Description of Service - Chapter 9

9. Independence Day
After seven days in the capital, I decided it was time to return to San Juan. My original idea had been to stay longer, but a week proved sufficient to change my perspective, and leave me anxious to get back to the fresh country air. The thick, polluted city air had permeated my lungs, provoking an incessant and annoying cough, and the disingenuous scheming of those around me had exacted a similar toll on my spirit, and generated a strong desire to return to the transparent simplicity of the countryside.

I left the capital early one weekday morning, with little energy remaining from the week of life in the fast-paced city. What force I had in reserve I would need for the trip back to San Juan, which I knew would be many degrees more complicated on public transport than in the private cars in which I had always had the fortune to travel.

Despite my concern, I was yet to fully grasp a simple reality of bus travel which my fellow passengers seemed to understand perfectly. Public transportation is rife with inherent setbacks and serious delays. When the bus broke down, or a tire went flat, as happened more than once along the way that morning, there would be little reaction from anyone to match the frustration I felt inside. I was on a schedule, and these unexpected obstacles jeopardized my carefully laid plans. If this bus failed to complete the trip to La Esperanza in the five and a half hours I had carefully budgeted, allowing for what I thought a reasonable amount of delay, then I would miss the departure of the only bus of the day leaving La Esperanza for San Juan.

With that scenario in the back of mind, I watched the countryside slowly roll by through the window as the morning too quickly gave way to afternoon. Even when the bus was in motion, which it seemed, for one reason or another, not to be the majority of the time, progress was painfully slow. Climbing those steep roads into the mountains had taken little effort in the new cars in which I had previously travelled, but the ascent proved a trying labor for the converted school bus in which I now rode, which slowed to a maddening crawl on the incline of each hill, as the window for me to make it to La Esperanza slowly closed. By the time the bus driver stopped for a leisurely lunch break, near the place where I had eaten with the mayor on the way to the capital, I had already become very concerned about the late hour.

“What time does this bus arrive in La Esperanza,” I asked an attendant, who stooped casually by the roadside, watching the passing cars on the main highway.

“We will leave before long,” he replied.

Not satisfied with that answer, I tried my luck with another passenger. But this gentleman, who was dressed well enough to look as if he might have also had some appointment to keep, proved no more able to dispel my growing fears of missing the bus to San Juan.

“It arrives when it gets there,” the man said, with a deeply ingrained fatalism that I assumed would be shared by the other passengers, dissuading me from further inquiry. The other passengers seemed to have wisely put aside thoughts of virtually all future activities, pending the unpredictable culmination of the bus trip.

As the bus sputtered onward, and the afternoon shadows grew longer, I was forced to come to terms with reality. There was no way I would reach La Esperanza in time. I resigned myself to the situation, and gazed out upon the bright green countryside as the bus meandered west, up and down the mountain passes.

It was past two in the afternoon when I finally descended into the large lot that passes for a bus station in La Esperanza. The bus to San Juan was long gone.

I carried my small bag to the edge of the lot, where I tossed it down in exasperation. I had assumed that a full day would be more than sufficient to reach San Juan, and I had not planned for the possibility of being stuck here. After a long, expensive week in the city, I had only twenty five pesos left in my pocket. My painstaking calculations had extended to my finances, leaving me just enough money for the ride back to San Juan, but certainly not to spend the night here in town.

I considered my options. I didn’t want to go to the cooperative office, concerned that I might find Sally there. I had no valid excuse for having been in the capital for a week, away from work. It was easy enough in the expanse of the city to avoid contact with Peace Corps, but if I encountered Sally here, I would have to explain what I was doing away from San Juan.

As I sat, deep in thought that was quickly turning to despair, it began to rain lightly.

“Are you waiting for a bus?” A voice came from a wooden stall next to me, behind which a woman, who I hadn’t noticed before, was observing me closely. “Because you know, there are no more buses from here today.”

“I’m trying to figure out how to get to San Juan,” I replied, somewhat annoyed by the interruption to my thought process.

“There are no more busses to San Juan today,” the woman repeated, as she swept the dust from the table where she normally displayed the merchandise for sale.
“But you could always try the crossroads. Sometimes trucks are headed in that direction.”

“The crossroads,” I repeated, in an exclamation of revelation that the woman mistook as a question.

“Walk up this road to the edge of town,” she said, indicating the road passing in front of the stand. “You should see others waiting there.”

I stood up quickly, pausing only to thank this woman, whose intervention had originally annoyed me thoroughly before ultimately proving so valuable, before I hurried off up the road.

The light rain had quickly tapered off, but the storm clouds were regrouping as I arrived at the crossroads. There I found an assortment of would-be travelers huddled under the overhangs of the homes on either side of the road out of town. Each of them hoped that the next passing vehicle would be headed in the direction they wished to go.

I stood by the roadside for a time as a handful of pickup trucks passed. Some sped by without stopping, others were headed to destinations much closer by. As the minutes turned to hours, most of the waiting crowd found their ride. The rain again started to fall, and most of those who remained at the crossroads gave up their wait, to seek shelter elsewhere. Cold and tired, I would have given up too, had I another option. Forced to remain, I was left alone on the roadside in the late afternoon. The rain fell with more resolve now, in increasingly heavy, cold drops that splattered mud from the road onto the sidewalk, where I tried in futility to distance myself from the torrent from above and the splashing from below. I remembered with commiseration those villagers we had passed in the mayor’s car, on the way to La Esperanza, who we had inadvertently bathed in dust as they waited for transport themselves.

“It’s late, perhaps no car will come now,” said an old man, who I hadn’t noticed before, standing quietly under the leaky overhang by the roadside, unfazed by the weather. His face was harshly weathered by years of facing predicaments like this one.

As I stood on that crossroads, my warm, cozy mud house in San Juan had never seemed so inviting. Nor had I eaten all day, and the rumblings of hunger in my stomach were reaching a point at which I could no longer ignore them. If I could just reach San Juan, I would find Doña Aida there, waiting to prepare a hot meal. That I had no money made little difference there, I thought. I wouldn’t have to pay until I could. I hadn’t even yet paid for the first few weeks of meals I had eaten. I had tried to hand over some money on the first day, but Patricia just laughed at my effort. “Payment comes at the end of the month,” she had patiently explained. “First you eat, and then you pay.”

It grew colder along the roadside, as I remembered the intense heat earlier in the day, when the bus had made that extended stop while the driver slowly ate his lunch, the passengers patiently waiting for him. If that driver had moved more expediently, I might have made the bus to San Juan, I thought. I cursed him as the cold rain water began to soak through my clothes.

“Even if a truck were to come, it is raining even more in the pass,” I heard the old man say softly, perhaps to himself, as he stared towards the clouded peaks in the distance west of town. “Perhaps it is for the best that no car comes today.”

I looked off into that dark sky, and noted with chagrin that the old man was right. The casual assuredness of his observations made it clear that he didn’t share my concern at being left behind, out in the cold. Nevertheless I could hardly have considered him pessimistic in his assessment, since his words were simply an impartial appraisal of the probabilities which we faced.

“No, old man,” I mumbled, as I looked into that darkening range of hills. “I must travel today.”

But the old man must not have heard me over the falling rain, punctuated by the noise of a truck rumbling up the road from town. With it came once more the faint hope of salvation. I held my breath.

The large, brightly covered truck pulled over to the side of the road. It was the type used to haul merchandise and coffee, comprised of a flat bed flanked by wooden rails, and a large cab in which four men could travel side by side. The driver’s window lowered slightly against the pounding rain, revealing a pair of men inside whom I didn’t recognize, as I might have if they had been headed for San Juan. But all hope was not lost. Some cars left for Gracias from here, passing San Juan, though it would be very late in the day to attempt that route.

“San Juan?” I asked hopefully, not just for me, but for my new travelling companion standing behind me.

The driver nodded.

“Hop in,” he said, motioning with a quick movement of his head towards the back of the truck. When I turned around to wave the old man forward, he was nowhere to be found. I located him again, already on board, positioning himself in the back, when I circled around the truck. I threw my bag upward into the cargo area, and climbed up into the bed of the truck, as, with a start, it began up the bumpy road towards San Juan. As we left the town behind, a loud clap of thunder boomed down from the mountains ahead, as if nature had sounded a warning to those who, having realized the danger, still dared to take on the trip. Headed into those dark mountains at this late hour, the sound triggered in me a sense of profound fear, borne of a suspicion of the risk I now faced at the hands of a force much stronger than I was prepared for. Observing a strong storm, which I had always enjoyed, was quite different from behind the glass of a weather-proof western fortress, I thought, then out here. My perception of any ability to resist the power of nature was quickly undone, as I shivered with cold under the dark sky of the rain-soaked afternoon, my vulnerability clear. Perhaps, I thought, the old man had been right his assertion that it was best that no car come.

That crossing to the next valley might have taken an hour, or slightly more, as the truck slowly rumbled up the mountainside, but it felt like a frozen eternity. The storm clouds had quickly turned the afternoon to evening, as the daylight dimmed at an accelerated pace with the climb higher into the mountains, where the sun sinks behind the tall, distant peaks in mid-afternoon. The now icy rain pouring down on the slick hillside made the already brisk temperature unbearable, as I huddled in a corner on the floor of the truck’s bed, protected from the worst of the driving rain by only the limited shelter afforded by the cab.

The truck gradually crested the mountain, and passed the small village of El Membrillo, from where, on the way to the capital, the mayor had pointed out San Juan in the valley below. It seemed like an eternity had passed since I rode along in the mayor’s new car on that bright, sunny morning.

“Here it freezes at night,” I remembered the mayor’s cousin say. That observation was more than a curiosity now. It was in fact advice I should have taken, I thought as I shivered uncontrollably. As for the view of San Juan, it would have to wait for a later day. A thick, gray cloud rose off the mountain, immediately to that side of the road, obscuring the countryside beyond.

Several kilometers beyond that village, high among those mountains, just when the cold and rain seemed at their apex, the old man let out a shrill whistle, which those who dwell in these mountains use as a signal to be heard at a great distance. As it rounded a bend there, the truck gradually slowed.

“Good luck,” the old man said faintly. “The worst is past. You’re nearly there.” With that, he leapt down from the still-moving bed of the truck, and landed with a splash on the wet ground. I thought it strange as I watched him, from the moving truck, for such a frail old body to not have waited for the truck to stop completely. As he edged off the road and disappeared into the undergrowth, where he disappeared, I felt the cold begin to diminish slightly, and I realized, for the first time, that I would soon be home.

Many times since I have travelled that route in the plain of day, and thought to look for that bend in the road, where the old man faded away down a narrow, little used path, off through the trees and into the hills. But that turn in the road has always proved elusive, too difficult to distinguish from all the other bends, and I have never again been able to find it. I know only that the man must have dwelled in one of the isolated homes that sit in the hills well off the road, perhaps with his family, alone and isolated in the dark, cold night. I wondered where he might turn, out there, when something went drastically wrong. Then I asked the same question of myself.

Soon after, the descent into the valley began. The way down the mountain, carried by momentum, was an easier proposition for the truck, and its passenger. The rain let up a bit, and the temperature began to warm noticeably with each passing kilometer. I was invigorated by the knowledge that progress was coming faster now. I stood up and held on to the rail of the top of the cab. As the truck plowed forward down into the valley, I felt the mild air of the approaching basin sweeping up the mountainside, and knew the most difficult part of the journey was behind me. Soon I would be in San Juan. Soon, I thought, I would be home.

Reaching the valley floor, the truck sped down a section of new road, under construction just outside of town. There, the state had incongruously begun a project to pave the road through the valley between San Juan and the neighboring town of San Miguelito, despite the fact that sections on either end of that span remained unpaved, and in much more desperate need of attention. The workers, contracted in fits and starts that depended on the vagaries of the government budget, had been on an extended break since well before I arrived in San Juan, and had long since returned to their respective cities of origin, far away. Most of the work that had been accomplished was now being quickly undone by the rainy season, but the flat, unfinished roadbed still provided a rapid conduit towards my final destination.

The damp countryside was barren as the last light of the fading day made a gallant but unsuccessful attempt to break through the clouds and shine across the valley, when the truck crossed the bridge over the San Juan River, and stopped at the crossroads outside of town, from where it would head south. I descended, and began the short walk up the road into town, reenergized by the completion of the long trip. Exhilarated, I was in the mood to greet someone, but there was no one to be seen anywhere in the fading light. I encountered only silent streets as I walked up the road to the Perdido house, where I let myself in through the open screen door, and proceeded into the kitchen. Finding it empty, I sat down by the stove’s warm fire, and contentedly took in my surroundings.

The wood in the stove crackled slowly as I continue to warm there. I saw the makings of corn tortillas on the table, and a host of covered pots, pushed to one side of the stovetop. Before I could gather the energy to serve myself, Patricia came in. She jumped with surprise to see me seated there.

“The devil has come disguised as a gringo,” she said, when she had gotten her bearings.

“I’m not the devil,” I said, “but this fire is nice after the cold trip from La Esperanza.”

“How would I know if you are the devil or not?” she asked. “Only the devil would travel on a day like today. No reasonable person would attempt a trip in this rain, at this hour. Spirits are everywhere.”

“Well, I haven’t seen any,” I said. “I came alone in a truck, with just an old man for company.” Patricia smiled deliberately.

“This old man,” she asked, as she handed me a cup of hot tea, “was someone from San Juan?”

“No,” I said. “But he was nice enough. He got off at some bend and hopped off into the woods.”

“Ah ha!” she declared, as Aida appeared and, without a word, begin to prepare a hot plate for my dinner. “That’s what the spirits do. They travel with you, disguised as old men or women. Sometimes, when they have served their purpose, they disappear in the middle of the forest. Sometimes, if they are evil, they take those aboard with them.”

“It wasn’t a spirit,” I said, laughing as Aida set the plate down in front of me, on the table next to stove. “He spoke to me several times.”

“Ah,” Aida, who had remained in front of me after serving the meal, sighed knowingly. “But did he speak to anyone else?”

After dinner, on my way down the wet, dark street leading home, I thought about Aida’s question. As I approached my home in that dark corner of town, under the cloudy night sky, I tried to remember if I had seen the old man speak with anyone else. I wasn’t sure I had. He had hopped into the truck ahead of me, and gotten off, alone there in the mountains, without even waiting for the truck to stop, or negotiating the usual fare with the driver. In fact, I didn’t remember him appearing until we were alone at the crossroads.

Too tired to contemplate the episode further, I went in, undressed, and fell into my warm bed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

I awoke late the next morning and stepped out onto the back patio to a bright sun, shining warmly on the damp ground of the embankment behind the house. The rain had coaxed the dust from the air, and refreshed the earth. I was rejuvenated as well, from the peaceful night’s sleep that favors those tranquil in the knowledge that the next day brings no obligations or worries. I dressed leisurely, and made my way to breakfast, then on to the cooperative to look for Juan, who I hadn’t seen since my return.

As I approached the corner by the central plaza, I spotted the mayor on the front patio of the municipal building.

“Don Kawil,” he called to me with a smile. “So you are back!” I walked over to greet him.

“How are the girls in the capital?” the mayor asked, a little too loudly for my comfort. He turned to one the councilmen standing behind him. “This Kawil is quite a terror with the ladies,” the mayor said. The official nodded approvingly at the observation, in the same way he would have if the mayor had been speaking of budgeting or infrastructure. “Kawil,” Chago said, turning back to me, “I have something to discuss with you. Come into my office if you would.”

I followed the mayor inside, where the typical gathering of townspeople awaited him. He offered me a chair to the side, rather than in front of, his desk, before greeting a few of his other visitors. When the mayor returned, he sat down next to me, crossed one leg over the other, took off his hat and placed it on the desk, and looked at me with a serious countenance.

“Kawil, as you know, Friday is the anniversary of the independence of our great nation,” he began, as if he had rehearsed this speech many times. “Francisco Morazán, who you see there,” he said as he pointed to one of the pictures on the wall above his desk, a cardboard cut-out, more apt for a classroom than the mayor’s office, of the revolutionary hero, “liberated our land from the oppression of its colonizers almost two centuries ago on this date.”

I tried to agree, particularly with the part about the dastardly nature of the country’s colonizers. I had made a habit of taking every opportunity possible to express my distaste for the Spanish, a practice which seemed to take the spotlight off my own exotic origins. But the mayor proved to not be finished, so I remained quiet.

“This Friday, as we do each year, we will celebrate here in San Juan with a grand parade, for which I have already signed and stamped the proclamation,” he continued, glancing towards the official stamp which sat on his desktop at the ready. It seemed the mayor wanted everyone present to understand that a signed and stamped proclamation, in this context, was the greatest assurance available that the event being spoken of would in fact take place.

“I will lead the parade,” Chago continued, “which features the government officials, and other leading community members. It would be my pleasure, Don Kawil, for you to march alongside me.”

The mayor now seemed to have finished, but I waited a moment to make sure that I was not interrupting him. My delay had the added advantage of making it seem like I was taking the adequate time to consider this important request, which to me seemed simple enough. When I was sure the mayor’s monologue had indeed ended, I answered.

“Sure, Don Chago,” I said. “I would be honored.”

“All right, then,” the mayor said, brandishing his perpetual smile. “That is good. I will send the official invitation to the cooperative office later today.”

When that was agreed, the mayor stood up and extended his hand to me, then turned away, to speak with a group of farmers who were waiting for him. I took my leave of the municipal building, and continued my original errand to the cooperative across the street.

There I found Roque, the office guard, waiting as always in his position in front of the building. A former military officer of some insignificant rank, Roque had parlayed his experience into the job as guard, and was now prepared to use all his guile and militaristic wherewithal to defend the cooperative in case of an assault, which was thought likely to occur eventually, if not imminently. He opened the door for me with his usual military salute, acknowledging his understanding of my role as one of the cooperative’s ranking officers, as he pushed aside the shotgun with which he was armed for the part of his job description that did not include opening the door repeatedly. Inside, I found Juan seated behind the desk in his office.

“Good morning, Kawil. Aida said that you had returned!” Juan said as he greeted me with a firm handshake. “I didn’t hear you at the house last night.”

“I got in late from La Esperanza,” I told him. “It was a rough trip. It’s very cold up in the mountains with the rain.”

Juan had returned to his place behind his spartan desk, and motioned for me to be seated across from him. Intimately familiar with the difficulties of travel between San Juan and La Esperanza, he smiled with understanding as I described the trip. During his three years as manager of the cooperative, he had made that journey on countless occasions, every so often multiple times in a single day. Only recently had the cooperative board approved the purchase of a motorbike for him, not because they were concerned about the extensive burden of travel, but because the members were worried that it had become common knowledge that the manager frequented the route, travelling in the back of randomly selected trucks, with large sums of their deposits.

“I’ve just come from the mayor’s office,” I began, when I had finished describing the previous day’s trip. “He has invited me to march in the parade with him this weekend. It sounds like fun.”

I had been slightly amused by that invitation, which I now shared with Juan. The mayor had been very enthusiastic about inviting me, in my role as the cooperative advisor, and I had assumed Juan would be invited too.

“That is a great honor,” Juan said, attempting by looking out the window to hide the frown that had broken across his face. “Only those with great importance in the community are invited.”

“Certainly you have been invited too?” I asked, immediately realizing my mistake.

“No,” he said. “The mayor hasn’t invited me in past years. I’m not from here, you know. But it is a great honor for the community to host someone from so far away as you.”

“Thank you Juan, but I won’t march if you won’t,” I said, willing to exchange the marginal honor of being in the parade in the name of solidarity with Juan.

“Don’t be rash, Kawil,” he said, “you must participate.”

But we didn’t have the chance to discuss further, since, at that moment, Roque tapped on the door. Juan waved him in, and he entered slowly, with great deference, and laid two envelopes on Juan’s desk.

“These have just arrived,” Roque said. “I hope you don’t mind that I accepted their delivery.”

“Thank you, Roque,” Juan said, as he looked at the envelopes. The first, which he passed across the desk to me, bore an irreconcilably misspelled version of my name. The other Juan opened, extracting a letter, which he began to read aloud with a broad smile.

“This Friday,” he began, “is the anniversary of the independence of our great nation. Francisco Morazán liberated our land from the oppression of its colonizers almost two centuries ago on this date.”

Juan continued to read the letter, which matched verbatim the speech the mayor had just given me, finishing with the final sentence of invitation. In this case, however, Juan pronounced his own name instead of mine.

I looked at my copy of the official letter. It was signed and stamped to prove its authenticity.

“The municipal seal,” Juan said, “makes this document an official command from the mayor. So there is no discussion. We must present ourselves Friday at nine in the morning at the mayor’s office, to fulfill our role in the celebration of Independence Day!”

Juan looked out the window, across the way, at the back of the mayor’s office.

“It’s quarter of twelve,” he said, looking at his watch. “Let’s go catch the mayor before he leaves for lunch.”

I could barely keep up with Juan as he rushed out the door and across the street. Retracing my steps of a few moments before, we found the mayor in front of the municipal building, about to get into his truck.

Chago smiled at us as we approached. “Juan, Kawil, can I offer you a ride somewhere?” he asked.

Juan responded quickly, as if there was a chance I might say something to ruin the whole arrangement. “No, Mister Mayor, we’ve come to thank you for the invitation to participate this Friday. We will be present with you that day, anxious to do our part to help the cause of the celebration. You can be assured of that.”

“That’s good Juan. I’m glad.” The mayor said, smiling as always, as he extended his hand to each of us, in turn. “There is much work to do before then. Perhaps you will join me for the planning committee meeting this afternoon.” He stepped up into his truck, where he sat with the door open, still grinning.

“Yes, Mister Mayor, of course we will be there,” Juan said eagerly. The mayor nodded and closed the door gently.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was asleep after lunch when, apparently, the planning committee met. As we walked to the soccer field that afternoon, Juan reported that he had signed us both up for what he described as the Independence Day information committee.

“What does the information committee do?” I asked.

“We are in charge of disseminating information about the festivities – like the parade,” Juan answered, his excitement over being invited to take part still apparent. It was our job, he explained, to make sure that everyone in town knew about the parade.

“Who else is on the committee?” I asked, somewhat skeptically.

“There is also Father Ismael from the church, and Don Alvaro, the principal of the high school,” Juan told me, “and of course, the mayor.”

“Aren’t those the people you said were at the planning committee meeting?” I followed, perhaps a bit cynically.

“Yes, in reality it is the same group of people on all the committees,” Juan said, with a sheepish grin, though he didn’t seem to share my doubt over the need to have several different committees comprised of the same group of people. “Our main job,” he continued, regaining his serious demeanor, “is to make sure everyone in town knows about the details of the activities on Friday.”

“But Juan, isn’t there a parade every year? Don’t people already know there will be a celebration on Independence Day?”

“The people need the details, and they need to be reminded. We have already formulated a plan to remind them,” Juan said, with a chuckle. “It’s already Wednesday, and the mayor has to make a trip to La Esperanza tomorrow to buy materials for decorating the town, so we had to think quickly.”

“So what did you decide?” I asked, anxious to know what I had gotten myself into.

“The best way to communicate information,” Juan explained, “is of course the ‘speaking car,’ which we will ready for Friday.” I had already seen the form of publicity to which Juan was referring employed around San Juan more than once. The scheme was straight forward enough. It involved rigging a car with large loudspeakers connected to a microphone, then circling the town repeatedly, while announcing the desired information, in this case that the parade would start at nine on Friday morning, and that, most likely by municipal decree, everyone was commanded to be present.

“The committee decided furthermore,” Juan continued, “that the best time to undertake the mission will be when everyone is in their home. Upon further consideration, we determined the most convenient time to be the morning before the parade. We are expected to meet the mayor at the municipal building at four o’clock Friday morning.”

With that, we arrived at the soccer field.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday morning came, and I was sound asleep when Juan came knocking on my door at precisely four in the morning. If I had learned one thing in San Juan, it was to expect that nothing would go according to plan, so when Juan appeared, he had to wait for me as I got out of bed and quickly got dressed.

“This plan will work perfectly,” Juan said, as we walked to the central plaza through town, still asleep on a dark, chilly morning. “We will have a captive audience, as everyone is in their house at this hour.”

The mayor must have been less confident, because when we arrived at the municipal building, he was busy loading a pile of bottle rockets and firecrackers, which he had bought in La Esperanza the previous day, into his truck. He eagerly showed off some even more imposing explosive devices, which he simply referred to as ‘bombs.’ The priest soon arrived in his own car, accompanied by the school principal. They had already installed the loud speakers, which belonged to the church, in the back of his truck. Those devices, the priest explained, had been a donation to the church years ago, from well meaning Catholics elsewhere who didn’t realize that San Juan had no electricity. They were convenient to have, he said with a wink, on occasions like this one.

At a few minutes after four o’clock in the morning, we set off from the municipal plaza, with the priest at the wheel of his car, and the principal on the microphone. I followed behind, riding with the mayor in his truck, with Juan in the back manning the fireworks and bombs, about which the mayor was demonstrably animated.

“When we get to strategic points, I’ll give the word, and we will throw these bombs out onto the street,” the mayor said, slapping my shoulder enthusiastically as he elaborated on his plan. “Then, once we have everyone’s attention, we make the announcement of the parade.”

We followed that plan closely, driving one by one down the streets of the village, shooting off fireworks at the intersections, followed by the announcement.

“The parade celebrating Independence Day begins at nine,” the principal declared repeatedly as we drove along. “Begin your preparations now!”

I tried to imagine what those preparations might entail, as we paused on the street outside the Perdido house, while Juan detonated a series of firecrackers with a gleeful shout. That morning escapade went on for almost an hour, as we made three complete circuits around the town. Finally, with the mayor satisfied that the whole village was not just awake but also well informed, the members of the information committee returned to our respective homes and went back to sleep.

When I woke up again, it was nearly nine. I jumped out of bed, already dressed, and raced over to Juan’s door, upon which I knocked loudly.

“Let’s go Juan, it’s time for the parade!” I yelled.

Juan emerged from his room with a start, and we rushed over to the municipal building. In the central plaza, we found the school bands from each of the aldeas around the village gathered. They were preparing for the parade with a distracting cacophony that epitomized the haphazard preparations taking place around them. The mayor stood, harried, in front of the municipal building, surrounded by his councilmen. He was dressed in a bright white button down shirt, with intricately woven cords hanging from each shoulder, which connected to his belt in a colorful array. He wore bright blue trousers and black boots, along with some variety of wide-brimmed hat that must have been used to signal the status of a leader of some forgotten rank, many decades ago. Dressed that way, the mayor resembled quite closely the general that he was fond of pointing out in that picture above his desk.

The mayor was occupied with the arrangements for the parade, and one of the councilmen greeted us. “We are ready to go as soon as the mayor’s assistant comes back,” the man said. “He has gone home to look for the keys to the office. The mayor needs the town staff to lead the parade.”

A large crowd had formed in the plaza, and was beginning to overflow along the street leading down the main road into town. The people waited patiently as the final preparations for the parade were performed. After some delay, the mayor’s assistant was spotted down the street, meandering along in no particular hurry, as the growing crowd, anxious for the parade to start, urged him along in his mission of returning with the keys. A councilman anxiously took the keys and disappeared into the municipal building. When he failed to emerge expediently with the awaited staff, Juan was sent to look for him, and I followed along.

We found the councilman towards the back of the municipal hall in the seldom-used area of the long room, standing in front of a large wooden display case. The floor was covered in a think layer of dust, as were the councilman’s hands, from trying to force open the glass doors of the neglected case, through which I could see a variety of objects presumably useful in the ceremonial rule of the town, though I couldn’t make out the staff in question.

“Can we be of help?” Juan asked delicately, after observing the councilman’s struggles for what seemed like an inordinate amount of time, given our presumed rush, as he continued his attempt to pry open the doors of the case.

“The key to this case is nowhere to be found, and the mayor’s staff is inside,” the councilman said, as he hurriedly sorted once more through the large collection of keys on the ring in front of him. Juan let out a beleaguered hiss to express his shared dismay at the predicament, as a number of the other town leaders now made their way down the hall towards us.

The group discussed the problem at length, but was pressed to come up with a viable substitute for the missing key. Finally, the high school principal appeared with a crowbar, and the door was pried open with a snap. But the staff was nowhere to be found, so the mayor was called for. When the situation was explained to him, he smiled apologetically.

“We were waiting for the staff?” Chago asked guiltily. “You should have told me, I took the staff home yesterday to be cleaned and polished. I forgot all about it in the rush this morning. I will send for it.”

It was closer to midday than the parade’s planned starting time when one of Chago’s sons appeared with the wayward staff, and the parade was finally ready to begin. Don Santiago began the festivities with an impromptu speech. The crowd, which had been growing ever larger with each moment of delay, listened intently as the mayor spoke. Just as suddenly as he had begun his speech, the mayor gave a shout, waved the prized staff, and the bands began to play all at once as he marched off, down the road that leads out of town.

One of the councilmen quickly motioned for Juan and I to fall in next to the mayor, as he led the parade down the main street, waving at the people that lined the road, two or three deep on either side at some points. I felt at first a bit strange to march past the same people we conversed with on a daily basis, who now watched, and waved back at us with enthusiasm to reflect our temporary celebrity status. The spectators shouted and cheered as our small lead group passed, followed by the numerous school bands.

We marched down the long block of the main street, to the edge of town, where the crowd quickly began to diminish. But Chago didn’t stop there. Holding his staff aloft ahead of him, the mayor marched on, down the hill towards crossroads, past the thinning crowd, and out of town.

Confused, I looked over at Juan, who shrugged, and signaled for me to continue to follow the mayor. The mayor must have eventually realized, as we reached the bridge out of town, that this tack was leading the parade into the countryside, because when he slowed down and looked about, a concerned expression came over his face. With one of the bands rapidly bearing down immediately behind the lead group, the mayor, as quickly as he had stopped, made a broad u-turn and began to march, with renewed zeal, back towards the town. The entire parade stretched out behind, and lost its shape momentarily to avoid falling off the bridge, as band after band followed the mayor’s ill-conceived route, first down to the bridge, then around and back up the hill towards the plaza, past the same crowd the parade had passed on the way down. Nevertheless the mayor and his councilmen saluted them once again, and the people cheered with no less passion or any surprise at seeing the mayor’s group of honor this second time.

“Look at all the people,” the mayor shouted towards Juan and me, without taking his eyes off the crowd. “Our early morning planning must have worked!” I was too busy waving at people to appreciate the mayor’s dubious logic. Chago, who seemed to have put less thought into the parade route than other details of the day, spontaneously made a right turn at the plaza, and we marched towards the parallel street and the Perdido home. When we passed the house, Patricia hurried out, carrying Aidita, her young daughter. Juan and I waved proudly at them as they pointed and shouted.

We continued up the street to the soccer field, where the parade, having already been strung out along several blocks as the marchers advanced at varying speeds, ended in complete disarray as the bands streamed one by one into the open space. Much of the crowd had also made its way up the main street to the field, where the end of the parade had apparently been anticipated, and a makeshift stage had been set up.

With the last of the paraders still arriving, the mayor began a long and patriotic speech which lasted into the afternoon. In turn, each of the members of the ‘guard of honor,’ as the mayor called the small group that had marched along with him at the head of the parade, was asked to speak. I was not left out, and the mayor eventually called me forward. I stood up from the chair that had been provided to me, alongside the others behind the pedestal at which the mayor stood, and prepared to address the town.