Finding Instant Karma in Ecuador
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By Jill Saré
When I was in my 20’s I taught at the American School in Quito. One weekend a month a group of friends would pitch in to rent a battered blue pick-up truck for a bargain price. Having our own wheels allowed us to get off the beaten path. We enjoyed visiting small villages and often gave the locals a lift to market.
Jill Saré and her pick-up truck.
When I moved back to Ecuador 30 years later, I bought a double cabin pick-up truck, knowing how useful it would be. For over a decade helped out at the Biblioteca Interactiva, collecting donations for the secondhand shop which supported our children’s library and literacy program in Baños de Agua Santa.
I volunteered with Engineers Without Borders as driver/interpreter for a potable water project. My trusty Chevy LUV carried cement, gravel, plumbing supplies, workmen and villagers. When I offered rides to local indigenous people, they became my teachers – explaining the meaning of place names and road signs in Kichwa.
Almost without exception, every person I gave a lift to offered to pay me. I never accepted, but one time on the coast a group of young men filled my back seat with oranges they’d been picking. I’ve been offered veggies, blessings, embraces and once even a chicken. It has always seemed to me that if I used my vehicle for good, I would be protected while on the road.
When I was living in southern Manabí the interprovincial buses stopped running when Santa Elena became a province. Many children counted on these buses to get to school, so I started making two or three runs up and down my stretch of coastline to make sure all the kids got to class. More than once I arrived home to find a pot of food or a whole fish on my doorstep. Grateful families showing their appreciation.
One drizzly, cold day I found myself driving across the Andes with a friend, helping her to move her worldly possessions from the coast to the sierra. Amidst the clouds on a mountain pass we saw a man flagging us down, the hood of his own truck lifted up.
I looked over at my friend, we nodded in agreement, she scooted over on the bench seat and we offered the traveler a lift. He explained that he’d just run out of gas and there was a place about 20 minutes up the road where he could get some. We told him we wouldn’t be able to give him a lift back to his truck – we had to keep going to reach our destination by nightfall. No worries, he assured us – thanking us for stopping.
Fast forward 45 minutes and now it was I who was pulled over to the side of the road with my hood up. Coming around a curve I had caught a sharp rock which sliced my tire. Oh no! The jack was under the back seat, which was packed with household goods. There we were, high up in the Andes, completely exhausted from having just emptied the seat. At that altitude, every inhale burned our lungs. We sat on the roadside for a moment, trying to catch our breath and wondering how we were ever going to manage to change that tire.
At that moment the driver we had helped drove up, pulled over, and changed the tire for us – immediate repayment of our kindness. Now that’s what I call instant karma (or in this case, instant ‘truck’ma). Now that I’m well into my 60’s I have retired from driving a truck. I love my little Suzuki hatchback, but I do miss the local interactions that my pick-up afforded me.
