In Vinces, a 120-year-old montuvian house survives proudly

By Sergio Cedeño Amador *

It is impressive to see this fabulous house in Montuvia de la Hacienda San Sebastian, located in the Vinces canton of the Los Ríos province, built 120 years ago exclusively with guadúa cane (Guadua angustifolia), called “vegetal steel”, and oak and pechiche wood.

I think this is the oldest and largest house in Ecuador built with these almost eternal vegetables and although it already shows deterioration, the Provincial Council of Los Ríos and the Municipality of Vinces have the duty to start its maintenance so that it does not happen the same as with the beautiful house of the Hacienda Isla Bejucal, which no longer exists.

The Hacienda San Sebastián belonged to the Avilés family since the 19th century and its last owner, Angelita Avilés Gómez, who died in 2009, she left the house to her life partner, Antón Zambrano, who currently lives there with his family and the hacienda distributed it among his nephews.

Doña Angelita was a school teacher in the country and a very pretty, nice, blonde, blue-eyed woman who spent her free time making “cocoa liquor” and other culinary delights.

Don Antón told me that this house, in which there is no “penalty”, should have been built with cane harvested at dawn and “on a waning moon”, otherwise it would have gotten moth-eaten quickly.

As you walk through its vast room with smell of cocoa and ripe guava, I imagined how many parties, serenades, wakes, storms, sorrows and joys this beautiful montuvian house has seen that refuses to die guarded by its bodyguards, the noble and ancient cacao, mamey, guava, caimito and avocado trees …

And as the French said Sully Prudhomme in the poem The old houses:

I don’t love shiny new houses

who have indifferent faces;

I love the noble old houses

that, like widows always in pain,

they keep sad and august memories.

They fake the cracks in the facade,

furrows and wrinkles on the honest forehead,

and there are those reflections in the glass

that we surprise in the look

of the blessed and humble old men.

Doors and walls are like friends

who turned gray being witnesses

of a thousand frank and true benefits:

they toasted sweet coats;

they enjoyed being open.

Rich trim faded;

rust stained the locks,

that neither work nor did they work,

for what good and pure souls,

deep secrets they never kept.

In bedrooms and living rooms

between tapestries and curtains

and between apricots and velvets,

hearts always find

kisses from parents, laughter from grandparents.

I love the blackened cloisters,

where the raging winds

they moan and roar in fierce fighting,

and where their poor nests hang

swallows in spring.

I love moth-eaten ceilings

the high coffered ceilings

which firmaments full of stars,

and the steps that, because they are used,

many steps retain traces.

And I love, first of all, the beautiful room

that the family reunited happily

with the caresses of red fire.

Blessed room that today, silent,

he is surrendering with regret!

There in ages that are far away,

respect they found the noble gray hair;

there were born holy affections,

and there, from the lips of the old women,

stories sprouted for the children.

But the little ones are old;

parents and grandparents have already perished,

and coffered ceilings and joins,

when they collapse, they fill the floors,

as a harbinger of misfortune.

Soon in the fire that is lit

they will give a last, weak crunch;

soon, very soon, they will be nothing:

as a memory of the lost good,

as a hope already realized.

When between flames and between coals

I look at the remains of those mansions

that, with respect, I saw grow old,

I think illusions die

and the blessed resignations

of something that the world will not return. (I)

* Member of the Academy of History of Ecuador and proud Montuvio.