Mom was a radical liberal; dad, conservative, curuchupa strain. Mom was more of a believer and questioned the Church less than Dad; in fact, one Sunday, taking off his tie, he said: This is a farce. And he never heard mass again. Papa admired the work of García Moreno and never missed a speech by Velasco Ibarra; Mama hated them both with all her might: García Moreno ordered the death of her great-grandfather, General Manuel Tomás Maldonado; and Velasco Ibarra dismissed my grandfather from the office of governor of Cotopaxi, according to what he said, with a penalty of For Maldonado, no water.

Papá, dying of laughter, told of Mama’s mischief when he taught the peasants of Allpa Mallag to sign to vote for Camilo Ponce; while mom ordered them to do it for Carlos Guevara Moreno, and they obeyed her. Sometimes they had long conversations in which each defended his position, but I never heard them insult each other or say is that you lack folic acidan expression that is used tirelessly in the networks these post-election days.

Today, no one respects those who think differently: either you are a sheep or you are a girl, or you are rude, but even God is not saved from insult. And it is clear that when there are no ideas, insults come; when reasoning went on vacation, insults arrive; when folic acid is lacking, the only response is insults.

Honestly, I don’t understand why the results are so surprising. Are we unable to understand that these results are ENOUGH! said out loud? Enough of so much injustice; to so much poverty or, rather, to so badly distributed wealth; to so much pain There is no evil that lasts a hundred years nor a body that resists it, said the grandmother. But these evils of ours exceeded a hundred a little while ago.

Isn’t it time, Ecuadorians, to use what little folic acid we have left and start working together, without hatred?

I imagine the consultations as a candidate for Miss Universe: let’s take a very pretty girl who runs when the buns on her waist overflow uncontrollably, she broke a tooth energetically eating an almond and her last experiment at the hairdresser was a fan hairstyle. A candidate at his worst will be a terrible decision. No one will save her from a terrible loss. And well, if the Government did it, what more than an echo can’t be expected?

The New Middle Ages

Prescribe without authorization

Everything is sad, but I prefer to laugh than to cry. In these absurd moments of obsessive and total intolerance, only humor saves me, it gives me strength for work and life. Because it is difficult to live with so much disappointment, with so much disobedience, with so much nausea. I’d rather laugh than cry, because if I start crying, I wouldn’t be following Julio Cortázar’s instructions: “Reasons aside, let us adhere to the proper manner of weeping, understanding by this a weeping which does not enter into scandal, nor offend the smile by its parallel and clumsy likeness.…”. No, what’s up, I would cry aloud; I would cry, as Huilo Ruales says in one of his excellent texts, for buckets; I would cry in vain.

Isn’t it time, Ecuadorians, to use what little folic acid we have left and start working together, without hatred? (OR)