She holds the tablet computer carefully in her rough, worn hands. It’s the first time she’s seen one. As the images play, she shouts excitedly “Caypimi canchi, caypimi canchi” (“There we are! There we are” in Kichwa). Until Tuesday, María Cabascango didn’t know that she and her husband appeared in Rafael Correa’s iconic election campaign spot, La Bicicleta (The Bicycle).

La Bicicleta played on TV for weeks, and its YouTube version has more than 250,000 views, but Cabascango and her husband José Manuel Andrango don’t have a television in their small house in rural Imababura.

She does remember the day the commercial was shot, though. In September, a group of people showed up at her house and asked to bring their cameras inside. “We thought they were going to rob us,” she recalls.

Surely the production team tried to inform the couple what all the excitement was about, but Andrango and Cabascango don’t know what TV commercials are.

In their modest house in Pucará Alto, near Otavalo, they don’t even have electricity.

Cabascango and her husband are entranced by the video on the tablet. The man laughs, and so do his  daughters, who are 41, 36 and 22 (only three of the couple’s nine children). The daughters translate the Spanish narration from the commercial to their parents, who only speak Kichwa.

Andrango says he supports the president. Two years ago, he says, the president gave them the house they live in now. This week, they attended the inauguration of Rafael Correas third term in office, where he was presented for the last time with the presidential sash. Its the same yellow, blue and red sash he leaves in the couples home at the end of the La Bicicleta commercial, as a sign that the power of the president rests with the people. 

Original story