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 Lesser Of Two Weevils

Ants in the sugar again. Even with the lid sealed tight, the critters still get in. Ten pounds of sugar ruined. Or is it? What the hell… I scoop out a cup of sugar and put it into the mixing bowl. Ants flee in all directions. Gently tapping the bowl, I give the little sugar thieves a few minutes to get away. By the time the cup of butter is added, a stream of ants have fled the scene. Several still rummage around in the bottom of the bowl, reluctant to leave behind such rich treasure. No one will notice a few ants in today’s special: Triple Chocolate Cake.

Flicking the switch on the beater, I check to see if we have electricity. Yep. It’s on today. Then I whip the butter and sugar together, ants and all, until it’s light and creamy. Adding two eggs to the mix, I chuckle as I recall the day, fourteen years earlier, that I swore I’d never again cook for a living. After thirteen years slogging out an existence in industrial kitchens, working twice as hard to be considered half as good in a predominantly male domain, I’d had enough. In a volcanic rage I quit cooking professionally and changed careers. And now here I am; baking cakes to pay the rent, and trying to forget everything I ever learned about food hygiene.

When you come to Ecuador, aside from the obvious advice: never go anywhere without toilet paper and always check your change, another thing to remember is that very often food hygiene is an anomaly. Rats, cats, ants, kids, weevils, and a menagerie of bacteriological health hazards too numerous to mention are all part of a normal kitchen environment; especially in rural regions.

Once I was kneading cookie dough with my right hand and squashing weevils in the wholegrain rice canister with my left, shaking the container every so often and wondering if I’d get them all. It doesn’t help that weevil worms resemble grains of wholegrain rice; same shape, color and size. Only their wriggling gives them away. No biggie; many cultures consume insects as a major source of protein. Before you screw your nose up and say “eewww” try to remember the last time you ate a cute lobster. Right? And if you’ve ever been to Cambodia… Well… let’s not go there right now… Besides, the rice is always washed before it’s cooked. And we’ve all eaten our share of ants. The French cover them in chocolate. Leaving a few ants in the cake is not nearly as bad as the local butcher who dropped his cigarette ash all over the meat I was trying to buy. It’s one more reason my diet leans heavily towards vegetarianism.

A food hygiene official in my country would take one look in the kitchen, have a conniption and then shut down this little beach front cake shop in the blink of an eye, along with every other restaurant and food outlet in town. In fact, a housing department official would condemn my little grass-roofed cabin in less time than it takes to breathe in too, but that’s another story. Regulations do not exist here; or rather, they’re not enforced. Therefore, we all happily stir, blend, barbecue and bake for countless clueless customers while shutting our eyes and minds to the gory reality: Triple Chocolate Ant Cake.

I retrieve the rat-chewed canister of flour from under the workbench and measure one and a half cups into the sieve. As a young chef I was taught that sifting aerates the flour but here it also gets out the hard lumps and the weevils. Shaking it over a plate with a teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt, I finally add a cup of grated organic Ecuadorian cocoa and sift it all together.

“Fresh cakes! Get your fresh cakes!”

A surfboard tucked under his arm, Christian walks up from the beach and sits on a bar stool on the other side of the bench where I’m working. He rests the board against the bar.

“Chocolate cake?” he asks.

“Yup,” I nod, taking a family-sized block of dark unsweetened chocolate from its wrapper.

“Think I’m gonna have to come back later to try some of that!”

“It’ll be ready in about an hour or so,” I tell him, finely chopping the cubes.

He reaches out to swipe a piece of chocolate. The tip of the large chef’s knife snaps against the cutting board, just shy of his index finger. His hand freezes. Then, with a cheeky grin, he looks me in the eye. He’s accustomed to getting out of trouble with his witty charm and handsome calendar-boy face. I’m not dazzled.

“Don’t steal my chocolate,” I warn, meeting his gaze, shaking my head and pointing the knife at his bare chest. Then, I smile. “But if you want to lick the bowl when I’m finished, stick around. I’ll be done ya mimso.”

Nodding, Chris withdraws his fingers. Half the chopped chocolate goes into the creamed butter. Alternately adding sifted flour and dribbles from one cup of milk, I gently fold the mixture together.

Christian Garcia came into my life one afternoon when I had a craving for ceviche; a raw seafood soup concoction made from tomatoes, red onions and green peppers seasoned with fresh lime juice and wild cilantro. Served with banana chips, it’s traditional fare on the northern coast. Without rival, Doña Rosa makes the best ceviche in town. After I sat down at a table in his mother-in-law’s restaurant, Chris approached half naked; no shoes or underwear, bare chested, board shorts riding so low on his hips it’s amazing his bits didn’t fall out. He displayed a perfectly proportioned surfer’s body that wouldn’t have been out of place on the cover of a Playgirl magazine. In his role as waiter, he slapped a menu in front of me and, as he turned away, I noticed the baby strapped to his back, asleep and resting against his shoulder. Saya was just a few months old then and Christian was rarely seen without his son. When I began baking cakes, the pair were regular visitors to the café. Second only to surfing, bowl-licking was Christian’s specialty.

After scraping the cake mixture into a greased and floured tin, I hand over the metal bowl and mixing spoon, leaving Christian to take the hard work out of the washing up. When the batter is spread evenly, I sprinkle the rest of the chopped chocolate over the top before sliding it into the hot oven. The gas oven is as unpredictable as its feisty Italian owner, so I have to check the cake every ten minutes until it’s done.

“Chocolate cake! Fifty cents. Made with local chocolate and much love! Best cake you’ll ever eat! Chocolate cake! Fresh from the oven! Only fifty cents!”

People on the beach stare, gawking wide-eyed and slack-jawed as if I had just stepped out of a spaceship. The basket of fresh cakes rests in the crook of my arm. Barefooted and floppy-hatted, I walk the length of the beach without making a single sale. It is no cakewalk, I tell you. Disheartened, I turn around to walk back to the café and ponder my future as a cake-seller.

“What are you selling?” asks a rotund woman lounging in a tiger print bikini.

“Chocolate cake.”

“Can I try a piece?”

I hand her a slice wrapped in a napkin. Her family gathers around, waiting for a reaction. Brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles gawp at me as she takes a bite. The children giggle and whisper – maybe they’re expecting her to turn into a toad? Her eyes close as the flavor rolls over her tongue. She passes the cake to her husband.

“Give me another one.”

In the end she buys ten slices; one for each member of the family and two for her husband.

As I turn to head back, the people sitting nearest want cake too.

It’s really good!” they tell me, surprised that a gringa could conjure up such delights.

Then another family calls me over. And another. My pocket full of change and the basket empty, I return to the kitchen to plan the next cake.

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.

The Magic Circus Disco Bus

A banana peel flies past my face. It hurtles out the open window and lands on the hot tarmac before being crushed to pulp under the wheels of an oncoming vehicle. Lively Salsa music blares from the speakers, scratchy and static. A group of teenagers on their way home from the public high school in Tonchigue wiggle their hips and tap their feet in time to the music. The conductor makes a small offering to the shrine of the Virgin of Cisne, then crosses himself as he leaps back onto the moving bus.

A man with a tray of chilled watermelon slices and salted green plums appears. A boy selling peeled oranges pushes through the crowd, offering the cool refreshment, then disappears again on the edge of town.

A gaggle of chirruping young women with enormous breasts pushed up to their chins get on at Estero Ancho (Wide Stream). Fluorescent hot pants stretch tight across bottoms as round as ripe melons. Cropped t-shirts stretch tight across their bosoms, leaving plump brown muffin-tops exposed. Their hair is so thickly gelled that cold air blasting in through the open windows fails to disturb a single strand. Painted and perfumed, perched on precarious high heels, the girls preen and pose. Men of all ages smile and wiggle their eyebrows with obvious approval.

A sign on the front wall of the bus says NO SPITTING. Below that, another sign states that THE WINDOWS ARE NOT TRASH CANS. The ubiquitous NO SMOKING sign is absent.

The bus rattles along the winding road, blasting its horn at top volume, stopping frequently in the middle of nowhere to pick up and drop off passengers. Boarding passengers are flung down the aisles at high speed, sometimes complaining, mostly just clinging to their children and their bags until they find a seat. Breastfeeding mothers expertly balance themselves in the aisle as the bus rounds sharp hairpin bends. Three old ladies, each holding three live chickens tied at the feet, get on at Bellavista (Beautiful view).

Just when it seems no more people can possibly fit inside, several others squeeze in at El Salto (The Leap). A stream of vendors pours down the aisle selling llapingachos (yucca and cheese patties), empanadas (cheese-filled pastries), pan de yuca (yucca bread), corviche (fish balls), iced tamarind juice and grilled pork with barbecued green bananas. After a ten minute break, the bus rumbles back to life. As it rounds each bend, elbows hover precariously close to noses. Backpacks swipe lipstick from pouting lips. Knees press uncomfortably into thighs. The women are jammed so tightly against the men it’s a miracle they’re not pregnant by the time they get off at their stop. The mobile disco roars along, bumping over potholes and speed bumps. Passengers on the back seat howl angrily at the driver to slow down as they are flung towards the ceiling. The man in the seat behind me begins singing out of tune to music I can’t hear.

“Excuse the disturbance!” booms a voice through the crowd. “I just want to take a minute to tell you about ginseng!”

The vendor launches into his rehearsed speech, competing with the unrelenting stereo, the bus horn and the non-stop high-pitched chatter.

“Ginseng will help you achieve a longer-lasting erection!” he shouts at the top of his voice.

A box of day-old chicks at the front of the bus cheep loudly in protest. In a rumpled pinstripe suit and mismatched paisley tie, dirty white socks poking out through holes in his shoes, the salesman screams his pitch to the throng in the bus. No one is listening.

The Amazonian Negress sitting next to me wiggles in her seat, juggling the four small children she’s carrying on her lap. Her brightly colored clothes are so tight they appear painted on. I’m crushed between her massive posterior and the window. My right elbow threatens to poke through my left rib cage. Leaning closer to the window to gain a little breathing space, I find a nano-second of relief before the vacancy is occupied by four small black legs, all kicking for more room.

We stop briefly in Salsipuedes (Get out if you can) and I wonder why I don’t. Suddenly, the seat in front of me drops back, painfully crushing my knees. The dandruffed scalp of the man in front settles under my chin. Squeezed between the window and the Negress, my lungs press into my spine. Someone sitting behind me grabs the top of my seat, painfully pulling a handful of my hair.

“Ginseng will cleanse your blood!”

My senses are simultaneously assaulted. My sense of direction is lost. My sense of self is challenged. A tiny fist lands in my ear. The Negress shrieks at her fighting kids. The vendor squawks. School kids howl and push. The chicks cheep. The teenagers giggle. The lousy singer behind me gets louder. We whizz through Puerto Nuevo (Newport) and slow down at the turnoff to Tortuga (just like in Pirates of the Caribbean without the whorehouses) to pick up some farmers with long sharp machetes strapped to their trousers, the pointed tips tucked into their rubber boots.

A plastic drink bottle brushes my nose on its way out the window. The stereo blares. The horn honks. The bus screeches to a halt then restarts, peeling the yellow lines off the road between each stop. The conductor pushes through the over-crowded bus collecting fares, yelling over the top of everyone. I drop the correct fare into his hand. He presses his luck, trying to charge me more. Refusing to argue, I ignore him and turn back to the window. He gives up and moves on.

The squash and the crush and the noise and the din and the smells are overwhelming. Barely able to breathe, I try to focus on the tropical jungle rushing past the windows. The singer thankfully alights. The relief is momentary. A child sitting on his mother’s lap begins kicking the back of my seat.

Tell me again: What the hell am I doing here?

I’m on my way to Mompiche, a tiny remote fishing village on the northern coast of Ecuador. Until recently, it wasn’t even on the map. It used to be a long white sandy beach with some bamboo huts scattered along the waterfront; home to a few fishermen. A lot has changed since the day I arrived.

A friend in Quito had told me about Mompiche.

“You should go there. It’s paradise,” he’d said.

I hope so, because getting there is hell! The Negress moves again, decreasing my hip size by several inches. All four of her kids are crying. She shrieks at them to shut up, slapping at their arms and legs, almost busting her seams. The school kids become more raucous, pushing and shoving each other around the aisle.

“Ginseng will increase your libido!”

Somewhere along the way, another vendor has snuck onto the bus and begins screeching with a painful high-pitched whine. Honestly, I’d rather rub cheese graters over my ears than listen to his awful voice. After reeling off his spiel, he shoves a handful of colorful candy under my nose. Refusing the offer of ten for a dollar, I try to drag my gaze back to the window.

The music becomes Reggaeton. It’s louder now. The teenagers wiggle and grind their hips. The jungle flies past. Plants that cost a fortune to buy in my own country grow wild on the side of the road; bright red orchids, huge elephant ears, tall yucca, colorful birds of paradise. An untamed tropical garden. The wild papaya trees are pregnant with fruit. Stands of banana palms point yellow fingers in all directions. Hummingbirds hover, feasting on flower nectar. Black howler monkeys sit high up in a zapote tree.

Gradually, the bus empties. The students vanish. The vendors find other buses going in the opposite direction; and a whole new audience to harass. The Negress and her four kids get off at Tres Vias (Three Ways). My bones relax back into their normal shape. I can inhale. Just for a second. A withered old man with breath that resembles a sewerage outlet sits beside me. He wants to chat. Holding my breath doesn’t help. The stench is so foul that I’m forced to change seats.

After a few minutes, we turn onto a narrow dirt track. The Reggaeton is overwhelmed by the squeaking and rattling of the bus. Large rocks and deep potholes pepper the road. The vehicle slows, navigating carefully around each obstacle. The driver turns down the volume on the stereo, as if it will help him concentrate. I open the window. The air smells different. Fresh. Salty. Jungly.

“Is it much further?” I ask the conductor.

“Ya mismo,” he replies, pointing ahead with his lips.

It takes almost half an hour to travel the seven kilometers (four and a half miles) from the turnoff to the village. Winding down the track, from the highlands to the beach, thick jungle closes over the road from both sides. Families of howler monkeys perch high in tree tops. A flock of toucans flit from one tree to another. An iridescent green iguana basks in the sun on top of a fence post. The bus stops to let people off a couple of times. At the top of a rise, a glimpse of the beach, large breakers crashing over the sand, appears through a break in the trees. Nearly there. We cross the narrow rickety bridge, where women below scrub and rinse their laundry in the river. Finally, the bus pulls into the village of Mompiche.

As I alight, I suddenly realize I am the only passenger left. Throwing my day pack over my back, I climb down the steps and gaze along the stretch of fine white sand. Bamboo huts . . . palm trees . . . hammocks . . . long deserted beach . . . warm azure sea . . . Oh, yes! This is exactly what I’ve been looking for.

I head straight for the beach, taking my first step into paradise.

Little did I know that the next step would take me straight to hell.