Campero’s Last Wave

More than a hundred people file slowly along the beach, mournfully following the gold-hued casket carried on the back of an old pick-up. An unusual vibe fills the air; simultaneously electric with expectation and heavy with sadness. While sweeping my cabin, I hear the singing. Some of the women and children carry flowers; limp bouquets of tropical flora plucked from the riverbank. Cristian and his wife, Nereyda, cross the creek behind the crowd, stragglers in the rear. Kelly, Cristian’s niece, and I join them on the tide-swept beach under the cemetery where they stop to rest.

Nereyda urges Cristian to head up the hill. He wants to hang back just a bit longer. Soon, Papa, the town drunk, stumbles over the sand, waving a bottle of Caña Manabita in our faces, leaning over us, staring and salivating. He mumbles unintelligibly, making no sense. Cristian yells in protest. An exchange of harsh words rattles around the cove.

“Leave my family alone! We want to enjoy the peace and quiet for a moment,” rants Cristian, exasperated. “Everyone on the hill will be crying. It will be very sad. Now, I have you in my face, a useless annoying drunk destroying the tranquility! Find someone else to bother!”

Cristian rises abruptly and stomps toward the rocks, Nereyda hot on his heels, and Kelly following close behind. Already on my feet, unable to endure drunks, I’m quickly moving away. We scamper over the rocks and climb up the steep muddy track.

Inaccessible on the high tide, the local cemetery sprawls on a hilltop overlooking Mompiche. The town’s deceased share the best views for miles around. When we arrive, the graveyard is full. Kids play on shiny tiled graves. Clusters of people gather, some near the coffin, others higher on the hill, and more below resting on the bluff.

Clothes are bright and summery. Black isn’t a feature color. Purple tank tops, orange shorts, a red skirt, green trousers. I’m wearing yellow shorts and a white top. No shoes. Nothing in my hair. I hadn’t planned to attend, but here I am, on the hill with everyone else, sipping tepid beer and enjoying the spectacular view of the village and the wide bay beyond.

The mood isn’t as sombre as expected. A man holding a boom-box plays loud mournful music. Draped across the coffin, Campero’s mother cries out of control; wailing and weeping, lamenting her loss. Esmeraldas is the corrupt town president. Inconsolable, she has to be carried away. She’s surrounded by good-willed people trying to help, but no one can bring back her son.

Campero’s body was found in the river at the back of Johnny’s house two days previously. The first popular rumor stated he’d been smoking basuko; a derivative of cocaine, and decided to go swimming. Many questions about Campero’s sudden death remain unanswered. It was known he frequently used base. But how would an otherwise healthy surfer accidentally drown in a shallow slow-flowing tidal river?

Campero’s demise is the first drug-related death in the village; an event half-expected for a long time by many, and not at all surprising to some.

“Maybe this will show these people how dangerous base actually is,” snaps Amy, a North American whose husband is a recovering base addict. “Someone had to die from it eventually.” After large bruises are found on the back of his head, the second rumor to circulate is that he’d been murdered.

“Esmeraldas made a lot of noise about that Spaniard, Paco, dredging sand from the beach. She protested to the authorities and Paco had to stop. Campero was killed to send the family a message,” Carlos whispers ominously.

The rumor mill grinds out its muck with little regard for the truth. This latest theory smacks of Mafia hits and wild conspiracies too dramatic and far-fetched even for a tiny coastal fishing village.

“You could easily get away with that kind of stuff out here,” says Ethan, a regular surfing visitor. “Who’s going to investigate the death some junkie who supposedly fell and smacked his head?”

In fact, I wonder if the Mompiche police are capable of investigating anything beyond what’s in their lunch bags every day.

“He was caught stealing from the base dealers,” Christian reports. “Somehow he found their hidden stash. They whacked him, left some drugs on the riverbank to make it look like he overdosed, and then got out of town.”

Apparently, the local base dealer left Mompiche around the same time as Campero’s last heartbeat.

“Are the police searching for him?” I ask.

Nobody knows. The rumor mill doesn’t process facts.

Even after asking several people, I never find out Campero’s age. Someone tells me fifteen or sixteen. Doña Rosa says nineteen. Chapica says twenty. Someone else says twenty-two. Whatever his age, he was a young man.

As I observe the mourning villagers at the cemetery, I hope that at least one of the young local boys using base will realize its dangers and have enough nous to stop. Otherwise, Campero’s death is a complete waste.

The CD jumps around, disrupting the heart-wrenching song, and the boom-box fades out of ear-shot. Silent and grim-faced, the grandmother lights candles around the coffin. There is no formal ceremony. Chelo, a fisherman friend, says there will be no priest. Even for its tiny church, Mompiche has no padre. People are scattered casually over the hilltop. Sitting, standing, sprawled in the grass, lying on crypts; chatting, drinking, laughing, crying. Except for the crying, the event resembles a village picnic. Esmeraldas’ lament brings tears to my eyes. Such a sad moment seems incredibly private. For a moment, I feel like a voyeur. An intruder.

On Friday morning, after the body had been recovered from the river, Roberto had suggested I go and look and take photos of the cadaver while they were loading it into the truck. Refraining from macabre outbursts of curiosity, I’m content to remain an unobtrusive observer.

No breeze touches the north side of the hill. The air is humid and heavy. Women flip small rags around their faces, cooling themselves, alternately using the same cloth to wipe tears and shoo flies. Hot sticky children run around in circles. Some kids sit near the coffin wiping tear-streaked faces while the men still building the crypt rub the last of the mortar over the bricks and smooth it down.

Papa staggers in, dramatic and theatrical, arms waving, shouting and crying, his bottle lost or forgotten. As he pushes through the crowd, yelling and gesticulating, no one tries to stop him. When he reaches the coffin, he stands still, silent for a long moment, hand on his heart, and grieves a fellow surfer. Then, he walks away. After a few minutes, he’s back, sitting on the ground beside the coffin, shouting and crying once again. The children who’d been there earlier are gone. Unable to bear it a moment longer, one of Campero’s brothers flees down the hill, craving solitude, desperate to be alone with his grief.

Just when I think I’ve seen everything you could see at a funeral, the blue uniformed Bon Ice man steps over the rise in his clownish getup. Customers clamor at his round blue cooler, pushing him to and fro as they demand frozen refreshments. Distributing icicles hand over fist, the putrid stench of the corpse doesn’t seem to put anyone off eating. Resisting the temptation, I hang back even though I’m hot and thirsty. The local surfboard shaper, Figu and Cristian dive into the fray. Suddenly, waving us out of the way, half a dozen men carry the coffin toward where I’m sitting with Chelo, on top of a cement grave. As the casket careens towards me, I quickly sidestep and plunge into the rowdy Bon Ice crowd. The men begin opening the coffin. I spin back to Figu, not wanting to look at the corpse.

“Please, buy me one, Figu!” I plead, imitating an Ecuadorian for the very first time.

Handing me a cola-flavored icicle, he fights his way out of the crowd. I stay a moment to swap the cola flavor for a red one. Soon, the whole hilltop is littered with transparent plastic Bon Ice wrappers. Mine goes into my pocket after I suck it dry. Emerging from the crowd, I see the coffin again, wide open, with people crouched around it, looking inside. The stench is overpowering.

“They’re burying him after two days because of the terrible smell,” Chelo informs me.

There is no morgue in Mompiche. Nor a doctor. The closest is the hospital in Muisne, an hour away. Campero should have been on ice. Apparently the family couldn’t afford to send him to the morgue, or have him examined by doctors. There are no medical examiners or funeral directors, so there isn’t a drip of formaldehyde in his body. The police don’t want to get too involved either.

The previous day a collection for the burial is taken up around the town. A mob of a dozen tiny round women, somewhat aggressive in their approach, run around goading money from the townspeople.

“We need to collect something from you to help pay for the funeral,” states the tight-lipped, unsmiling group leader, flicking her pen sharply onto the clipboard she holds tightly in her right hand.

They seem accustomed to intimidating people into coughing up a handful of cash for their cause. Contributors’ names are added to the list, eliminating the need for any further monetary harassment. Maybe it’s grief, or shock, or possibly even a hint of disgust at the thankless task of having to wheedle money out of unusually miserly people, but the women seem angry. Forceful and furious, they clearly do not want to be messed with.

“We’re working right now,” Efren says, not looking at them, up to his elbows in fishing nets and king prawns. “Come back later when we’ve cleaned up.”

“I don’t have anything in my pockets,” shrugs Nerih plucking a large blue sand crab from the net. “We just got back from fishing.”

“Ya mismo,” offers Efren, looking up briefly and nodding before shifting his focus back to the nets.

Miffed, the prickly group leave without collecting a single penny from any of the dozen or so people hovering around the boat.

“Freeloaders,” mumbles Efren as they move away. “They just don’t want to spend their own money.”

The shiny gold coffin lined with white satin clearly isn’t cheap pine, or even bamboo as would seem practical and economical for a poor family.

“Do they bury people vertically in the United States?” asks Jota, Nereyda’s younger brother.

“No, I think they bury them horizontally, just like we do,” replies Kelly, uncertain.

“In wartime, I think they buried people vertically,” Chelo adds.

“When I die, I’d like to be cremated,” states Figu, handing the beer bottle to Cristian. “Burn me with my surfboard and stick me in a hole up here so I can keep an eye on the surf forever.”

“Yes,” I agree. “And plant a native tree on top of me so the ashes fertilize it and recycle me back to nature.

It is said that being born and dying are the only two things in life we truly do alone. Being born, no one knows us, but they embrace us and love us anyway. By the time we’re ready to pass on, we’ve amassed a vast collection of family and friends. Even so, not even the closest of those dearly beloveds is clamoring to join us in death.

“Let’s go together, it will be fun!” no one suggests.

“Hey! I want to come with you!” no one shouts as we take the last step of life, totally alone.

Two plump doctors appear, slipping and panting their way up the steep path. Medical examiners. White gowns. Latex gloves. Sharp scalpels. In front of the whole crowd, they kneel by the open coffin and perform a perfunctory autopsy, whispering quietly to each other as they work. Men, women and children observe as the doctors examine the bruises on the back of Campero’s head. They take blood samples to test for drugs. They bag and skin and hair samples.

Racing against the incoming tide, the lid of the coffin is lowered once again. Rotting corpse smell hangs like a thick blanket in the sultry air. Several people cover their noses and mouths with their shirts. The merciless mid-morning sun beats down on bare heads. Women spin their little colored rags faster, circling closer to their faces, fighting flies and heat, averting the putrid odor.

The grieving mother wails louder. The sound rises to high-pitched screaming as the gleaming coffin slides inside the brick and cement grave. As she’s dragged away once again, Campero’s brothers and sisters weep loudly, broken-hearted and angry. The scene is tragic. Youth cut down by stupidity. An unnecessary waste. The living suffering needlessly. A wave of sadness catches at the back of my throat. Hot tears threaten and are quickly choked back.

Two thoughts hit me simultaneously; Who am I to cry for a boy I don’t know? Who wouldn’t cry when faced with such anguish?

Young children frolic at the fringes of the crowd, oblivious to the dark mood. Dogs snooze undisturbed in the shade. A handful of local surfers pass large brown bottles of warm beer from hand to hand, each taking a respectful sip, chatting quietly. Stumbling across the hilltop, Papa bellows rage and grief. Below, the sea creeps forward, surging over the rocks, gradually engulfing The Point once more, returning to reclaim the beach.

The vault is sealed with bricks and a thin film of mortar. It will be tiled later, and embellished with a plaque. Gradually people begin to trickle down the path, a mobile celebration of vibrant colors and ongoing life, leaving young Campero alone to begin his eternity on the hill above the point break.

Mosquito Madness in Muisne

from Ya Mismo: Thirty Seconds North of Zero

“Roni, can you hear me?” The distant voice seeps through the dark fog inside my head.

“Yes, I can hear you,” my brain responds, but I can’t move my lips. My mouth is so dry it’s sealed shut. Every bone screams in agony, as if they’re being crushed. Clothes touching my skin are unbearable. A headache pounds behind my eyes. I can’t open them. When I try, the light sends searing pain through my head.

The first indication is tiredness. I’ve been feeling flat for over a week, but put it down to fatigue. Unable to sleep because the new bar next door blasts the beach with electronic music every night until five a.m., I don’t realize I’m actually sick until the Monday I go shopping in Atacames. It begins like a normal day. I take the six a.m. bus to town to pick up groceries; wholegrain rice, quinoa, honey, dark chocolate. Things you can’t buy in Mompiche. At the bank, a headache rams against my forehead. Usually I never get headaches. I buy more water thinking I might be dehydrated, but the headache rages on. While checking emails, I notice sore muscles in my legs and wonder what I’ve done to cause the stiffness. Accustomed to daily exercise, it seems odd, but I still don’t twig that I’m seriously ill. Eventually I’ve had enough. With a throbbing head and an aching body I’m ready to go home. The bus ride seems endless, the pain increases with each kilometer. Fever sets in. The cool breeze blasting through the window feels like icy needles piercing my skin. By the time the bus arrives in Mompiche I’m barely conscious.

Safely inside my cabin, I leave the door unlatched. Then I drag a branch of bananas and a five gallon bottle of water across the floor to the bedside, before flopping onto the mattress. Alternately burning up and freezing, I slip in and out of consciousness. Unable to walk, I slither out of bed and cross the floor to the bathroom to pee and vomit. Eventually I’m so dehydrated that nothing comes out. Three days pass before anyone comes. It’s Lelelo, looking for the ten dollars I owe him. He takes one look at me shivering uncontrollably under the mosquito net and races to the clinic.

“Roni, can you hear me?” The voice belongs to Doctor Raul, the village medic.
Incapable of answering verbally, I try to move to indicate I can hear him. Excruciating pain shoots through my limbs. Raul puts a thermometer in my armpit. The cool glass burns my sensitive skin. He puts his hand on my forehead. It’s on fire.

“Her temperature is up to forty two. I suspect dengue. Get a saline drip going,” Raul tells Kelsie, his nurse. “I’m going to call an ambulance.”

Dengue fever is a potentially life-threatening viral disease transmitted primarily by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. Worldwide, around 50–100 million people are infected yearly. In Ecuador, around two thousand people contract dengue every month. Each case must be reported to the Ministry of Public Health. Due to its symptoms which include fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, it’s also called “breakbone fever” – romper hueso.

While Raul goes out to look for a stronger phone signal, Kelsie finds a vein in my hand and touches the point of the syringe to my skin. It feels like a thick knitting needle going in. Soon after, I drift into unconsciousness again.

“Roni, how do you feel?” asks a new voice, her fingers gently holding my hand.

“Like I died and went to hell,” says my brain. I struggle to move my lips. The room reeks of strong disinfectant. Hospital smells waft up my nose.

“Water,” I croak weakly. She almost doesn’t hear me. She bends lower to listen. “Water.”
“Do you want some water?” the nurse asks.

My word quota used up, I squeeze her fingers once: yes. She catches on quickly. Then she pours a glass and holds it to my lips, carefully lifting my head so it won’t spill. A few drops wet my tongue. It’s not enough. I want more. A few drips more, then a few more. It’s never enough.

“Thank you,” I murmur before slipping back into unconsciousness.

For another forty eight hours, I hover precariously on the precipice between life and death. Oblivious to the goings on in the women’s ward, I don’t notice frowning doctors extracting blood or concerned nurses replacing the saline solution. During the second night, a nurse swings by bed M4 every fifteen minutes to see if I’m still breathing. The next time I wake, it’s Saturday.

“Welcome back! We thought we were going to lose you. It was touch and go. How do you feel? Are you hungry?” asks a smiling nurse, chatting as she inserts a thermometer under my armpit. “The doctor is on his way.”

My stomach feels as if two large fists are playing tug-o-war. Under the pain lurk sharp pangs of hunger. Aside from a few bananas, I haven’t eaten anything for six days. My whole body aches. My head throbs. I’m nauseous. I want to sleep, but my stomach won’t hear of it.

“I’ll have the chef bring you some soup,” says the nurse, checking the saline drip and making a note on my chart before clopping down the hall towards the kitchen.
The soup arrives a few minutes later. Noodle soup with cheese, potatoes and rice.

“Oh. Do you have anything else?” I ask, disappointed. “I can’t eat wheat or dairy.”

“This isn’t wheat,” replies the chef, indignant. “It’s noodles! It has cheese in it!”

The offended expression on her face tells me there’s no point arguing. Ignorance regarding food and its subsequent allergies is widespread and the small regional hospital in Muisne is no exception. Trying to explain food allergies here is akin to speaking Japanese. Despite lactose intolerance, I can normally get away with eating a bit of cheese every so often, but today my delicate stomach isn’t up to the challenge. The best I can do is be as diplomatic as possible – or risk starvation.

“Okay. Do you have any fruit? I’m super hungry and just soup won’t be enough.”

After hearing I haven’t eaten anything for almost a week, she vanishes and returns shortly with a handful of bananas. Halfway through the third banana, Doctor Byron shows up.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” he tells me. “You have dengue fever and typhoid.”

Dengue fever is common on the coast. Looking around, I note there isn’t a single mosquito net in the twenty-bed hospital. As the doctor speaks, I wonder about the ratio of luck to destiny. There are four strains of dengue. Survival of one strain is awarded with lifelong immunity to that type, and short-term immunity to the other three. Subsequent infection with another strain of dengue increases the risk of severe complications including dengue hemorrhagic fever, or dengue shock syndrome. There is no vaccine. This is my second round with dengue. In both cases, I don’t know which types I’ve contracted.

“We really didn’t think you were going to make it,” continues the doctor.

“I’m not if this is the only food they’re serving,” I joke, indicating the untouched and now cold soup. “It would be a shame to die of malnutrition in hospital,” I laugh, then explain the problem.

“I’ll talk to the chef,” promises the doctor.

While he takes notes, jotting down my answers to his questions, I polish off the other two bananas. After the usual questions; full name, age, nationality, occupation, marital status, religion and ancestry, he asks about my home situation and lifestyle.

“Your organic diet probably saved your life,” he states, tapping his pen on the chart.

Doctor Byron explains that because my body is normally full of natural disease-fighting antibodies and packed with wholesome nutrients, the lack of chemicals and pharmaceuticals in my system allows the powerful drugs they’ve administered to get straight to work. The lucky part is the timing – one more day at home and I’d have been pushing up daisies now.

“You were beyond the usual point of survival when you came in,” he says very seriously. “And the typhoid made it even more complicated and confusing to diagnose and treat. At first, we thought it was a liver infection.”

Typhoid is a bacterial disease transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with fecal matter containing the bacterium Salmonella typhi. Humans with poor hygiene habits and flying insects that feed on feces can spread the disease. In Ecuador, typhoid kills around thirty people annually. Something I ate on the way to Atacames caused the high fever, raging headache and severe abdominal pain typical to the disease, and confused laboratory technicians with an unexpected decrease in white blood cells not typical in dengue.

“Wake up! Time for breakfast!” announces the chef.

She places a crumpled white bread roll and a glass of milk on the table beside the bed. She’s kidding, right? What part of ALLERGIC to wheat and dairy doesn’t she understand? To my body it’s not food, it’s poison. I say nothing. There’s no point. When she returns to collect the tray, she’s surprised.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she asks.

“Yes. I’m very hungry. But this food will make me sick. I can’t eat it.” I smile ruefully and pretend it doesn’t matter.

“But you have to eat something!” she admonishes. “What can you eat?”

Aha! Now we’re getting somewhere. Shortly, a bowl of soggy fruit salad; mostly watermelon and cantaloupe, and a glass of heavily sugared tree tomato juice arrive. Unfortunately, we go through a similar theatrical routine again at lunchtime when Chef Dodo brings me a plate of limp spaghetti.

Later in the day, when Nereyda shows up with a change of clothes and some toiletries, a large bag of fresh tropical fruits, a big block of dark chocolate and a pre-paid card to put credits on my mobile phone, I could kiss her.

“Did you talk to the chef yet?” I ask Doctor Byron when he comes in to check on me late in the afternoon. I already suspect that he hasn’t.

“Oops, no! I forgot. I’m sorry. I’ll go and see her now.”

Dinner arrives soon afterward. A few thin shreds of tired lettuce with a smattering of transparent tomato and lost-looking onion slices are afloat in the bottom of the bowl.

“This is it?” I ask Chef Dodo.

“The doctor said this is all you can eat.”

“Do I look like a rabbit to you?” I ask, extreme hunger overriding diplomacy. “I need food!”
“Doctor’s orders,” she sniffs and then vanishes.

My stomach is ready to go to war. But how do I go into battle when I can’t walk ten steps without passing out? That’s when I spy the wheelchair. I get in, drop the saline bag in my lap and zigzag down the hall. Who knew you need skills to drive a wheelchair? In a back-to-front hospital gown, barely able to control the wheels, and dizzy with the effort, I strap on my fighting gloves. Further down the hall, I bang into a narrow doorway the chair can’t pass through. Undeterred, I rattle the glass door. At that moment Doctor Byron exits his office. I wave him over.

“Yes, my darling? What’s up?”

“I don’t know what you told the chef, but all she gave me for dinner was lettuce.”

“No! Salad!”

“No. Lettuce. A whole spoonful of it. Come and look.”

He pushes me and my rebel wheels back to the women’s ward. I gotta say the ride is much smoother with an experienced driver. When we arrive at bed M4, he peers into the bottom of the bowl searching for any sign of sustenance.

“Oh, no!”

“See?”

“Okay. What do you want to eat?”

“Proteins; fish, eggs, beans. Any kind of fresh fruit, and any kind of fresh vegetables raw or cooked. At this level of starvation, I will even eat odious white rice.”

Fifteen minutes later Chef Dodo turns up with a plate of boiled eggs and a real salad. She also brings some more bananas and a glass of freshly made lemonade. Grateful, I thank her.

The following day a new chef appears on shift and, on alternate days, hospital food becomes surprisingly edible.

“Roni!” whispers a voice. “Wake up!”

I open my eyes to see Cristhian Garcia outside the window, leaning against the vertical security bars.

“Hi!” I’m delighted to see him. “Why don’t you come in?”

“They won’t let me in. It’s not visiting hours. Hospital rules.”

It sucks. Every morning friends travel from Mompiche to visit me in hospital and the security guards won’t let them inside. Visiting hours are late in the afternoon, long after most Mompicheros have caught the last bus home. Countless times I have to pull a chair up to the barred window, rearranging the drip stand and trying not to fall on my face from dizziness, so I can spend time with people who care. In the healing process, and because of the absence of my family, this is more important to me than any medication.

Unfortunately, someone has removed the wheelchair from the room hoping to curb any further outbreaks of rebellion. When I’m able, I get out of bed and wobble down the hallway on bare feet, dragging the drip stand along behind me, to protest the insensitivity and unfairness of rigid hospital regulations.

“I need my friends more than I need your drugs!” I tell the hospital staff.

Most of the attending doctors don’t mind bending the rules a little to accommodate my needs and some of the nurses let friends sneak through the ward to spend a few minutes helping me get well just by being there. They all bring big plastic shopping bags bursting with fresh fruit which I consume as if there’s no tomorrow. Some bring dark chocolate. Froilan turns up with a takeout container of delectable shrimp encocado – my favorite – which flusters Chef Dodo so much she actually produces edible vegetable soup for dinner.

My parents and youngest sister call, forbidding me to kick the bucket in Ecuador. They’re worried. Rightly so. I nearly died fifteen thousand kilometers from home, and this is not the first time.

“Even cats only have nine lives,” scolds my father. “How many have you used up now?”

“Don’t worry, Dad. Wild cats have more lives and I have the heart of a tiger.”

The joking soothes their fears, and helps me feel better. In this fragile state of health, I miss my family more than usual. Between regular visits from friends and sporadic calls from family, my recovery is coming along swimmingly . . . until Nurse Naaasty comes on duty and forbids all manner of cheerfulness.

“Take off those pants and put on your hospital gown,” she barks. “And clean that muck off your feet!”

Sure. When they loaded me unconscious into the ambulance, I remembered to pack acetone and cotton balls. I ignore her ridiculous orders and roll onto my side, ready for a nap after a hard morning of defying Nurse Naaasty. The offending pants are comfortable sweats that don’t reveal my naked butt to the whole world and the bright blue polish on my toenails has failed to bother anyone else for the past five days. They both stay.

A while later Nurse Naaasty returns to change the drip. I scream in agony when she rips all the hairs off my wrist while removing the tape. Merciless, she ties a latex glove around my arm so tightly that my fingers turn blue. She sharply smacks another vein, then roughly digs the needle into my the back of my hand like an apprentice seamstress learning to use a pin cushion.

“OUCH! Hey! I’m a person, not a dartboard!” I protest. My hand throbs in pain.

“Shut up. I’m trying to change your drip so the vein doesn’t collapse,” she snarls.

“How about leaving me alive at the end of the procedure?” I shoot back sarcastically. “I didn’t survive dengue just so you could kill me!”

I do not like this nurse. She’s cruel. Her bedside manner resembles that of Little Red Riding Hood‘s wolf. Vinegar is sweet compared to this withered, bitter creature.

One morning Nereyda brings more clean clothes, a bag of citrus fruits and tidbits of news from Mompiche. Nurse Naaasty walks into the ward and sees her sitting on my bed.

“Get out! You have no business here!” she shouts, startling both of us mid-giggle.

Reluctantly, Nereyda collects the bag of dirty laundry from under the side table and leaves.
Nurse Naaasty stresses me out. She isn’t conducive to a speedy recovery. When he visits on his rounds, I complain to Doctor Byron.

“Hang in there, sweetheart. She’ll be gone in a day or two.” He tweaks my nose.

“Let me go home. I can get better care in Mompiche.”

“Sorry. No can do. The typhoid is almost better but we’re still treating you for dengue.”

Eight very long days after I’m admitted to the Carlos Del Pozo Melgar Hospital, I’m finally discharged on the promise that I’ll continue taking the medication for another week. Froilan picks me up from the hospital in a moto-taxi and takes me home in his fishing boat.

Cruising back to Mompiche through the lush mangrove jungle is highly therapeutic. I’m still quite weak and need friends’ help to feed and bathe myself for a few days. Naturally, the prescribed medicine sits on a shelf in my cabin while I immediately embark on an intensive raw food detox to rid my body of unwanted chemicals and drug residue.

Fresh Glang Chutney

Fresh Glang Chutney! You see… well… there’s a bit of a story…

Regular readers of Ya Mismo: Thirty Minutes North of Zero might remember this teeth-gritting post from not so very long ago: As Long As You Pay Your Disturbance Tax (newcomers to Ya Mismo can catch up by clicking the link).

So… with that in mind, I find myself one bright Sunday morning with a nice bunch of freshly acquired green papayas and quite a large collection of recycled glass Gatorade bottles: I usually collect these from the street where they’ve been thoughtlessly discarded or swipe them from people’s garbage bins. After being washed and sterilized, they’re great for bottling my three kinds of chili sauce, organic chocolate syrup, fresh mango jam and organic passionfruit jam. Most of the ingredients come from my garden – which is a whole other story… Seems I’m building a saucy organic empire on recycled Gatorade bottles… But (getting back to the story) on this sunny day, armed with all the right ingredients, I’m all set to make a batch of chutney…

Green papaya, chili, ginger, garlic, raisins, spices, vinegar, brown sugar… Everything is topped, peeled and chopped and put into the largest pot in the kitchen. While it starts to heat up I wander around cleaning up, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, and going back to stir the pot every so often. After the pot has been bubbling for a while, one of the neighbors passes. (Yes, it’s one of those neighbors!)

“What are you cooking?” he asks. “It smells good!”

“Sauce!” I say, not exactly keen to confess that the main ingredient of my incredible smelling sauce was pilfered from his side of the fence at the crack of dawn while he was rolling drunk and sprawled unconscious in the middle of the path with the stereo turned up at top volume; I believe I’m the only person who was listening to the music blasting from the speakers at 5.45am – did I mention it was a Sunday morning.

“What kind of sauce?” he insists, standing outside the gate, sniffing the air, which by now is filled with the amazing combination of aromas from the fruit, vegetables and spices bubbling away in the chutney pot.

At this point, I’m wishing a hole would open in one of the mud puddles in the middle of the street and swallow him whole. What does he care what I’m cooking now? He’s never cared before! I know… I know… It’s the smell!

My brain works overtime until I spit out: “GLANG Chutney!” Then, I turn to stir the pot, hiding in the deepest recess of the open kitchen, behind the passionfruit vine, where he can’t see me from the street.

“Hmmm,” he mumbles and wanders off, still unsatisfied, wondering what kind of strange foreign vegetable a “glang” might be… “Ever heard of a glang?” he asks whoever is inside as he enters his own house next door.

He’d probably freak if he knew what glang is and where it comes from, and that I sell Glang Chutney for $5.00 a bottle all over town. Even though, until now, he’s never missed a single fruit.

GLANG: Greens (or Goods) Lifted Anonymously from Neighbor’s Gardens… (also known as Disturbance Tax)

The Highway to Hell is Paved with hand-Basket Cases

“You have to have faith!” Ramon rages while cleaning his fishing nets, pausing a moment to glare at me angrily.

He is a member of Mompiche’s Evangelical Church. There are around thirty members who meet every day. It’s the local answer to Alcoholics Anonymous, even though Mompiche’s Catholic cretizens frequently call the group “The Lost Brothers”. There is no minister, so male members of the congregation take turns at shrieking fire and brimstone sermons until late into the night. Apparently, this keeps them all sober. Often toneless, they sing and chant; they can be heard all over town.

“B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! B-I-N-G-O! Bingo is his namo!”

At least, that’s what the beginning of the song sounds like from my kitchen as I bake passionfruit cake and choc-chip cookies to sell on the beach tomorrow. I chuckle to myself. Ramon would probably have a heart attack if he knew.

There’s another one that sounds like:

“Calling all you sorry sons of b#$%*es to find your faith in The Big Mister!”

I’m sure the actual words are quite different. It’s hard to tell over the cacophony of uncoordinated guitars, jangling out-of-sync tambourines and monotone squawking. From this perspective, the choir needs a severe preaching to . . . at least about tones.

Ramon and I have been acquaintances for a while, never stepping over the threshold into friendship because of his blatant lack of tolerance and respect for my beliefs. Occasionally he gives me small fish for my cats. Every time we meet, after the smiles and friendly greetings, I’m castigated, chided, and regaled with a million reasons why I have to change my mind. I don’t have to do anything. I’ve never been a fan of god-thumpers, regardless of what book they’re carrying. So far, I have been tolerant and patient with Ramon, often ignoring his repetitive lectures. I’m a bit over it now.

“I do have faith,” I tell him, patiently. “I just don’t believe in God.”

He has heard this from me a thousand times. I don’t have to explain it, or justify it; people who can’t find it in their hearts to respect my beliefs don’t have a place in my circle of friends. It’s that simple.

Ramon is incensed. He blasts a litany of religious hypocrisies in my face. After two minutes of his haranguing, long enough to firmly decide that this is the end of our relationship, I say nothing, then turn and walk away.

“You’re going straight to hell!” he screams at my back.

Will that be in a hand-basket, or on the road paved with good intentions?

“Going?” I ask, without turning. “I’ve just spent two minutes there.”

Actually, it’s been a whole year in hell. A feeling of despondency rushes over me. I have few friends in Mompiche; a small number of people have stood by my side since Mayor’s attack. Now there are less. I’m a pariah. Almost no one talks to me. Some are verbally violent in their hatred. During a time of great stress and seemingly endless struggle to get through one day at a time, I can count on one hand the people in Mompiche who have helped and supported me throughout the entire ordeal.

“There goes the Gringa Loca!” shout a gaggle of kids playing football in the street.

Clearly, they’ve heard this from their parents. I’m crazy. I’m evil. I’m a witch. I’m a child-killer. Who knows where they get their ideas from. It doesn’t matter. They all believe without doubt every bad word they hear about me, regardless of its authenticity or origin. Of course, they are all model cretizens. Sometimes, people spit at me in the street. Others have thrown rocks. I frequently find garbage tossed over my fence. The general hostile attitude has made life difficult at times.

I often find myself contemplating an old adage: Do I want to be right? Or do I want to be happy?

It’s a no-brainer: I want to be happy.

But, when ignorant or violent people are stomping all over my rights, I feel a need to stand and protest. When my protests go unheeded, I get up and fight. In Mompiche, this makes me bad. Or maybe just badass . . . [insert cheeky face here!] In order to survive, I wear a large “DO NOT MESS WITH ME!” sign on my face. This, too, causes much resentment among the villagers. There are people literally itching to mess with me but are too afraid to act. I’ll take their resentment over their nasty shenanigans any day.

“Look!” I show a small packet to my friend, Carmen. “The neighbors put another witchcraft spell in my garden.”

She opens the plastic bag and looks. “Burn it!” she orders, horrified. “Right now! Out the back!”

We pour gasoline over the nasty message and watch as the tip of a venomous snake’s tail and a few other equally loathsome trinkets incinerate to ashes.

A day later, I see one of the neighbors in the street on my way to the store.

“Your witchcraft doesn’t work on me,” I tell Miguel. “I’m much stronger; I come from an island of devils.” Ice blue daggers pierce his eyes. I try to exude as much wicked witchiness as possible. “And if you people want to keep messing with me, go ahead, buddy. Next time, I’ll zap you so hard you won’t ever recover.”

Terror creases his thin, wizened face. His eyes are as wide as full moons. His droopy mouth hangs slack. If he had any hair, it would probably be standing on end. Miguel has already spent a month in hospital, deathly ill. His sister, Digna, is currently in hospital; she’s probably suffering from alcohol-related diseases. But for now it goes in my favor that they believe I’m a witch responsible for all the recent family illnesses.

Turning my back to him, I head towards Don Julo’s store with a huge victory grin spread over my face.

Immediately, Miguel trots home as fast as his spindly legs will carry him to share my message with the rest of the clan. The same night, they hold a family meeting, ranting in impotent frustration. Momentarily, I consider dancing naked on the roof with all of the cats just to prove my claim! After that, things are quiet in the ‘hood for a while.

The rest of town, however, is a different story. Recently, there have been a few drive-by insults.

“Don’t talk to her! She’s crazy,” yells a guy from his car window as he passes the promenade where I’m talking to Vanessa, a friend from South Africa.

Vanessa blinks. She looks at the scowling driver. Then, bursts out laughing.

“And your behavior is sane?” she yells back. “Who’s crazy?”

The backfired insult smears his face like a bright red paint splat. He speeds up and takes off around the corner.

“What a basket-case!” she snorts as the rear-end of the vehicle vanishes.

Vanessa and I laugh, but some of the sting stays with me throughout the day.

“What he says is not about me, it’s about him,” I tell myself on the way home.

It still hurts a little: not my pride, or my dignity, but that these people frequently go to such lengths to see me damaged in some way. Their lack of compassion is astounding. Where will it stop?

As the year comes to a close, I try to remain optimistic but the court case isn’t over yet. As if holding my breath, I greet the New Year (a very quiet night with just one friend) and look forward to a positive outcome – against all the odds – at the next session of the trial. I try to have faith that the judge will do what is right. The date has not yet been set. The video testimony of my main witness has not yet been organized. The policeman who investigated the scene has not yet been contacted. Meanwhile, I wait, wondering if true justice will actually prevail.

Ya Mismo: Preface

Author’s note: Below is the original preface I wrote for Ya Mismo: Thirty Minutes North of Zero. I was thinking of starting the book with this description of events and going the long way round to figure out how we got here, and then continuing from there. Keep in mind that Ya Mismo is not a work of fiction; it’s a book about life experiences and memories. At the end of the chapter is a link to a video relating directly to this experience. Please share your thoughts and ideas about this preface. And thanks for reading Ya Mismo: Thirty Minutes North of Zero…

Preface

Mayor lunges forward, his long fingers wrapped around the handle of the machete. He is enormous, looming over me. Six feet tall at least. Steaming with rage, he seems much bigger. Broad shouldered, thick set. His blue-black skin gleams with sweat. His eyes are wild and crazy, the whites streaked with red fury. He roars and shoves me through the door opening with his free hand. There is still no door on the half-built house. I can’t keep him out.

Yelling at him to go, I stumble backwards into the storeroom. He raises the huge knife above his head. Backed up against the wall, I instinctively put up my hands to protect myself. I shut my eyes. Thinking this is my final moment alive, I wonder for a second if there will be enough pieces left for someone in my family to identify my body. A scream freezes in my throat.

My brain shrieks, “No! No! No! No! No! No!”

Then I feel the slap of the sharp blade. I hear the metal thwack against my skin. The rush of adrenaline surging through my veins blocks any pain. A warm trickle of blood instantly tickles the back of my arm. Enraged and terrified, I yell even louder for him to get out of my house, that he no longer has permission to be there. Quickly scanning the room for a weapon to defend myself, I almost cry in despair. There is nothing. Even if there was, both my hands are almost useless, broken and bleeding from being smashed with the axe during his first assault.

My mind frozen with terror, every syllable of Spanish I’ve ever learned vanishes into thin air as I shriek in English, “Get out! Get out! Get out! Get the fuck out of my house!”

He raises the machete above his head once again.

“I’ll kill you!” he hisses, spittle flying from his snarling lips.

I believe him. I’ve never been so scared. Every muscle in my body tenses, instinctively ready to run. His huge form fills the doorway. The only way out is straight through him. One eye on the sharpened machete blade, the other looking for an escape, I hold my breath. There is barely time to think, but still I wonder: How did my life get this insane?

I guess it all started on the bus…

Back to the bus story:

The Magic Circus Disco Bus – where the truth just keeps getting stranger…

Go to the video:

No More Violence Against Women

Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” says the Queen to Alice. Maybe the Queen once lived in Mompiche! There are certainly days when it resembles some kind of Wonderland . . . This particular day begins with a fresh batch of coconut oil. First, I husk the coconuts, then crack the shells in half with the back of a large chef’s knife, catching the coconut water in a metal bowl. With the tip of the knife, I lever out the white meat from ten coconuts, then toss the shells into the garden. Maybe I’ll find a use for them later.

Coconut is great. It’s one of the most versatile plants on earth. Fiber from the trees line my plant pots to keep the soil moist and nourish the seedlings. Later I’ll weave the long palm leaf I collected with the coconuts into baskets to store my fruit. In the evenings I burn the husks with palo santo to repel mosquitoes and also use them to fertilize my plants. The marbled shells can be cut and polished and made into jewelry and ornaments—even buttons. Split coconut shells border some of the garden beds. The flesh and juice go into countless recipes. And the delicious sweet water from a green coconut can be also used in place of a saline drip to rehydrate a sick person.

The coconut meat I’ve scooped out is chopped into chunks and thrown into the blender with the coconut water. This is cheating a bit. I actually have a manual coconut grater that I designed and built with the help of the local carpenter, Patucho. It’s a wooden stool made from leftover bits of wood with the flat metal blade screwed onto one end. The spikes on the blade scrape out the coconut meat as you rotate the shell around. The meat falls into a bowl on the floor; and sometimes onto the floor where the cats eagerly clean it up. It takes about five or ten minutes to grate one coconut. This works perfectly for an encocado or a small batch of cookies. However, in the blender, I can “grate” three coconuts in two minutes. In under ten minutes, I have ten grated coconuts, and a liter and a half of coconut milk. Now comes the real work.

The coconut flesh goes from the blender into a sieve, to drain it as much as possible. Then a handful at a time is placed into the center of a cloth, then twisted and squeezed as hard as possible to extract all the milk. The stronger your hands, the more milk you can squeeze out. The grated coconut is easy to deal with; toast it in the oven and store it, or leave it in the sun to dry for desiccated coconut, make coconut cookies out of it, or maybe even a batch of macaroons. The milk is left to “rest” in a cool place for a couple of hours. By then, a thick layer of cream sits on top of the water. Scrape off the cream and put it into a saucepan. Bring it to a boil and leave it simmering for about ten or fifteen minutes. The oil will separate and the solids will resemble curdled milk. While it’s still hot, drain off the oil and discard the rest. Leave the oil to cool and then bottle it. Woohoo! You just made coconut oil. Rub it through your hair, or moisturize your skin with it. Use it as an after-sun lotion or add it to your food. You can also cook with coconut oil, but it doesn’t tolerate high temperatures. So, before breakfast, I have produced about 300ml of fresh 100% organic coconut oil. I’m just screwing the caps on the bottles when my Swiss friend, Christian, calls.

“Burke is sick. She has an infection. Can you come and help me?”

I borrow a bottle of the magic purple spray that everyone uses on their horses and cattle to prevent infection and deter flies and head over to Christian’s house; Los Trece Buitres. I’m expecting to find an infection on the outside that we can quickly clean up and spray. It’s much worse than that. The eight week old kitten has a large cyst inside her body. We have to operate. We use the wooden table on the porch, with a towel spread over it. In thick leather gardening gloves, Christian holds Burke’s head and legs down while I wash the area and pour antiseptic over it. The kitten cries in pain. There is no anesthetic. I take a deep breath and focus. With surgeon-steady hand, I use a razor blade to cut a tiny nick into the recent [sterilization] scar and manipulate the skin to squeeze the pus out. Burke growls, distressed at being held down. I have to make the cut a little deeper. At the second touch of the razor a thick stream of yellow pus spews out of the wound. My fingers press gently to get out as much as possible. We don’t have cotton balls, so I use warm water and serviettes to clean up the muck and swab the wound. Burke howls, begging to be let loose.

“Don’t let her go yet,” I tell Christian, racing inside to get more napkins. “We won’t see her for two days if you let her loose now.”

After a few minutes, most of the gunk is out. I pour some betadine over the open cut and then spray the magic purple spray. Burke is angry now, hissing and growling.

“Okay. Let her go.”

Christian whisks both his hands away from his spitting cat. She stands up and shakes herself while I clean up in the rest of the warm water. She leaps off the table and runs under the fridge. We don’t expect to see her for a while.

“Well done, doctor,” I joke and shake Christian’s hand.

This is my first ever surgery on any kind of animal, except when I’m expertly dissecting a grilled fish for breakfast. A live kitten is a little different. But it seems all went well.

“Give her a tiny dose of antibiotics and see how she does. Call me if anything goes wrong.”

I leave Christian to deal with his pissed off pussy. On the road, I hitch a ride up to the turnoff and go to Chad’s farm to see if I can retrieve Red, the cat I lent him to deal with his rat infestation. After four months, he appears out of the blue and wants Boss back. No way. She lives with me now. Instead, I give him Tickles, Burke’s brother, and send Red to do rat control on the farm for a couple of weeks.

“She’s not happy,” he says. “But she’s a great hunter. I have several hundred less rats now.”

We decide that she can stay for one more week and teach Tickles to hunt. Meanwhile, I pull out the sack I have brought to take the cat home in and tell Chad that I’m not going home with an empty sack.

“No problem. Take the fermenting cacao beans.”

The plan is to make chocolate and sell it. Chad grows the cacao. He picks it and begins the fermentation process. Every week I pick it up, then take it home to dry on the third floor for at least fifteen days. Then it’s roasted, peeled and ground it into raw organic chocolate for sale to tourists. I also use this chocolate to make cakes and cookies—and the most delicious hot chocolate in the world.

There are thirty pounds of cacao beans in a sack under the bamboo. I have to split the load to carry it, tying a rope around the open end of each sack so my back and shoulders can take most of the weight. The walk to the bus stop is about 200 meters. It’s a long slow walk. As I near the turnoff, a young man waiting for the bus to Chamanga comes over to help me haul the sacks to the road. Clearly, he’s not a Mompichero. A short time later, the bus to Mompiche pulls up. The sacks go under the bus for the six kilometer ride home.

“Drop me off at the first corner, please,” I tell the driver.

From there, it’s another 100 meters to walk home. I stop to rest every twenty meters.

“What’s in the sacks?” asks everyone I pass along the way.

Not one of the five men leaning against their doors offers to help me carry the heavy sacks home. You could search for a gentleman in Mompiche for decades and never find one. Frequently, they all watch me pass as I struggle underneath a heavy load. At the gate, I drop the sacks and take a breather. Heaving them up the stairs one at a time is easier, but getting them up the ladder to the third floor is impossible. After three attempts to haul them upstairs, I get another sack and split each load in half. Four times I tie a knot around the neck of the sack and climb up the ladder to haul the rope up. Up top, all the beans go back into their original sack to ferment for a few more days. Back downstairs, I split one of the fresh cacao pods and suck the seeds. They’ll miss the fermentation process but it’s not that big a deal. And sucking cacao fruit should definitely be on your Bucket List! This chocolate is good any way you make it. I like mine rich and dark; chocolate is a part of my daily diet. The 100% organic cacao chocolate I produce is also a favorite for tourists.

It’s time for a bite of lunch before I have to do the laundry I left soaking overnight. Some left-over plantain banana curry from last night and a fresh pineapple-coconut juice whizzed in the blender. The top of the pineapple goes straight into the garden. Then I boil the skin and core with rainwater for a few minutes and leave it to cool to make a refreshing drink. I don’t add sugar; the pineapple is sweet enough. Sometimes I add a small piece of fresh ginger to the pot and serve it over crushed ice. Delish!

The bucket dips into the water tank and I fill the large plastic tub with rainwater I’ve collected from the roof. I run it through a “filter” to get any bugs and bits out—a calico Thuringowa Library Bag in this case. As I’m filling the tub, the ladies next door file past the fence with huge plastic tubs balanced on their heads. They’re going to the river to wash their clothes. Most Mompicheras do their laundry in the river because they don’t have water in the house. Potable water doesn’t exist in Mompiche. I collect rainwater in two 200 liter tanks. It’s used to wash the clothes, the dishes and me. I boil it to drink and I also cook with it. I built a wooden table beside one of the tanks so I could scrub the clothes standing up. After stomping around in the tub for a few minutes, I do the pants first; rubbing a cake of laundry soap over them before scrubbing them with a brush. They go back into the soak water for a quick rinse and then into another tub of clean water for a final rinse before being wrung out and hung to dry. The ladies in the river slap their clothes against a smooth rock and then swirl them in the water to rinse before wringing. The wet clothes go back into the tubs and are carried home before being hung out to dry over barbed wire fences—in lieu of pegs; this stops the clothes blowing away in the wind. The luckier women have their menfolk carry their tubs home, or sometimes a car will pick them up at the bridge. Washing clothes in the river gets them out of the house. Gaggles of women sit waist-deep in the water all afternoon giggling and gossiping before coming home in time to make dinner.

When my laundry is hanging on lines under the house, I’m ready to begin experimenting with Neem to make the natural mosquito repellent I’ve been promising myself.

“Do you have any Neem leaves?” I ask Martha.

“Any what?” She screws up her face and looks at me as if I’m crazy.

“Neem. Your husband said he had two trees.”

“Ramon!” she shrieks. “Roni is looking for you!”

Actually, I’m looking for Neem, but whatever. I’m trying not to give men the wrong impression, including Ramon, but Martha is oblivious. Ramon sticks his head out the window. He’s sober. I’m very grateful for this.

“At the side of the house. Snap off that small lower branch,” Ramon instructs his son.

Armed with a branch of Neem I head home to do a few scientific experiments. Or maybe it’s witchcraft.

“Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble . . . ”

In the largest bowl in the house, I gently rinse all the leaves and shake them out, then hang the branch from the rope dangling from the third floor. While they’re drying, I go downstairs to wash the palm leaf I brought home with the coconuts early this morning. Once it’s scrubbed spotless, I leave it leaning against the house to dry and go upstairs to towel dry the remaining drips from the Neem leaves. After stripping the leaves from the branch, half of them are crushed and packed into a clean recycled Gatorade bottle found in the gutter on my way home from the beach. I fill the jar with olive oil then label it and put it away. The experiment will take about eight weeks to bear results. The rest of the leaves go into the blender with five parts oil and four parts alcohol. I use guanchaca; the local rocket-fuel style moonshine, because there’s no vodka as stipulated in the recipe I found on the internet. This concoction goes into another recycled Gatorade bottle. Labeled, it’s left in a corner of the kitchen to do its thing. The results will be apparent in several weeks. Then I’ll use it to make natural mosquito repellent and insecticide for the garden.

As the crimson sun dips over the horizon, I sit in a hammock with my shiny green palm leaf and weave it into six baskets while Tigga—still not adopted—runs around in circles at my feet, chasing her white-tipped tail. When it’s done, I weave a loop and bang a nail into the post in the kitchen to hang it. I arrange the fruit; a pineapple at the top, then oranges and grapefruits, some zapotes, a melon, a dozen lemons, and a papaya in the bottom basket. There are vegetables in the one I made a week ago. Now my baskets are a matching pair. This is the fridge.

Six impossible things before dinner is closer to the mark. Actually, it’s been a pretty normal day. Apart from the exploding iguana . . .

As Long As You Pay Your Disturbance Tax . . .

It’s 3am. I sit bolt upright with a sharp intake of breath. Then, I jump to my knees. Where is the lobster? It takes a second for me to figure out where I am. I’m at home, in my bed, of course. Reality chases the dream, still trying to drift leisurely through my subconscious, out of my mind. Less than a minute before: I’m on a deserted beach with another person I can’t identify. It’s one of those dreams where other people are present, but they’re so fuzzy you can’t tell who they are. We’ve set out a few beach rods baited with shrimps and collected a large pile of sticks and twigs for the lunch fire which is crackling nearby. Our small motorboat is anchored a little way down the beach. The sea sparkles under bright sunshine. The scene is postcard perfect. Our day’s catch is in the cooler. I reach in to pick up the large rock lobster I’d dived for earlier in the day. It’s scored first place on the menu for lunch. As I raise the writhing crustacean to my eyes, it lets out a piercing shriek.

I snap awake. A shrieking lobster? No. It’s the neighbors. Again. They’ve been out drinking, but now all the bars, restaurants, discotheques, karokes and every other dark hole-in-the-wall in town that serves alcohol has shut its doors and they’ve come home. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean they’ll all climb into bed and sleep off the night’s activities. Oh no, siree! Armed with a yellow plastic crate of beer – Ecuador’s own Pilsener – and a supply of sugarcane-based moonshine – guanchaca – they just bring the party home with them. Pumping up the music at 3am is par for the course. The speakers threaten to vibrate into next week as ear-piercing Salsa music blasts the entire neighborhood awake.

El Barrio de San Mierda is not the only neighborhood regularly affected by such flagrant disrespect and inconsiderate behavior. At one time or another the entire village has been kept awake all night by someone’s three-day-long drinking binge. In my opinion, alcoholism and drug-abuse are Mompiche’s biggest problems. On Sunday mornings, on the way to eat encebollado at Alicia’s place, it is not unusual to see inert bodies randomly scattered around the streets, in the football field, under the awning of a store, or even propped up against a fence, alcohol-induced slumber rendering them oblivious to the village goings on. Likewise, in my ‘hood, after the inevitable dramatics, guanchaca-soaked brain cells will temporarily shut down wherever their hapless host happens to be staggering at that point in time. After living for a year in this part of town, stepping over Ricardo in the middle of the path on the way to the store ceases to be strange.

The endless human drama can be amusing at times. Mostly it’s wild squawking and tearing of hair, or ineffective fists flailing in the air, missing the target by a mile. Often, the aggressors are talked down by the offer of another drink. Sometimes, this doesn’t work and everyone stumbles towards the brawl, impotently trying to pull the combatants apart, often copping a punch in the ear or a scratched face for their trouble. They’re all so drunk that, the next day, no one can remember how they got their bruises, who was doing the punching, or what they were fighting about.

On the muddy street outside my house, Segundo comes charging out of his mother’s house and leaps on top of Cesar, his younger brother, who is swaggering away, flinging random insults behind him. The two tussle, fists flying in all directions until one head-butts the other. Cesar’s nose explodes into a blood-bomb. His eyes cross. He shakes his head. For a moment, time is suspended. Segundo turns his back and walks away. Infuriated, Cesar scoops a thick wooden post out of the muck and wallops his brother over the back of the head before collapsing backwards semi-conscious into the mud. Segundo tumbles face first, crying, holding the back of his split skull which is now gushing blood. Digna, their mother, totters drunkenly down the stairs, screaming at both of them to stop. She doesn’t know who to tend first. Cesar groans. She goes to him. Segundo cries, gulping air loudly, struggling to breathe with his mouth in the mud. Digna clomps through the ankle-deep ooze to tend to him. She staggers from one to the other, her brain addled with moonshine. Ricardo hands her a bucket of water. She throws it over Cesar who yelps at the cold. Another one is thrown over Segundo who howls even louder. The Every-Which-Way-But-Loose-style street fight draws people from all over the neighborhood and beyond, at three in the morning, in drizzling rain, to observe live theater at its best.

Okay. Since I’m up, I may as well go and collect the disturbance tax.

I see your eyebrows furrowed. You’re asking . . . disturbance tax? And you’re wondering: What is she up to now? And how much is it going to hurt? Don’t worry. Everything will be okay.

Pulling on a pair of jeans and a dark sweater, I go downstairs and quietly open the front door. No one can hear me over the music and yelling anyway, but it’s best to move stealthily. I pull the ladder out of the storeroom and silently go around to the back of the house. Leaned up against the fence under the mandarin tree, the ladder is ready. With a knife in my hand, and a cloth sack firmly tied to my hip, I’m ready. My head slowly peeps over the fence. There’s no one in the back yard. Everyone is still on the street as the Segundo-Cesar drama continues to unfold. It sounds like they’ve both risen from near-death and had another go at each other. I step up one more rung, into the “impossible to explain what I’m doing here” position. If anyone sees me now, I’m in trouble. I carefully reach out to the papaya tree on the other side of the fence and gently harvest half a dozen green fruits from the trunk. Each one rolls into the sack at my hip, bumping against the one beside it. The recipe for Green Papaya Chutney requires two fruits. I’ll double the batch, then leave the other two to ripen. Initially, I was going to get four, but the previous weeks’ nasty witchcraft stunt begs some form of compensation. The entire operation is completed in less than two minutes. Soundlessly, I slip away undetected, tax in hand.

This is not the first time my neighbors have paid disturbance tax. The frequency of their raucous all-nighters is cause for concern. How am I supposed to live in peace amidst the cacophony of drunken debauchery every weekend? For a long time, I did nothing. These same neighbors think nothing of hurtling large rocks onto my roof in the wee hours. They’ve been responsible for countless robberies and property damage inside my yard. As a single woman, living alone, it’s easy to assume a position of helplessness. Instead of complaining, I remain silent. In this neighborhood, in this village, my silence is perceived as weakness. It prompts more attacks on my property. People become bolder, pushing the limit to see how much they can get away with. Preferring to maintain a peaceful outlook, I let a lot of it slide. The neighbors think I’m a pushover, until the day they push too far.

When I look back, it was really an issue of poor timing rather than any other single factor that triggered the final explosion a few weeks earlier: in the middle of dealing with the corrupt prosecutor, struggling to make a living in a hostile environment, being pressured to give up the prosecution of Mayor, battling against a vicious bout of stress-related health issues, and general maltreatment by most of the villagers, all at the same time. One more harassment is the last thing I needed. Fed up to my dragon’s gills, and with all these botherations piled one on top of the other like so many unpaid bills, I let out a spine-curdling growl – not dissimilar to that of a Tasmanian devil – snatched the machete off the bench as I flew downstairs, then burst out of the gate shrieking as loud as a thousand devils who’d arrived to slaughter all the neighbors in one fell swoop.

Speechless, they gaped open-mouthed as I sliced the air right in front of their faces into ribbons with my finely sharpened blade.

“The next idiot that comes anywhere near me and my property is going to end up skewered and barbecued before they can say ‘broomstick’! Do you understand me?”

Crimson with rage, I glared evilly at each one in turn, blue icicles piercing whoever dared to look my way, with a vivid “DARE YOU TO TRY ME!” expression bill-boarded across my face. I then turned my back on them, stalked back into my own yard and slammed the gate, firmly locking it behind me. Once safely inside my yard, my heart still pounding with the terror of confrontation, my usually friendly features split into a wild grin.

My mind cheered and chuckled. “Did you see the looks on their faces?”

Repressing the urge to burst out laughing and do a wanton victory leap, I calmly went inside and returned the machete to its rightful place. Breathe. Count to ten . . . Upstairs, I made a hot chocolate to celebrate. As the brew bubbled on the stove, the gaggle of neighbors wandered away, mumbling under their breath, tails tucked firmly between their legs. Smiling, I lay in a hammock and sipped my rich organic chocolate.

They’re scared enough to leave me alone now. The harassment stops – at least for a while. But the all-night benders go on . . . And on . . . And on . . .

Once again, the ladder rests against the fence. A large bunch of plantain bananas hangs just on the other side. A quick check to see who’s around. No one is there, of course. They’re sprawled unconscious on the balcony like a pile of discarded Frankenstein experiments, the empty guanchaca bottles strewn on the ground below. I lift the hacksaw to eye-level and tacitly remove the prize from its perch, heaving it over to my side of the fence in three lighter pieces. A branch this size sells for around seven or eight dollars. In my kitchen, it will last at least three weeks. Wordless, I slip down the ladder and thank the neighbors for their generosity. I wish them a long prosperous life, and a peaceful days’ sleep . . . as long as they pay their disturbance tax.

Booty and the Beasties

“You’re fat!” states Don Iber, beaming as if these are the exact words a woman wants to hear. He leans forward on his motorcycle and looks me up and down with hungry eyes, nodding approval.

“Just like your wife!” I retort with a smile, trying not to feel stung by what I know is meant to be a compliment.

There are women in my culture who would catapult Don Iber head first over his handlebars for such a remark. On the day we speak, I weigh one hundred and fifty pounds (68kg), up from the one hundred and thirty five pounds (62kg) I dropped to when I was gravely ill. Iber’s wife weighs around three hundred pounds (135kg). After a three-month recovery from dengue and typhoid, I’m finally looking less like a walking skeleton and more like a human being. And I’m not gorda!

Skin and bone doesn’t work for me as a look; I have booty. Luckily for me, Latino culture is all about booty. The more the better. Instead of asking, “Do these jeans make my butt look fat?” Latinos manufacture jeans that highlight and enhance large bouncy melon-shaped tushies. So when someone comments that you’re fat, it’s a compliment. Gorda is good. It’s a synonym for desirable, attractive, sexy, gorgeous . . . I think you get it.

“You’re too skinny and you look ten years older,” notes Kenny, Don Talon’s wife, a week after I arrive home from hospital. This is not a compliment.

Still, “fat” is overdoing it a little considering I weighed over two hundred pounds (95kg) when I arrived in Mompiche. This doesn’t deter men from hitting on you, rather the opposite.

“Marry me,” whispers Don Talon every day for months when I go to get fish from the boats.

“Hands off! She’s mine!” announces Nyongo, Talon’s older brother.

“No way!” sneers Chuco, the eldest of the three. “You’re both too ugly! She’s my girl.”

The Castillo brothers compete daily for my affections. It makes no difference to any of them that I’m not interested. All three resemble chocolate-coated Frankenstein creations with enormous hands and feet. None of them has been further afield than Esmeraldas. They can’t read or write. They each think that being a fisherman with a run down bamboo shack is enough incentive for women to fall over themselves for such an irresistible catch. That Nyongo goes on a raging bender lasting three or four days every month isn’t important. That Talon has a wife and a tribe of kids doesn’t matter. That Chuco has a running tab at the brothel is a minor flaw to be overlooked.

“You’ll never have to come to the beach and search for fish again,” they promise.

Thanks but – ahem – I think I’ll pass. Besides, I like being on the beach.

“I just want to get my hands on that fat juicy butt!” snorts Angel, a seafood trader, thinking I’m still out of earshot as I approach Efren’s boat. The fishermen cleaning the nets laugh. Angel scratches his crotch and spits in the sand, leering as I near. He pulls up his grubby t-shirt and rubs his enormous hairy belly. “I don’t understand why you don’t like me,” he pouts, pushing himself away from the boat.

“Maybe your wife and five kids have something to do with it,” I say diplomatically, stepping wide to avoid his lecherous hands. If I get too close he’ll grope me again, tweaking my backside.

It’s true. I have a big round butt. I’m one of Freddy Mercury’s “fat bottomed girls that make the rocking world go round”, and I’m proud of my wobbly white orbs. That doesn’t mean everyone is invited to touch them. In fact, I’m not ashamed to admit that I have decked men for sexual molestation. Angel is lucky he didn’t end up face down in the sand.

Fernando isn’t so lucky the Saturday night he sneaks up behind me in the discotheque and cups my bottom with both his hands while I’m dancing with Yoyo. Instantly I spin around ninja-turtle style and box his ears then twirl back to my dance partner and continue to salsa without missing a step. Fernando’s freckled gollywog face bounces off the cement column in the center of the room and he staggers out the door shell shocked. Drunk and oblivious, he doesn’t feel the black eye until the following day.

On seeing Fernando’s impressive shiner, everyone asks “What happened to you?”

“Nothing,” he mutters, intently studying his feet.

“Roni clobbered him,” announces Don Julo, the storekeeper, a huge grin splitting his face as he regales the gory details to anyone and everyone.

The news spreads quickly. The story is embellished and improved upon as it’s passed along. By Monday everyone has heard one version or another. After that, no one ever gropes me again.

In a machismo culture sexual harassment is the norm. It’s not perceived as harassment. It’s meant as a come on, to let you know you’re attractive to the ogre who is ogling you.

“Mamacita rica,” men say as you pass in the street. Beautiful mama.

Plain-looking girls with junk-in-the-trunk and low self-esteem could be cured here, frequently listening to these compliments. From the six-packed surfer boys to the town drunk, every day some hopeful Lothario shares his opinion; wanted or not.

“You’re more beautiful every day,” says Don Jata, making puppy eyes at me as he shuffles towards the beach.

That he’s seventy five, can barely walk and has no teeth is irrelevant.

At first it’s good for the ego, hearing how gorgeous I am from every man with eyes in his head. Then I begin to realize they all want a piece of me; or rather, my wallet. You see, I’m filthy rich. I have three houses in my home country, a villa on the Mediterranean coast, a current model BMW at each locale and a limitless bank account. It doesn’t have to be real to be true in Mompiche. And when I try to explain the truth; that I’ve been a struggling artist my whole life, no one believes me. I can’t count how many men who aren’t on speaking terms with me because I refuse to share my endless pots of gold.

“Oh, Miguel, you’re not talking to me? How my heart breaks!” I tease. I couldn’t care less.

“Hello, my love. How are you today?”

On the main street, I turn to see who’s addressing me. The speaker is thirteen or fourteen at most. He’s kidding, right? Actually he isn’t. Every day for several months he greets me this way. In the evenings at the public well, he poses and preens to get my attention, dancing while stripping off to bathe in the unpaved street. I have to turn my back so he can’t see me laughing. Sometimes I hide inside when he passes with his buckets. He’s called Pipo. I don’t know his real name. He’s one of Ocho Mil’s brood; placed somewhere in the middle of fourteen siblings. He thinks it’s cool to be “in love” with the local gringa; at least until the next cool thing comes along.

As my face fills out again, changing from drawn and pallid to robust and healthy, my too loose pants fill up and stop falling off, and people begin commenting on how well I look.

“You’re fat!” says Juan Zambrano in the morning when I buy half a liter of fresh udder-warm milk from him for thirty cents.

“Thanks. I’m getting better,” I reply with a smile before going home to feed my cats.