R + D | South America

We arrived at the airport around 7 a.m. on September 11th. Flying on the anniversary is cheap. It was clear to me that everyone was aware of the significance of the morning. I kept repeating the eerie first sentence of the 9/11 Commission Report to myself: “Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States.” Indeed it was a big, bright morning. The airport was busy. CNN, which now has a strangle hold on all airports in North America, was blaring through every waiting area. Even those without TVs had the soundtrack piped in. The image of the World Trade Center being struck was everywhere.

We boarded our plane and took off just about the time the September 11th planes would have. There was no mention made on board, but there would have been a moment of silence in NYC as we reached cruising altitude.

The following morning in Quito, after the third Church tour of the day–hundreds of painted and sculpted images of Christ bloody and dangling on the cross–we came upon a panoramic painting of hell. In dark red, orange, and black, with different sectors for adulterers, murderers, unbelievers, etc. The painting was just inside the entrance of a stunning Church whose interior is entirely plated in gold-leaf. The indigenous people who built the church were not allowed in after it was complete. They could only stand at the door, the best vantage to veiw the misery and torture of hell. The painting was strategically located to scare the indigenious huddled at the entrance into converting. I´m not sure the 9/11 hijackers were thinking any differently from the Spanish. Submission through fear. (Did you ever notice that submission has the word “mission” in it?)

Ecuador has had a tumultous political past. Elected presidents often don´t finish their term. President Gabriel Garcia Moreno was hacked to death by machete on the steps of the presidential palace. In the same square outside the presidential palace, there were police everywhere, in at least four different uniforms. They were heavily armed with everything from M-16s to swords.

Later in the week we visited the museum of Ecuador´s most famous artist Oswaldo Guayasamin. Two of his paintings from his series ¨manos¨(hands):