"You're still in bed? It's 7:30!" He shrieked, hoping to get a big reaction out of me.

      I lifted my head and said "What?" in English. Julio laughed at how confused I was and told me to go ahead and sleep if I was that tired. Instead, I came to breakfast. Everyone stared at me smiling, as they had never before seen me that fresh from a deep sleep. "Too much dancing last night," I said, absolutely killing the room.

      After breakfast, on a whim, I decided to cut my hair even shorter than it already was. Then I spent the entire day (until 9 pm) taking notes on my pig books and also writing. As I was writing in my room, I heard a number of males of various ages in the next room going completely bananas, wrestling, smashing each other, suffocating each other with pillows and laughing, laughing, laughing nonstop for about 45 minutes and was reminded once again how we people with big brains and full schedules are estranged from that kind of bliss.

      Then Ivan and I bussed to Libertad so he could watch me buy tons of junk food. We once again ate cheese and crackers on the bus, except this time I sent him to Tambo without me and got off the bus in Santa Elena for internet. A few minutes into my work, the power in town went out. I grabbed another bus back to Libertad and spent 4 1/2 hours in an internet place there. Then I bussed home to Tambo. Dinner was my first food of the day, with the exception of the cheese and crackers. I was inexplicably tired and so went to bed early.

      When Julio came to get me for breakfast, I asked him if it had snowed last night. I rounded the corner and ran into Susanna, who celebrated my bed head because it meant I hadn't showered in the nippy air. Then she laughed at my long sleeves and tempered gait and cracked off a joke about Lorena keeping me warm. This was all immensely gratifying for them because they had been on a mission to get me to acknowledge the coolness of their cold season, which I had been telling them was perfect weather and merely the absence of scorching heat.

      I wrote for a while and then went up the street to buy a 5-gallon drum of water to make coffee. Julio came into my room as I was flipping the switch to the coffee maker. He wanted to know how the coffee maker worked. His wife heard us talking about the machine and came running. They stood around my coffee maker while it brewed and stared at it, discussing over and over how I had told them it brings the hot water to the grounds. I told them it uses a different type of coffee: "grounds", not instant. They watched as I poured myself a cup and stared in anticipation to see if my expression would betray just how good the first sip had been. I lingered with the cup at my lips for a moment and then broke out laughing. They really were waiting to see if my head would explode or somthin'. Realizing they were being a bit weird, Susanna made a joke about me wanting to be alone with my coffee and literally ran from the room. Julio, who had no idea what was going on, wavered for a moment and then also went running from the room just to be on the safe side. A minute later, he returned sheepishly with an empty cup. I filled it for him and warned him that I didn't play around when it came to coffee and that my brew was deadly thick and he was about to see god. He sipped from his cup completely without reaction. "Yeah, it's ok," he said. "I prefer a little sugar." And then he left the room, ostensibly in search of some. I should have known he wouldn't get it.

      Debi called to see if I wanted to cruise up to Olon with her and the other volunteer in Libertad, Francisco, to meet Lonnie and Sally. I said I was in. Then I wrote until 4:30pm. Then, knowing it would be 2 days until I could check my email if I didn't get to it tonight, I bussed into Santa Elena to smash back my to do list. When I returned home, I found the family had eaten without me. Julio apologized profusely when he found out I hadn't been out eating. I told him it was ok because I wasn't even hungry, and then proceeded to eat a ton of food from my stash right in front of him.

      As we were sitting in my room talking, Susanna came in and plunked herself down with us on the edge of my bed. This was a first. Wisecracks notwithstanding, Susanna scuttles around this house like she is the maid, albeit a very highly esteemed maid, like Alice on the Brady Bunch. In this sense, El Tambo is very traditional. The women have their places and activities and the men have theirs. Plunking down in our conversation was a milestone, which find suspiciously coincides with my newfound ability to understand a small percentage of her even-more-mangled-than- Julio's Spanish. We triangulated a plentitude of conversation until someone out in front of the house called "a ver" and Julio went out to see what was up. The people outside wanted bread, which we had been out of for days because Julio had been too busy with his furniture building to bake more. I told Susanna that if they were going to not make bread for days at a time, they should put a sign out front of the house saying there is no bread. She laughed as I imitated a blinking sign saying "no hay.... no hay...", but I wasn't really joking. People come all day long wanting to buy bread, and each time they have to summon a family member to the front door to tell them in person that there still isn't any bread.

      Even though I knew the answer already, I asked Susanna if she didn't know how to make the bread herself. She said she didn't. I lowered my voice and said that she should learn so they could always have bread on hand to sell because not having it was money lost. I knew that because bread generated income it was considered "man's work" here and thus my suggestion would be received as radical feminism. She was delighted to have the gringo side with her on what was obviously an old dispute in this house. In a conspiratorial tone, she told me that she always tells Julio that same thing but he thinks he is the only one "with the talent".

      Then I cruised over to Debi's house and she, Francisco and I caught a bus heading up the coast to Olon. About 10 minutes later, Francisco spotted a gun tucked in the pants of a man entering the bus, who then took himself a seat at the very back. As bus hijackings are not unheard of in Ecuador, we debated getting off that bus and taking another. After we did finally stop the bus and get off, we realized how absurd our indifference to the armed man had been and mocked each other with impersonations of each other's boneheaded contributions to what shouldn't have even been a debate and which only barely ended in our begrudging disembarkation. We grabbed the next bus headed for Olon.

      In Olon, at the finca San Luis, the 3 of us found sally sitting outside in plain sight with her back to us making bingo cards. This allowed us to sneak all the way up to her unnoticed. Surprised though she was, Sally didn't miss a beat and launched straight into a walking tour of the grounds. We picked up Lonne and after the tour went into nearby Montanita to eat. After we ate, Lonne and Sally cruised back to Olon for something they had to do and we 3 jovenes bussed to Libertad.

      As Debi is leaving the peninsula soon and for good, I went with her to her house to indicate which things in the mountain of things she was giving away I wanted. She bagged it all up, but instead of taking the bag with me, Francisco and I walked to the mall so I could price shop phones and he could buy cinnamon bread. Then I left Francisco and the mall and bussed to Tambo.

      I jumped in the shower and went off to teach English in the school. The students were wound up in anticipation of the big Father's Day dance to be held later that night. Classes were interrupted because, inexplicably, we all had to gather in another classroom to eat tuna sandwiches in honor of Father's Day. The occasional lackadaisical wave of an arm did nothing to dispel then 1000's of flies traversing the mountain of sandwiches. I blocked that knowledge from my mind and graciously accepted the sandwich handed me. However, getting that sandwich to my mouth without shoveling in a dozen flies from my hands or from the air in front of my mouth was a bit more difficult to block out.

      While I worked on my sandwich, individuals in the room took turns making brief generalized speeches about fathers and/or Father's Day, even though no one's fathers were present in the room. They put me on the spot for a speech. It took way too long and way too much energy to get through to them that I was completely unfamiliar with this custom and thus the nature of the speech they were soliciting eluded me. Next time, I will spare myself the bother and just make a random and unintelligible speech about whatever first pops into mind. Declining a Campesino's invitation to partake in anything festive just causes them to entrench. Appearing to comply, even if in a manner totally lacking sense, will satisfy them and get you off the hook faster.

      After sandwiches, we all taught one more class before terminating school early and moving to a house right next door to the school to eat fundraiser hamburgers intended to fund our school supplies. However, as the teachers were given their hamburgers for free, the only ones shelling out money for the fundraiser hamburgers were the students, thus the students were the recipients of their own donations. And even THEN a few people left without paying. Ladies and gentlemen, let me take this opportunity to remind you all of the perils of breeding with your close kin.

      When I arrived back at Julio's house, the power switch in my brain had mysteriously become jammed in maximum output. My Spanish was on-point and for some reason I was hilarious. Maybe the cow our hamburgers had been made from died from grazing in a giant patch of Jimsonweed. I sat at the dining room/bedroom/living room table cracking Julio and Susanna up all afternoon with the musings of a total simpleton.

      Around 6:00 PM, I got mixed up in a serious game of chess with town vago and family friend Luis. When dinner was ready, it was slid in front of me and I shoveled spoonfuls of it into my mouth without removing my eyes from the chessboard. We were both determined not to let the other win, nor even to claim the merest pawn. The game was hot and heavy and Luis was surprisingly cunning. I was trying to figure a way out of a slick trap Luis had caught me in, when I heard a number of female voices at the front door. Julio went to check it out and reported back that Lorena and 3 other girls were here to see me. My irritation soared. I shoved a big spoonful of food into my mouth so I would still be chewing it when I got to the door. There, I found all 4 girls dressed to the nines. My head was fogged into oblivion and still lingering back on the chessboard. I could barely understand the girls when they asked if I would go pasiando with them later in Prosperidad and then check out a "program" taking place there. I tried to suppress my irritation and appear friendly. I asked what kind of "program" was going on in Prosperidad. Lorena said she didn't know. My blood began to boil and it showed. She HAD to know what kind of program was going on in Prosperidad- probably an EcuaDance. I was in no mood for games and I was furious that I had to deal with this freak show on my front porch while I was very much busy with other things. But in some remote corner of my brain, I knew my irritation was largely unjustified and I tried to negotiate a friendly compromise with them. I told them I would at least go pasiando, if not in Prosperidad. The girls said they would return at 8:00 PM, but left having heard loud and clear that I was not really interested. Plus I had cut Prosperidad out of the picture, where they had obviously had plans for me. I wasn't buying any pigs in a poke.