The Young Man

by Ben Weitz (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Ecuador

The air was thin and cold, our lodge made of wood. High in the Andes, I shared a room with the tall and lanky class-clown of my travel group. We spent the night acting stupid, and our fireplace snuffed out. My urbanity betrayed me. I had no idea what to do. Tip-toeing through my doorway into darkness and down the stairs, I floundered for assistance. The common room was vast, empty, still. There was one other person awake, and he asked the question that changed my perspective on my entire trip. ¿Qué necesitas? The question was so simple I didn’t know how to answer. The truth was, I was in Ecuador because I didn’t know what I needed. Privileged, directionless, 22 years old, I threw myself to the wind. It wasn’t a plan for the future, it was a plan in itself. I didn’t know what I wanted, but I got what I needed. Obsessed as I was with self-reliance as a young man, I needed community, so I had signed up with a travel group for people my age. Suddenly I was sharing 30 days of my life with four Americans, two Canadians, one Bermudan and two Brits. We wove through pale-green mountains in a small but adequate van. They told me stories about their hometowns, past travels, embarrassing moments, and hopes for the future. But regardless of our unique journeys, we had one thing in common: we were all Westerners who could afford this trip. A glance out the window painted a different picture. Just when I thought we were in the middle of nowhere, we would pass a small shack in the distance whose cement walls and tin roof I could cover with my thumb. That “nowhere” was a family’s way of life. My $3 dinners suddenly made more sense. It was ironic that we should depend on people with so little. Earlier I had stayed with a host family in a small northern town, a kind and proud household of three. All but their youngest child had left the country to find work, and the parents made their living by weaving and raising chickens. I washed my clothes by hand for the first time with their well in the backyard. The mother laughed when I told her I send my clothes to a laundromat. Maybe by the night our fire went out in the Andes, my exposure to the beautiful people of Ecuador had sobered me up a bit. I wasn’t a farmer, a herder, or a craftsman. I’ve never lived on dirt roads miles from a hospital or a school. I lived in an apartment with air-conditioning and a superintendent. I needed help. So I faced that primordial fear of the dark and walked downstairs. As far as I knew, I was alone, searching. Suddenly, 15 yards away, the couch changed shape – a pod, a cocoon, a baby bird, taking flight… Under me no higher than my navel was a small boy who belonged in elementary school. His watery eyes stared up at me, suppressing fatigue. His dripping nose made his handsome jet-black hair look like it was melting. He was sick and on the clock in the frigid night air. It must have been one in the morning. “¿Qué necesitas?” he sniffled. Surely this was not my savior. My mouth slightly agape, I fumbled for the right words, said something in Spanish. A night attendant, is someone around - “¿Qué necesitas?” he repeated, with a slow bat of the eyelids that forbade all pity. “El fuego…” I managed, “Se acabó.” Without another word he showed me back upstairs, silently bending his aching joints. Hurdling each step half the length of his shin. Whooshing through the night in a thin layer of pajamas. Leading a grown man with a degree and a beard. With equipment from our room and two minutes of effort, the fire was lit again. The boy bid us farewell and returned to the darkness. I was warm and comfortable that night, but I didn’t sleep well. My dreams didn’t matter anymore. There was much more to be discovered than what sprang from my mind alone.