After our food binge, Joelle went to internet and Ela and I went to pick up the cat at the vet. The vet told us that after the swelling had gone down, the eye had sucked back inside the head and when kitty returns in 2 days to have its eye unstitched, we will know if the eye is alive or if it needs to be plucked out. When we got kitty outside of the vet clinic, it temporarily escaped and went inside someone’s single car garage through a hole in the sort of lattice-like masonry of the wall. Kitty was soon recaptured and made to ride the rest of the way to the Olympia in his Bad Kitty cardboard box.

        When I got to Tambo, I found there had been a number of changes. The big bread making table had finally been removed from my room where I had been using it to write charlas forever ago and was placed with the giant bread making oven where Susanna used to wash clothes. This, I was told, was because the house was full of neighbors for The Day of the Dead festivities who were baking bread in the images of little dolls, as is the custom. People eat doll shaped bread at little gatherings at their houses. People also go house to house collecting doll shaped bread from other people, much like our Halloween. Eventually, the door to door bread collecting degenerates into shots of alcohol collecting and the whole town is trashed by day’s end. However, I didn’t really understand why all the neighbors were personally baking bread in Julio’s oven or why he is now the proud owner of a large box of their bread creations, which he refuses to sell.

        Also, Julio had gone and bought 2 new pigs from Lorena’s neighbor. When I found him in the back yard, all 4 pigs were outside of their pens running riot in the dirt yard. This was a fairly serious violation of my pigs’ bio-security. Why was he letting my pigs not only fraternize with strange pigs, but run all over the yard where street pigs routinely drop their parasite laden droppings? I asked him what his pigs had been eating. After a pause, he admitted to using my pig feed, which he should have known better than to do because it screws up the math I am intending to display to the whole community to show how cheaply one can raise a healthy pig by using the novel technique of feeding it. Julio quickly added that he would be buying his own sack of feed that very day. I was burnt up. I told him he screwed up the strict finances of my pig project. Julio was supposed to be different than other Ecuadorians. He wasn’t supposed to do ass backwards things and engage in counterproductive acts of stupidity. It was a very awkward way to return from an almost 2 week absence.

        My Spanish, in spite of having lain dormant for 2 weeks, was so on-point that I could deliver whimsical quips without having to worry about cumbersome deliveries. I could barely sit down long enough to eat my cold and nasty soft-boiled egg and instant coffee made with powdered milk because I was repeatedly drawn to Susanna to rip wisecracks while she was a captive audience in the kitchen. After a shower, I headed up to Merci’s tienda to buy a big jug o’ agua to have on hand for my gringo visitors whom I would be meeting later today. Merci must have forgotten that we have never exchanged more than 2 words without something horrifically awkward happening, because she launched right into conversation with a big smile and not a speck of reservation, which I effortlessly reciprocated. She wanted to know if I was still available to be her son’s Padrino at his first communion. I told her I was and made her get me an exact date.

        Back at the house, Julio came into my room to ask what was new. The conversation drifted into soliciting funds for projects from NGOs and then swiftly segwayed into serious talk of beginning a pig project with a few trustworthy locals. We spoke unwaveringly about infiltrating the local so-called pig growers meeting on a covert mission to recruit al Qaeda operatives for our top secret pig project. I told Julio I was going to raid the women’s group Frente de Apoyo if for no other reason than to hang out, but also to see if they had any leads or ideas or if they needed any of mine. This was a major breakthrough. It seemed that the time for action had finally exploded in our heads at the same time.

        At 12:15pm, I went to the central park of Santa Elena where I was supposed to meet the 2 gringo visitors, Jack and Sally, ages 79 and 72, respectively. Jack and Sally are friends of my parents and happened to have a few free days left over at the end of their trip to Ecuador, which I was hoping to fill with interesting encounters in the peninsula. After mailing 2 CDs to the United States, which cost me $4.80, I sat in the park working in a notebook journal I keep from about 12:30pm until 2pm. I could have kept working longer, but I was beginning to worry that something was awry, as a very long time had elapsed since the last time I had seen a C.L.P. bus drive past the park, which was the bus company I had told Jack and Sally to take to get to me. Upon looking up from my notebook, the duo was suddenly upon me. Their C.L.P bus had taken a strange way through town, which did not pass the park, and the duo had had to take a cab back to where the park was.

        Over Cokes at the outside tables of a restaurant, we discussed their trip, the country, a smattering of ancillary topics and then our options for that afternoon as a trio. We decided we would get them a hotel room in Salinas. En route, I began doubting the prudence of my suggestion that they pick a hotel room in Salinas, which had I made because I have personally verified that the Coco hotel has very nice rooms for as cheap as you can find in the area and because it is in a touristy section, has plenty of good restaurants in very close proximity and at least is away from noisy highways and diesel spitting busses and trucks. I doubted my suggestion because it seemed I was causing them needless commuting time to everywhere else in the peninsula in order to provide them amenities that they would not use. However, when the steady ocean breeze swept over us and the relaxing air of a half-abandoned beach town in the off-season began efficiently unwinding the duo’s long day of travel, they announced their satisfaction with the climate, the Salinas strip, the food we were soon eating, and the cordial turn the entire universe had by then taken. Over a mozzarella smothered filet mignon cooked in wine, I drew up directions to my house and told them I would look for them in Tambo any time after 10am the following morning. Then they headed to the Coco hotel, and I to the road where I could catch a bus home. A bus came rolling down the street within moments.

        About half way to Tambo, a woman boarded the bus clutching a potted geranium. A single potted geranium. She took a seat in the bench in front of me and sat quietly, staring straight ahead and holding her single geranium. I wondered what plans she had in store for her single geranium. Would she make watering it each day a top priority? Would she peer at it from her window with great concern? In my head, I accused her of being enamored with her geranium; its big stupid red bloom having swept her off her feet. I kept leaning forward to glare over her shoulder at the stupid erect bloom. Stupid bloom.

         From the front porch of Julio’s house, I heard a bus engine fading into the distance in the direction of Prosperidad and decided to see if said bus had delivered a set of gringos to El Tambo. It had. Sally and Jack were already talking and filming people in the center of town when I arrived. A few minutes after having reconvened PeninsulaFest, we headed towards Julio’s. I took them a rather round about way to my house because I had just done battle with a crazed dog along the more sensible route. This turned out to be a great advantage as we came across 3 of my students in different areas of the back lanes and struck up conversations with them. It was easy, as I had discovered earlier that morning that the school day Ivan had told me would not be taking place due to Day of the Dead festivities, had taken place and was EXAM DAY. It really didn’t matter that I missed exam day. The last time we had exams, Guido never even came by to pick up my grades. He left to register the grades from our school in Guayaquil with nothing in his hands from me. He must’ve made up the grades when he got there. Well, he can just make them up again for all I care. The grades, whether good or bad, will have zero impact on the 3rd rate education the students are receiving and no one will take their Don Bosco Colegio al Distancia diplomas seriously anyway, as Ecuador is full of people with much better educations who cant find a decent job. But the students are incongruously terrified of bad grades and break into a cold sweat at the mention of tests and exams.

        At Julio’s, we investigated my gringo garden, the furniture workshop out back, and met family and neighbors alike. Then we ate lunch. We were served a hideous cow foot soup. In my bowl, I found a large peel of skin with little hairs on it and chunks of white meat attached to it. I pushed my soup aside and disarmed Susanna’s offense at this by saying I couldn’t eat my soup for fear of being kicked in the mouth.

        Then we set out on a tour of El Tambo. The town was on its best behavior and was greatly amused to see what was obviously a Gringo Tour of the pueblo. The duo interacted with absolutely anyone hanging around outside. Amused people freely came out of their homes to see what was going on. A local guy who owns zillions of goats ran over and posed for pictures amid his coop of little bitty baby goats. We walked as far north as the School and then turned around to rest in the central park. After a round of cokes for the adults and ice creams for the 3 little kids tagging along with us, we headed back to Julio’s to film the castration of pigs.

        I told the rolling camera that I thought my piglet had a “scrotal hernia” and that we would soon know for sure if, when I cut it open, the intestines spilled out the incision I made. I knew from my books that scrotal hernias are a fairly common birth defect, especially where pigs are inbred. I was going ahead with the castration, in spite of the danger, but I thought I had better go on record with what we were working with to prevent an unpleasant surprise. When I made the incision, the intestines spilled out. There was no blood or ooze of any kind. “Nothing too serious”, I told the camera. We just forewent the castration, as we were now having trouble discerning this part from that. We tried to tuck the intestines back in, but could not get them fully back inside the incision. After a long attempt to do so, we packed up the piglet, Julio grabbed a passing pick up truck, and off we went to Ancon in search of Oswaldo the veterinarian.

        At Oswaldo’s house in Ancon, the pig was anesthetized and the intestines were pushed upon. They would not go all the way back in. Oswaldo claimed that even if he could stuff the intestines back inside, the pig would just die from blockages and gas build-up of his twisted up intestines. A full-blown surgery could fix the problem, but Oswaldo himself could not perform it, as he was leaving to teach at the University. We opted to put the animal to sleep. Oswaldo injected the heart an overdose of anesthesia and the piglet died. Then we all carted our butts back to Tambo to perform an autopsy.

        When we cut the pig open, we found a second hernia higher up on the stomach, which Oswaldo had pointed out at his house. We also found that his testicles had both been malformed and the rest of his intestines were really strange looking, as if they were far too narrow near the stomach and too numerous. Inbreeding. The aged Gringo Duo decided it was time to go home; they were plum tuckered. I walked them to the bus stop so they would not get into trouble with dogs, collected two 50 dollar bills from Jack, which I intended to deposit into my bank account inside of the bank, and re-withdrawal from outside the bank, to break the two 50’s down into 100 dollars worth of 20’s, 10’s and 5’s, which the bank would have argued with me about had I asked them directly. The change I would then give back to Jack because no place in Ecuador will accept a $50 dollar bill. Even a $20 is very hard to break.

         At around 5:30pm, one of the Peace Corps nurses stopped by with the boss of the “Youth and Family” program as well as the 2 new PCVs in the peninsula, Amy of Libertad and Calla of Santa Elena. The visit went awkwardly from the start. Marion monopolized the floor before there had even been any introductions. Introductions were made on the fly and had to compete with Marion’s noise. Then, without a word to the rest of the group, Marion took off to look at my room with me in tow. In my room, she made conversation and threw out the occasional medically related question and did nothing of any importance. When she was done, she took a picture of me in my room, called her passengers together and took off. I didn’t even get a chance to talk to the new gringas, who I’m sure hadn’t come along just to see Tambo.

        In Olon, I directed the car to the “boys home” where Lonne and Sally work. They were not there, but rather in their nearby house. The nurse, along with the APCD rode alone to Lonne and Sally’s house while we passed time at the boys home shooting interviews for the film Jack and Sally#2 (note that there are now 2 Sallys) were making. After a while, the nurse, the APCD and Lonne and Sally#1 returned, but only for a moment as they were headed out to eat. Before they left, they handed us the key to their house. Instead, we went to Montañita to eat.

        Upon our return to the boys home, we were given a tour by Sally#1, after which, we 3 visitors caught a bus back to Salinas in the peninsula, where we ate at the Amazonas restaurant. As we were walking into the restaurant, I cut out down the street to check in at Dunkin Donuts to find out what days they were open, as my last several visits had found the shop closed. Inside Dunkin Donuts, a local decided to try out his English on me. He told me he had recently met 2 other people- girls- that worked for… oh, what was it called… ah, the Peace Corps. I told him I worked with Peace Corps too. He threw open his arms and yelled “My friend!” I told him I was amazed that the new girls were getting around so well and had already been down on the boardwalk of Salinas making friends. It definitely helps to speak the language, I guess. I suppose it also helps not to be a total misanthrope, like myself. Anyway, this guy, Luis, told me all kinds of facts about the new girls and told me he had phone numbers and had been to at least one of their houses. I told them I had no way to get in touch with them, really, and to take my phone number to them and give me theirs. We exchanged all the info. Then Luis put his hand on the head of a little 8 –10 year old street kid that had walked into Dunkin Donuts and switching back to Spanish, said “This guy lives on the street. He ran away to here because his parents beat him. Starting in December, Salinas fills up with street kids from Guayaquil who come here to do drugs (I would say it probably has more to do with safety and ease of panhandling). They hang out on the street and inhale paint thinner. But not this guy, he’s a good boy.” He rubbed the kid’s head like a dog.

        I told the kid that he has to stay a good boy and that inhaling paint thinner is insane because it absolutely destroys your brain. He nodded emphatically, but was looking around at the sidewalk outside. Perhaps he could tell I was in a hurry to get back to the Amazonas. I had only come down the street to grab some donuts, after all. I returned to the Amazonas without even asking the kid his name. This has been on my mind ever since. Telling a street kid not to destroy his brain with paint thinner is inconsistent with not even bothering to ask his name. Not acknowledging his humanity by such a simple act as asking his name is the same as confirming something he already suspects- that his existence is unimportant; that he is not really worth ‘not destroying’. To a kid, especially a beaten street kid, self-esteem is 1000 times more important than advice or prosperity. I’ll be looking for that kid the next time I can’t live without my donuts. I shan’t make that oversight twice.

        When I got up again at 6-and-change AM, I saw that for the first time since I had been here, we had received enough rainfall to have wetted the hard-packed soil deeper than what one can scratch with the toe of one’s shoe. There were little trails across the ground where mini rivers of water had run downhill. I found Julio’s dog, apparently not enjoying the novelty of wet ground, hiding on the dry cement shower next door, which he has never done before. I kicked him out and took my shower, but then found him lying on my bed, which he definitely knows he is not supposed to do. Later, we found his muddy footprints on yet another bed.

        After lunch, I broke out my box of Dunkin Donuts, which the family had never tried before and cut each into thirds. Susanna was plenty satisfied just appreciating the various icings and muti-colored sprinkles, but was easily talked into snatching up a few thirds eat as well.

        In the afternoon, I went through my collection of new and old seeds, which I had both brought down with me and collected here in Ecuador. Suspecting that most are too old to sprout, I dumped numerous cactus seeds all over the Gringo Garden on the side of the house, to see if they would sprout. If they manage to sprout out there without assistance, I will eventually transplant them. If they don’t sprout, then the dead seeds have already been jettisoned from my collection. I planted a pinch of 10 different flower and vegetable seeds as well as all my palm seeds from Florida in a tray to find out if any of them are still good. Julio and the rest of the family spent the afternoon leveling an area of ground behind the house to build a table to wash clothes on.

        As I have said before, Ecuadorians love pomp and the graduation ceremony was exceedingly ostentatious. There were recited lines, marching with flags, the wearing of sashes and a song. No one had any real idea of how the graduation ceremony was supposed to go, but one of the other teachers had a piece of paper with written instructions. Everyone screwed up their parts, the graduate (who is married to her 2nd cousin) bonked the other students in their heads with her flag as she marched past and I pinned the sparkly sash on her upside down. Of course, no one saw any irony in a joke-of-a-school badly performing the most pretentious of ceremonies.

        We tried to resume school, but it was delayed because 2 students fled the building without a word and were last seen heading away from the school a great distance up the road. We waited a while for them to return before deciding to go on with the school day without them, but they suddenly appeared back at the school with a black bag of nasty tuna sandwiches and 3 liter of cola to celebrate this momentous graduation of Ketty. While we were still eating, I heard Jack and Sally arrive. They came in to the school and began filming the students. Somehow this served to promote the already festive atmosphere of the school day to the point where it disintegrated altogether around us. Students began shutting doors and locking up the school and the next thing I knew we were outside and everything was done for the week.

        I had told a student I would give iron injections to his newborn piglets, so Jack and Sally waited at the central park of Tambo until I could return with my supplies. We walked out to the student’s house on the outskirts of town and gave the piglets their shot. Then we ate lunch at Julio’s, after which, the gringo duo returned to their hotel to nap. I wrote in my room for the next few hours and then bussed to Salinas to hook back up with the gringo duo to eat at the absurdly posh Barceló hotel.

        At around 5 pm, Julio and I went to the town meeting. A woman, calling herself an “architect”, met with Julio there to announce some bone-headed plan of theirs to have a high school built in El Tambo. Anyone who cares anything about their education already busses their kids to join the 3000 plus highschoolers in Ancon and Santa Elena. Why should a brand new high school be built in a place whose existing school is known to achieve almost nothing educationally.

        We walked into the meeting as a woman was reading in monotone from a book, perhaps the minutes from the last meeting. I asked Julio how long he thought the reading would go on for. He guessed we had another 90 minutes of reading to go. I sat amid the droning until it began to infuriate me that El Tambo was so damned ass backwards. Why in the hell does a 10 cent town need a 50 million dollar bureaucracy? The few people who were present at the meeting looked like zombies. No one was paying any attention and some were falling asleep. Stupid, stupid, stupid town. Why not just get down to business? Why cant we just come to grips with El Tambo being insignificant, cut the legion of lead weights and simply talk to each other?

        I walked out of the meeting and went home to kill time while the woman wasted everyone’s time reading, but became so irritated at having to go back to that ridiculousness later on in order to put out word that I am looking to start a communal pig project, that I couldn’t relax. I headed back up the street to the house I gave iron shots at yesterday to see if the remaining 2 piglets that had not been present yesterday were ready to get stuck with a needle. The father sent for the son and the 3 of us, plus a drunk guy and a bunch of kids, headed back to the pig pen. It turned out there had been some confusion. There had only ever been 3 piglets, so there were no new piglets to inject. The father, with no small degree of amusement, told me there had been a 4th piglet, but it was born dead with an elephant-like nose on its forehead. Then I was invited inside to eat deep fried banana slices and goat cheese.

        After a while of unproductive conversation, Julio came to the house and knocked on the front door. Coming in, he told me his architect friend had left the meeting and gone home because the reading of the stupid book was still going on with no end in sight. Julio and the father talked a long time about how no one can find work in the peninsula and then we walked home. From my cold and the antihistamines I took, my comprehension of Spanish, and indeed my attitude towards Tambo, had gone directly south. Julio and I just walked home and gave up on the stupid meeting, now pushing into its second hour of waste time.

        I laid on my “couch” and put a cassette of documentaries into the VCR, as my brain was not up to the task of much else. Soon the house emptied, which was alright by me. Then came a rapping at my shudders. I knew it was Lorena. I contemplated ignoring her knock and continuing to watch my documentaries in peace, but since I had told her Friday I would find her to hang out sometime this weekend, I bit the bullet, got up and opened my shudders. Lorena was standing there with her friend and they had brought urgent news from the town meeting earlier. Apparently the town president had gotten up and told the whole town that if there were no animal projects started soon, the peace corps would move me an hour up the coast to San Pedro. The president’s announcement sounded like a mutated version of a little falsehood I had told Julio recently, except my version wasn’t quite so absolute and didn’t include San Pedro. Actually, the only false part about it is that I would ask to be moved. The Peace Corps wouldn’t forcibly move me. I had been frustrated with the town’s shiftlessness and had turned this rumor loose on the streets to kick everyone’s butt into gear about doing some work. I did not expect it to be received so seriously or spread so quickly as this. Now I see why the Catholic Church had been so successful in Latin America: you tell people that the wrath of a higher power is going lose its patience with them at some ill-defined point in the future and people just fall apart. It was just dumb luck that I had turned the rumor loose just prior to a town meeting, but let’s just say I’m filing away a little lesson about media manipulation as well.

        After a while of talking through my window, Lorena and I hauled a few photo albums over to her house, where she, her sisters and I combed through pictures until nearly 1am. Sometime during this visit, 3 guys came to Lorena’s house looking for me. They wanted to know if I could help them translate and fill out some US work visa forms tomorrow. I told them to swing by my house tomorrow after 9am.