Around 9:30am, Paola called. She was calling from work, crying again about her dead Padrino. It was not apparent why she was working on a day she was supposed to be headed off to school in Guayaquil, but she let me go fast enough, saying to call her back on her cell phone, that it didn't matter. Julio's phone can't make outgoing calls to cell phones because it costs too much. That's how landline-to-cell phone connections work in this country. Cell phone to cell phone is cheap, but a call to or from a landline is not. Landline to landline is covered in one's basic phone bill, providing it is a local call. Most phone plans have cellular numbers blocked so they don't get a surprise phone bill from some jack ass family member calling his friends cell phone.

      Around 10am, I went to internet in Santa Elena. Fabiola, by happenstance, barged in minutes after me yelling "hey professor!" and slapping me on the back in passing. From her computer, she yelled over to me that she had not gone to Guayaquil, which by this point was all too obvious. When I went to leave, she said she would be going to Guayaquil tomorrow, so we should do English tonight at 5pm. I agreed, but after leaving the internet place wondered if she had said 5pm because it meant we would follow English class with aerobics, which I was not in any mood to do, or even if I could find her house again.

      When I got home to Julio's house, I called the Peace Corps travel agent to see if they could beat the flight price available on the internet. They could not, but they could tip me off that the flight they had found, the same as the internet flight but more expensive, was scheduled to go up in price tomorrow. This meant I had to back out and kick an email to the States quickly, telling them to buy the flight now. Then I remembered that I was supposed to hunt down a computer place in Libertad to see if they would be able to fix the problem our computers are having with their CD drives. I decided to wait until after lunch to do both things together.

      In Libertad, I placed an obligatory call to Paola's cell phone but the reception was terrible and we were forced to abandon the call. Then I had to fight with my Hotmail account, which, because it is the worst mail service on the internet, was again all screwed up and completely prevented me from getting at my mail or sending what I needed to send under my familiar address. I had to access Yahoo (which never has problems and will soon be my new email account) and sent out emails that screamed not to be deleted from the subject lines. I could not be sure my mail would be read nor could I access the responses to my earlier emails I had sent out. After a 10 minute walk to the computer store, I learned from the owner that he could not work on the computer problems I described. His directions to a shop that may be able to help me were given in classic Ecuadorian fashion, which is to say, an imaginary 3-D map floated before computer guy's eyes which he communicated to me in the air above my head by the fastest, vaguest slashes of his hand and by saying "this way, then that way, then like this and like this." Several attempts to clarify what the hell he was saying went unrewarded. I was very irate at how my mission in Libertad was going. I looked at my watch. Though I still had time to meet Fabiola to follow through with the plans I had agreed to earlier, which may have included aerobics, I decided I was all out of good attitude for the day and didn't really give a crap about standing her up.

      Back at home, I read a Newsweek, took a call from the States confirming my emails had been received and plane ticket had been purchased, paid Ivan for my part of the huge phone bill from last month and talked with Julio about new ideas concerning our chicken project for which we hope USAID will foot the bill.

      At dinner, 8 year old Ines and I leveled vague accusations across the table at each other through comical contortions of our faces. In spite of her best efforts, Ines was cracked up continuously and as such, her ability to eat dinner was greatly impaired. When I leveled another unspecified accusation at her by indicating Antonio's and my clean plate and her half uneaten plate, Antonio beamed with pride that he had, by his own estimation, held his own among the big boys. He reeled and reeled with his "achievement" and wore upon his face the most unintendedly theatrical _expression of thrill and self-congratulation I have ever seen. The more I chortled at his _expression, the more he felt applauded and the more comical his _expression became. Then, as I raised my tepid coffee to my lips, Antonio scrambled for his coffee and a race to be the first big boy with an empty coffee cup commenced (yes, children routinely drink coffee with meals in this country). It seemed to me a tie, but Antonio, evidently possessing a keener eye than I, blithely awarded himself the victory.

      At around 10pm, while I was brushing my teeth, Alex called me through my side window to come out back and look at something. Someone, somewhere in the dark, distant campo, had some kind of fire raging which we couldn't see directly, but above which rose a huge 'dust devil' composed of pure sparks. I was confused for a while because I had no sense of scale concerning what I was witnessing, nor had Alex prefaced the sight by any kind of commentary. Finally I asked Alex what we were looking at. From his particularly unintelligible answer, I made out only the word "fuego". At that, it was as if the picture snapped sharply into focus, like a foggy segment of a dream that suddenly gives way to something clear and surreal. The scene had all the trademark eerieness of a dream, as well. It didn't seem exactly probable that such a dense column of millions of sparks should rise from nowhere and remain in a cohesive form like that high above a random piece of campo. Had something like that appeared above a volcanic fissure, or perhaps the gates of hell, it might have seemed somewhat more rational. While it lasted, it had a certain apocalyptic feel, worse, in its brevity, than the night we all stood motionless, like frozen souls risen to find the Second Coming afoot, staring at that red, throbbing star thing. After a long, disorienting minute, the spark dust devil lost its intensity and was battered to whisps as the gentle night breeze overcame it. Alex and I looked at each other as though we were awakening from some kind of hypnosis, aware that we had voluntarily entered the situation, but still uneasy to find we had been rendered helpless for a spell.

      Then I went down and watered my garden to beat the swarms of bees that congregate on my water barrel all day from the moment the air warms. After lunch, I went to internet in Santa Elena to send a ridiculous email to my boss with regards to a space on my SPA grant application that asks for the value of the "local contribution" we are expected to make to our project. Julio and I were unsure whether or not this meant we had to bone up a percentage of the cash that we claim our project needs. I asked my boss what this meant and told her we could contribute dust, some dry plants and perhaps a lizard, but not cash. This seemed to have amused her greatly, as it did Julio. She told me that we were to assign a monetary value to the land, labor and stuff like that and the total dollar amount is what we would be calling the "local contribution". I assume this is done for psychological reasons, so that the recipients of the grant feel empowered and see themselves as co-investors in the project, rather than a bunch of bums being handed a government freebie. That's a pretty nifty trick. I wish I had thought of that. Rest assured it has been well filed away I my bag of tricks. Julio was fixated on my having made the boss laugh as auspicious.

      Then, as I was getting ready to go over to Paola's house in order to give her aunt English lessons in accordance with the vague phone message I had been left yesterday, Paola herself called from Guayaquil, where she now lives. She said her aunt was planning to come to Guayaquil tomorrow and I should cruise out too so we could all catch a movie. I agreed on the spot. While I was talking, the computer man from earlier and his family walked through Julio's front door, motioned me to continue talking and proceeded to where Julio's family and 1 computer were hanging out in a back room. After a while, I asked Paola if her aunt wasn't waiting for me at that moment in Santa Elena. She said she didn't know. I asked her if that hadn't been the message she had left yesterday. She said it had, but maintained she didn't know what time. I started feeling that I was being jerked around by some kind of stupid game, which locally is known as "courtship."

      I got off the phone and went into the room with the computer hopefuls. After a while of inspecting the computers, they announced they would be back sometime in the next few days with a friend from computer school to see if the problem with the CD drawers could be fixed.

      After the computer family left, Paola called back again. I was very annoyed and became convinced that some kind of traditional Ecuadorian courtship was afoot that I had not signed on for. There were things she said that led me to think I had walked into some family's plan to marry their daughter off to some rich, educated foreigner and I was as close to that as they thought they could get. Being Ecuadorian, far from being up front about what was going on, they were going way out of their way cover up their intentions. Paola spoke far too much talk about the extent of trust various family members that I had never met had in me. At one point, when Paola could not seem to slow down her lightning fast Spanish, in spite of several requests to do so and in spite of my saying "what?" 14 times after everything she said, I asked her just to switch into English. Her English is every bit as good as my Spanish and more effective because for my part, I deliberately speak slow so she can understand. But she refused numerous requests to switch languages, leading me to believe there was someone or many someone's listening in. Not only annoying was this, but creepy. My perception of events, which had been operating under the assumption that everything about this situation was normal, finally had begun catching up to what was evident, in spite of all the subterfuge. I let her go. I called the aunt to see what was up with her English lessons, but she seemed indifferent towards English while hell-bent on getting me to go to the gym with her. I weaseled out of the English pretext for my coming over, saying tomorrow would be better, then hung up the phone and decided I was cutting ties with everyone involved in this hall of mirrors. They've all got a screw loose and a hidden agenda.

      Julio and Susanna had gone to Alex's school for a mother's day program. When 12:30pm rolled around and still they were not back, I decided to leave because I needed to do a lot of internet stuff and be done in time to catch a movie around 3pm. I ate at the mall food court when I found out that my movie did not start until 3:45pm. Walking out of the food court, a small girl flanked me and tapped my arm, asking if I wasn't "Trent". I asked her how she knew my name, though I had a vague suspicion this was Paola's little sister. The girl confirmed that she had recognized me based on her sister Paola's description. She thrust a hand up at me, which I shook with mock princeliness as she informed me in a tone of great fanfare that Paola would be in town tomorrow and that I should call her. I pretended like I thought that a mighty interesting idea and lied that 'I would do just that'.

      Then I went to see the movie…. uh, "Master Commander", I think. They had the title all screwed up when they translated it into Spanish, so I cant recall exactly what it was supposed to be named. Russel Crowe was in it. Good flick. I sat in the furthest back row, which rises to just over the mid point on the screen. A few rows closer would have been better, but 2 people already sitting there and I wanted to put some space between us. A few moments after I sat down, 1 of the 2 people in front of me turned around and said my name. At least I thought I heard my name. I squinted hard at the old woman looking back at me. I didn't recognize her. I continued leaning forward until I was off my seat. We were staring into each other's faces form not a great distance and yet I still could not place the old woman's face. Then the person she was with turned around and said "Oh, hi!" It was Jennifer Sterling, having recently returned to Ecuador. The image of the old woman next to her dissolved instantly into the familiar form of Giovanni, Jennifer's husband. A tenuous exclamation point levitated in the dim theater above my head. The theater lights had been low, but why I had been convinced I was looking at an old woman left me rather disconcerted. We talked for about 3 minutes until the movie started.

      Back in Tambo, after the movie, I ate, washed a load of clothes, read a Newsweek and went to bed.

      Some time in the morning hours, a small group of people went door to door in Tambo carrying a table upon which a statue of the virgin Mary stood, holding a hilariously undersized baby Jesus. Whew! Talk about getting upstaged… Jesus was the size of a racquetball. He was practically an accessory to Mary's chic yet utilitarian nun's robe. Julio told me a group of locals goes around every year at this time carrying Mary door to door soliciting donations for the church. When a donation was given, the group would sing a short song, ostensibly to indicate that the donation giver had been blessed or perhaps protected. If donations for protection is the arrangement- a "protection racket", as it's known- then I might suggest the people of El Tambo shop around for different gods who can get the job done because Mary is dropping the ball here hardcore. She's more corrupt than Viktor Pilko, the worthless snake pretending to be El Tambo's town president.

      I took pictures of Mary's approaching procession using the telephoto of my 35mm camera, while Julio and I let rip with irreverent commentary about superstition and people who defer to dolls. However, Julio, known around town as being from "another religion", which is how the trembling, wide-eyed, god-fearing Catholics refer to his brief stint as a Jehovah's witness, slipped a donation into Mary's coffer as she passed, motioning for the procession to keep moving and save the donation song for someone else. This is what would be known as "hedging one's bets."

      Right on the heels of Mary passing by, 2 apparent loan sharks stopped by to harass Julio about some money he owed them. I thought the juxtaposition was beautiful. I didn't know Julio was in debt for anything, but then, when would that have come up in conversation? They were fired up about some past due loan that Julio had gone delinquent on. After a while, the 2 loan sharks plus Julio went to the back of the house, where they propped themselves against machines and talked for a long time.

      At 3pm, I went into Santa Elena to send out a mother's day email. Returned home by 4pm. I tried to read more of Living Poor (the book about some guy's stint in the peace corps in Ecuador in the 1960's), but by page 63, had to shut the book and toss it aside because I was beginning to feel like a stereotype. Were it not for the flat writing, that book could have been written by me. The peace corps is still spouting the same rhetoric that it was in the 60's, the coastal Ecuadorians are still sitting around doing nothing about their poverty, obstructing each other's even accidental good fortunes with petty jealousies, infighting and grudges. The nature of the problems that arise, the interpersonal dynamics- its all the same as it's ever been. There was something vaguely absurd about sitting in Tambo reading a book about a poor, backwards and squabbling coastal town in Ecuador, so tossing the book aside seemed unusually prudent.

      In the afternoon, it occurred to me suddenly that Susanna had been parading around the house all day in a full-length dress, obviously in recognition of mother's day- her day. There were no programs going on in town, there were no cards or special meals planned, no one was doting over her. She was simply going through the same routine as every other day in her life in Tambo- just in a full-length dress. It was mother's day. She is a mother. She put on a dress for herself- for her motherliness. Am I the only one this amuses? When I later giggled to Lorena about this over the telephone, her shrill voice came out of the receiver in the patented coastal Ecuadorian manner, which states everything as an absolute certainty irrespective of how well-thought out the statement is because there is only ever one side to every coin (is there not?), and said "Of course she was wearing a dress, it was Mother's Day!" Of course. Well, we haven't come all that far since our ape days, I say. Apes with gateway laptops.