I have been here for eight days only and I already miss my country so much. I wonder what is wrong with me though because even when I miss my country I don’t see myself going back to live there. Even when I am there, all I think about is living there.
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| Photography by Madelaine Bustamante |
I visited my country after being three years away from it. If I have to be honest I was a bit worried when I took the plane back home because I was wondering how will my country receive me. I wonder if I would sense some distance, some coldness, some rejection towards me, against this citizen that abandoned her for so long. I wonder if the weather would harm me, or if the food would still be appealing, I wonder the people would be unkind, I wonder if my country would put up a tantrum like a spoiled child for having been left “alone” for so long. I was scared of feeling foreign in my own country as many people that go to live abroad do.
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| Photography by Madelaine Bustamante |
My land instead was as warm and as welcoming as always. I felt the sky receiving with open arms, with his clouds, with its rain, with its sun. I feel the mountains greeting me after so long. I felt the food as tasty as always. I felt the people are as kind as usual. And I felt overwhelmed with the beauty of my country one more time. I felt at home because Ecuador will always be my home, even if I leave for one hundred years. I might get a double nationality one day, and grant my Ecuadorian citizenship a sister, but I could never leave my first nationality. I would never stop feeling proud of being Ecuadorian. There has never been anything that would make me want to have been born somewhere else, even with all my country’s corruption and poverty. I am just grateful for having been born there.
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| Photography by Madelaine Bustamante |
I can almost swear the mountains were singing to me when I was on the roadway, and maybe not to me but to all of us, and the trees were happy, just like the flowers and the animals around. Or, at least, that is how it felt for me. I could almost feel myself mixing with nature, becoming one with my surroundings. I believe I could achieve that goal there, I could be one with everything if I were to stay a bit too long around those beautiful mountains. If I were to plant trees one day, I would like that to be in my country. I would like my voice to join those singing voices.
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| Photography by Madelaine Bustamante |
I missed the beaches though. I grew up surrounded by beaches and rivers, but this time I didn’t have the time nor chance to visit a beach or a river, my time there was too short and I had very little time to look around; but, now I have no doubts about the water there will welcome me too. As huge and soft as my country is, its waters will embrace me and let me hang there in absolute peace. I yearn for that day.
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| Photography by Madelaine Bustamante |
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