Friday, 20th November, Quito: The Little Prince, the historical centre and shopping malls
The day starts with an interview with oft-published Ecuadorean historian, Carlos Freile, professor of the University of San Francisco de Quito. We thought we’d pick his brains a little on what we needed to know about Ecuador, and he was utterly fascinating. The gist is that Ecuador, though small, is as biologically diverse as a country can get: mountains, coasts, rainforest and Galapagos.
Socially, he believes that successive governments – as is true with all of Central and South America – have led to individuals renouncing their own responsibility. Governments fail to deliver on their promises, and individuals moan about the rulers’ shortcomings. Instead of individuals realising their part in the greater picture and their own responsibilities. Ecuadoreans talk about their rights, rather than their responsibilities. Pages and pages of the law talk about the rights of the individual, and only one or two sentences will cover a person’s responsibilities to their society. THus, he says, people have become lazy and ungrateful. Which actually, you see in marriage a lot, he says, people give up at the first hurdle because they enter into the union with a “me, me, me” attitude.
His eloquence on this matter is such that I wonder why he isn’t teaching it. “Oh I do,” he replies. He is author of an book in which he takes the story of The Little Prince, ostensibly a children’s book, and dissects it for its rich lessons in life: how to love, what we to our fellow man, what friendship means, what love means.
We had no idea that he had published this book when the meeting was arranged (by our host’s neice, his student), but Carlos Freile is a brilliant interview subject. Fascinating and still very in love himself. We ask if we can interview him and his wife later today. And, to our delight and astonishment, he agrees.
We leave Carlos Freile, knowing we’ll see him again later in the day, and head to the Baco Ortiz children’s hospital to film the work of the Sol Y Vida Foundation. Having been turned away from filming in the hospital yesterday by a vile witch of the “computer says no” school of bureaucracy, we have now filled in the necessary forms and are back to meet some of the little children going through their chemo treatment.
The chemotherapy room is fairly small – not a daunting hospital ward of a room, but a kind of a square waiting room with lots of natural light and brightly coloured murals. There are about 10 blue leather seats which can recline. They look like airplane seats – the material of business class but the size of economy class. on 6 of these seats sit children. Slumped, bored looking. They’re used to this, they’ve been doing it for ages. out of a canula in their hand comes a tube which stretches up to a drip above them. A parent sits beside them, also a bit bored-looking. Fridays are not busy, so there are fewer children here than normal.
Our first little man is sitting patiently in his chemo chair, parents with him, and his plastic superhero toy. He’s 6 years old. Ligia, the Foundation’s psychotherapist for the kids, waves and introduces us to the family who are willing to talk to us about the immense impact that the foundation has had on their lives, paying for the medication for the boy and basically working to save his life when without them, there would have been no hope.
Through a set of doors, there is a second room. It feels lighter, there’s colourful, small furniture, more painting on the walls, and not a trace of anything “hospitally”. This is where children come to play in between appointments, while they wait. They have lessons here too, the Ecuadorean government has a curriculum drawn up for kids in hospital. We meet the teacher who is adorable, and says her goal is to make sure this little room feels like a world away from what goes on on the other side of the doors: the pain, the chemo, the bored waiting.
A smiling three year old gives me a whopper of a grin, follows it up with a chess piece, then trots off to do some colouring in. She looks so happy and healthy that I turn to her mother and ask if she’s here because of another child. No, she says, her little smiling duaghter has been ill with cnacer for the last 2 years. But, thanks to help from Sol Y Vida, she seems to be getting slowly better. Mother and daughter spend every day at the hospital getting treatment. “It’s like a second home,” she says. But with a smile, as she waves at the teacher. In minutes, her gorgeous little girl is singing La Cucaracha, word perfect (with a little help from mum) as I dance like a loon, much to her giggling entertainment.
THere is one public pedeatric oncologist in the whole of Ecuador, she is the one who has to see and treat all these children. We meet her briefly, and arrange to come back in 15 minutes to interview her. Sadly, when we return, she is gone for the day. We later learn that she herself is undergoing treatment for cancer. There are people in this world who are truly amazing.
As we sit outside her office, we meet a man and his little daughter. She is 8 years old, and when she was 3, she was diagnosed with a tumour in her eye. She, like all of the other children, is adorable – and once she overcomes her initial hide-behind-dad shyness, she opens up, starts chatting and is very sweet. Her father talks openly to us about the miracle of the Sol Y Vida Foundation – how it has saved the life of his beautiful daughter, and how it has supported him and his wife as he had to give up work to bring his little girl to the hospital. We leave the hospital, and rather than being broken by the injustice of the disease and these young lives, instead I feel uplifted at the amazing work of the foundation.
We head into the colonial centre of Quito. Time to get some GVs (that’s “general views” ” to you non-documentary making few who read this). For the first time, Mike notices a little purple crescent which is appearing in shot. It’s not on the lenscover, it’s not on the viewing screen. Mike’s really worried. But we get shots of the centre of town – it’s utterly gorgeous, and our friend and tourguide Luis gives us a masterful and thorough tour of the place.
While we are in town, we head to a sculture exhibition by an artist who we are set to be interviewing on Sunday with her husband. Her name is Alice Trepp, and for the last twenty years, she has been studying residents of El Chota 
(the black villages in the north of Ecuador which breeds world class footballers) and making sculptures from them. She makes moulds from which she then creates lifesize models – in bronze, fibreglass and, most interestingly, chocolate!
The exhibition is of lifesize fibreglass models. It’s uncanny, you half expect them to get up and walk around. They are breath-taking. More on Alice in a couple of days…
From there, we head to interview the wonderful Carlos Freile and his wife Lucia. Carlos was her history professor and is 20 years her senior. But they are very very in love. He refers to her always as “Mi Lucia” which I find utterly enchanting. He consults her, and delights in her. 
She obviously matches his intellect, and the two of them are still radiantly happy – 30 years and 3 sons later. It has to be quick, the interview, so we wrap up. Carlos has given us his answers to our questions for advice and What love is. So we ask just Lucia to answer, and wonderfully she answers with exactly the same ideas as Carlos.
Finally, we go to Ventura Mall in the town of Cumbaya to make a short video for our host, who runs the mall. What a day. We make it back to our hosts exhausted, but with still enough energy for a quick acted rendition of 
“So Long, Farewell” from the Sound of Music with the girls (I’m the eldest son – “Adieu, adieu to yer and yer and yer…”, 10 year old Kim is one of the middle-sized girls “I flit, I flit, I fly…” and little Aileen is the tiny one “the sun has gone to bed and so must I” and Mike is utterly bewildered but gamely tries to be the eldest son before I have to step up from the role of Lisel – all this in performance for the parents/our hosts)
I want a kid. (A recurring theme on this trip)
