Even if it is lovely being out alone on the coast, it’s just a bit too much when the manager of the hostel you’re staying in tells you that she is leaving town, and could you take in the hammocks when you’re done and lock up? And pay now, before she leaves.

Very trusting, but not what I was completely in for. I was hoping for some solitude after being very busy with people for a couple of weeks, but I was thinking more like 80% solitude, 20% pool-playing or beach-talking, rather than the complete isolation. So, I come back home Sunday afternoon rather than Monday morning as I had projected.

As soon as I get home, I run to the kitchen; I am actually quite famished after seven hours with no food. My eating schedule has evened out a bit over the last three months, and I am no longer having my first meal at 5pm, but am instead having the three regular meals a day. These meals have taken quite the same amount of skirmish that the Coffee-Leche Wars have taken, but they seemed to have found their keel as well.

A note on Ecuadorian cuisine: if you don’t like rice, eating in Ecuador will be the equivalent to visiting the ring in hell associated with gluttony. Ug. I do love sushi, but other than that, I am not a rice fan. I thought everything would be great, because I love Mexican food, but Ecuadorian food is absolutely nothing like Mexican food. It is mostly rice, rice, rice with the addition of slabs of fairly bland meats, soups with far too much oil and not enough seasoning (I finally baulked and refused to eat the “milk soup” with milk, oil, potatoes and pasta noodles). In general, it is a culture of far too many carbohydrates supplemented with meat protein. As of yet, ceviche—a cold soup with cilantro, onions, peppers, lime, and seafood—is really the only exception: something with flavor!

I have noticed that, especially among the wealthy, this diet has resulted in some weight issues. Ecuador is not really a thin culture. This isn’t entirely due to the diet itself, but the quantity of food. At first, when they served me rice, they would load down my whole goddamn plate with the stuff, and then drop a cut of meat on the side and call it a meal. Their goal seemed to be comparable to that of Gretel’s witch. Fatten me up. They would even look at me and talk about it, like I couldn’t understand what they were saying! Give her more! Part of the problem is that Big Tom is their model for American diet, and he is not a tiny fellow. I found myself saddled with meals the same size as a man’s who weighs over a hundred pounds more than me.

So, I had to grind in my heels, just as I had to do with the coffee, only it was somewhat easier: I just didn’t eat half of what they fed me. I did this pointedly. When they asked me if I wanted seconds, I looked at them like they were crazy, and at first, said no, and later, said something more like “ugggggggg.” This is a technique I’ve learned from listening both to Denise, the local 7-year old, whose favorite phrase is, “Este no me gusta; tu lo sabes bien,” which must be said in the most whiny tone of voice possible, and her mother, who is also a bit whiny.

I compromise by simply being honest. When they ask me if I like something, and I don’t, I will say “No.” It seems so easy… Sometimes, if I am not asked, I will say it anyways: “No mas gracias. No es mi favorito.” And, on the other hand, if something catches my interest, I will make a big deal about it. “Mmmmmmmmm, Mmmmmmm, Mmm!”

Through this, and a tricky series of negotiations involving me pointing out my adoration of the local specialty, which they take entirely for granted—fruit!—and also my love of vegetables and salads, I am finally down to the following consistent diet: Bread, cheese, coffee, and fruit for breakfast; their chosen infliction for lunch; and a chef salad for dinner.

Some of this was managed when Lola opened up the conversation by asking me (ME!) how she should go about losing weight. At first, I laughed at her, but when I saw she was serious I told her “dolor del corozon,” which she found funny enough to chuckle over for a few hours. But then I thought about it, and decided that it was a moment to attack and use the question ruthlessly. So, I told her about balancing rice with the other important food groups like fruit and vegetables. I told her you could never eat too many vegetables. I told her that I loved vegetables.

I did, however, refrain from telling her that if she wanted to lose her cute pregnancy-style belly, she might try not eating the leftovers, or indeed the non-leftovers, to everything she cooked. I also refrained from telling her that watching the help reach their unwashed hands into your food and pick rice or tuna to put in their mouth and chew wide-opened with much smacking and slurping was also an aid to weight loss. That woman eats bits of everything and then amuses me by asking how to lose weight! I think she looks fine, though—she is really not overweight at all—but I did take the chance to put in some bids for food other than rice.

Ever notice that rice looks somewhat like a pile of maggots that sat out in the sun a bit too long?

Back to the story. I got home on Sunday night starving and ran straight to the kitchen. But Lola was nowhere in sight. Instead, Norma was there, and the first thing she said was “There’s no food. You said you weren’t coming back until tomorrow.”

Considering that all I wanted was a peanut butter sandwich or something, I felt so very very welcomed back. I know I shouldn’t have been so irritated, but her tone was accusatory, and this is the only home I’ve got at the moment. I told her it wasn’t important and fixed myself a sandwich, which was, afterall, all that I wanted. But a few hours later she rousted me out of my room and served me, as is her very stubborn want, a massive pile of rice, bland beans, cucumbers (which I’ve never been fond of, but am starting to hate… as it is their understanding of “salad”), and an unseasoned pork chop slap-deposited on the tippy top of the rice. Ug.

A quick note on Norma: she is La Duena. She is the very prototypical upper-class matriarch of the house. Her mission is to protect and badger. To give unsolicited and well-intentioned advice. She would do anything for any of her boarders, and nod precisely and importantly when people tell her things. She speaks slowly and always understands what I’m saying. She also has a habit of calling me “la nina” and treating me as such, despite the fact that I’m approaching thirty.

An example is when I asked if she would call Budget Cars for me and let them know that I was going to pick up the car later than I said—around 9pm (an hour before they close), instead of 10am. She called them, repeated about five times that she was calling for me because I spoke such exceptionally horrible Spanish (which is opposite of what she tells me to my face, and which is a phrase that I can understand just as well as everything else she said), and then re-arranged my pick up time for 6pm. When I asked why so early, she told me that renting a car was a very long process, very arduous, and I would need the extra time, and also Budget said they frequently close up earlier than their advertised closing time. So, I sighed and went with A to pick up the car at 6, only to run through the process in 15 minutes and have these incredibly efficient good workers tell me that no, they did indeed always close at 10pm prompt. So, Norma inserts her opinion, and as a result, I had to drive back home, then drive back to the airport at 10pm to pick up my mother.

That’s Norma. She’ll do whatever you need with good cheer and loving help, but will always change things to what she knows is better.

Lola, on the other hand, is my girl. She speaks a hard-to-understand country dialect that has us grasping to understand each other most of the time. We are now used to the “que, que” repetition. At first, she would never repeat herself, but would instead look at me like I’m crazy. But now she slows down, rephrases, and translates everything for me. We understand each other just fine most of the time. And now that the Leche Wars have been resolved with a filtering system (my job is to set up the pot, her job is to pour in the water and bring me a mug—a division of labor that somewhat satisfies both of our urges to “do our own work”), we spend quite a bit of time chatting and everything.

The thing about Lola is that she is exactly what you are looking at. We are completely exotic creatures to each other. Her life will never change and will never be laden with some Huge Need for Meaning. She accepts things that I could never accept, and I live a life she could never fathom unless she saw it someplace on a television set. She stares at me openly all the time, stares and stares, and I can just see the wheels rolling. Even my mom and A commented on the stares.

Big Tom has a way of putting things too bluntly; for example when he said, “In this world, you are someone who is larger than life. And she is someone who will always be in the negatives.” While I disagree on the fundamental Buddhist principle of the statement, I see what he is getting at. She is the worker who will disappear into the darkness of unspoken history, as Amitava Kumar puts it. Whereas I am someone who will travel the planet, write, study, have exceptional friends, and exceptional opportunities. I am starting to accept that about myself: that my life is unusual and needs to stay marked that way for me to do what I need to do. Maybe I’m started to see, if not completely understand or accept, the responsibility of privilege.

So, Lola and I are quite different. And that difference explains why she is my friend, whereas Norma and I are nodders-in-the-hallway.

Although I know much of the help (for example, the two women who do the laundry) are quite intelligent and sharp, I know Lola is neither of these. Not only is Lola the most uneducated person I’ve met, she is also the “simplest” I’ve met without speaking of developmental disabilities. Please don’t call me mean; I say it with no evaluation, only simple observation. She has her own cleverness, I guess. One of such is that she can negotiate well for prices. I’ve seen her push the arm of a fruit-vendor from her shoulder, and demand 3 dollars less on a 6-dollar purchase. But I’ve also seen her do the strangest permutations in the world of coffee, food, cleaning, not to mention some of the trouble she gets herself into with Norma.

Gossip has it that about a year ago, Lola ran off with a man, and when she called to report her action, she refused to talk to Norma, but instead insisted on talking to Mariola, Norma’s daughter. But then a few months later she came back… a mystery I’ve been curious of. Now, she is a forty-year old woman who carries this sadness in her eyes that she never achieved the only real thing that lower-class women here believes they can Achieve: marriage and a family.

Lola also cannot read, and so has taken to handing me the newspaper and having me read her horoscope. She is a Pisces, a swimmer girl like the one I’ve branded on my arm (yet another cause for extreme curiosity and incomprehension). I actually enjoy reading the horoscopes, and so will also read my own aloud as well as my Mother/Sister/Sarah’s. We then discuss what it means, Lola laughing at my sarcastic interpretations, and me laughing at Lola laughing.

Right now, Lola has this niece visiting from the country who is 14-years old and driving me to distraction. She is like a mini-Lola who has not yet learned the ways of diplomacy. She peers into my window and watches me move about my room until I notice her, jump a foot, and tell her not to do that! She also stares and me and asks me many many questions that I have a hard time understanding due to the country-dialect. She also likes laughing at me.

Last night, I came in and they were watching this obsession-worthy channel where they have these very plain looking Ecuadorians dancing on home-video quality stock along the beaches to home-sung songs. Always salsa, and the dancers are okay, but really not that good… And so, seeing this, I started to dance around the kitchen for a while, making fun of the TV-dancers. To which Lola and her niece laughed uproariously and then begged me to keep dancing when my ego finally caught up to me and asked me what the hell I was doing.

For them, I am TV come alive. I am the American soap opera. Or America’s Funniest Home Videos. This is the job they have planted on me. How odd!

But when you consider: I go to the beach at least every other week. Or travel to the jungle, or fly from distant countries, or go out and party on the weekends. I spend hours writing and reading. Whereas, Lola never leaves, except on Sundays when she goes to church with her family and then goes to her sister’s restaurant and eats some food before coming home in the early evening. She has never flown, never driven, never read a book. She makes about $150 a month if her salary is consistent with every other maid’s in Ecuador. She lives in a little back room, and if you want to get to it, you have to go through the cat shed to get there (and she’s allergic to cats). Her niece tells me her room has no window.

And yet, Lola usually is smiling. She asks me questions about my age, my sister, my family, my job, my male friends. She badgers me weekly about boyfriends (not giving advice, but asking with complete incredulity why, oh why, oh why, I do not have one). She is endlessly amused at my escapades, and treats me so kindly. I’ve noticed she’s a bit mischievous and subtly teases the owners, and me, when she can. But never maliciously.

She never complains, even though I know she wishes for her own life.

When she gets back Sunday evening, after I’ve been fed my hated rice, she sits down and gives me some strawberry yogurt. The next day she gives me a mini-pile of rice, instead of the quantity that will be neglected. She asks me about my journey, why I came home early. Her eyes smile at me. She pays attention to me, my needs, as if it’s her real, and not just paid, job. Sometimes I feel bad, like I am participating in the slave trade somehow, and this is just a modern mammy speaking to me. And so, I remind myself, each time, every single second of the time, fighting through any inch of self-entitlement that I might bear tight in my occidental brain, to never stop noticing how extraordinarily… what is it?… thoughtful I must be about the beyond-gifts of my life.