoken understanding that while uncomfortable, the bumps, bangs and brushes of skin are unavoidable. I ride in the bed of the truck, sitting on one of the makeshift benches lining the perimeter. A tarp encloses us, there to protect us from the rain, which falls often. I sit at an end and hold the truck bed door for stability. My knees jut out in front of me. The truck lurches forward, away from the village and down a long, densely vegetated road. Walking me home to the casa comunal, Guzman can’t help himself. “You’re too tall for us Ecuadorians.” The drive between the comuna and the carretera, or highway, is only a few minutes long but it is more memorable to me than much of Ecuador. I don’t mind the hard seat beneath me or the jolts that threaten to toss me out. All I feel is the wind rolling over my skin as it twists between the shuttering trees around us. Our final destination tonight is Montañita, the neighboring and overshadowing international watering hole where the tourists are as plentiful as the bars. We go for dinner but stay for the dancing. It’s been weeks since any of us have relaxed. The warm, sticky air that earlier suffocated now embraces- fitting for a night of dancing on the beach. "Where are you from?" Carlos shouts in Spanish over the music as one song fades into the next. "The United States," I manage in an exhalation of breath. "You dance too well for an American,” he half accusingly, half admiringly shouts back. The ride home is in a taxi; the village trucks don’t run past ten o’clock. I lower my window to appease my fevered skin, but the relative comfort of the taxi is a distinct experience from the teeth-chattering rattles of the truck. Riding back in, it never feels the same. They call the other student la Americana. They don’t call me anything. Her accent, though faint, is American. Some would wrongly guess that mine is Colombian. Riding down the road that connects Dos Mangas to the outside world, luggage in tow, I’m soothed by this path between places for the last time. Another threshold danced upon; another open doorway that will never close.