At last the report is finished! It took so much thought and careful recording to put that together that I was beginning to think we might never finish. We sent it off with a sigh of relief. It's the best work we have done so far. We just hope that it helps.
The realtor called us and said that the second counter-offer had been accepted. We are jubilant, but cautious. The buyers have until the inspection on Friday the 20th to back out, but they want us to be moved out by May 1, 12 days after we return from Ecuador.
Aída's brother has an internet cafe right here at the edge of the family compound. We were able to print out the dozen or so pages of the real estate contract, sign it and send it to the U.S. in about a half hour. The young woman who was helping us had great skill with all the machinery and programs, which would have defeated us if we had been by ourselves--and might, for all we know, have defeated anyone else. We look at youngsters like that with awe. Even the realtor wanted to know how she was able to photocopy the pages and put them into pdf format. It turns out that her daughter is the shy two-year-old niece for whom Aída is making the three-milk cake this morning.
Also this morning, we met Felipe, Aída's son, who is a tattoo artist working in Quito. He comes to see her about once a week. It seems that we are sleeping in the room he usually uses. He is quiet, and I think he is thinking, "Who are these people who have taken my room?"
After lunch, we had an appointment with Aída's brother Fernando and his wife Graciela in their home two doors down. When I met them in 2011, they were making pens with a highly decorated clay sleeve and faces on the top. These are not selling as well as they used to, and the couple is looking for products they can make in their place. This day, they are making rainsticks and sticking clay faces on them which Fernando carves. He explains he has had difficulty finding a replacement for the clay he used on the pens, and that he knows we are not buying items decorated with this clay.
They are also working on cut-out wooden earrings which he skillfully cuts out with a small table saw. Graciela sands and stains them and attaches the hooks. She also showed us some beautiful laser-cut boxes they had made, some painted, some not. They have hopes that they can continue their craft work, as it is all they know. Fernando started out with wood-carving, but the competition with the other 3,000 wood carvers was so tough that he decided to carve clay instead. He is still searching for the products that will do well and distinguish him from the other woodcarvers.
My class is tonight, so we asked Aída if we could stay here one more night, as the internet access is good, and we are tired from the last week's report, not quite ready to launch into more interviews. She seemed glad to have us, and we are very, very fond of her. This is probably the most beautiful place we have stayed so far. It is high on the hillsides surrounding the town, and all around us is very rural and peaceful. We have loved watching the fog roll up the valleys each evening and unfold like a carpet revealing the mountains hidden behind each morning. It is much cooler and more pleasant here than in Ibarra, too, which is in a valley and therefore hotter.
Truth be told, we don't quite yet want to part with Aída, and it seems she feels the same way. We find ourselves akin to her in so many ways. Our hopes and dreams are to sell our house and be able to find the new direction for our efforts, in what will be my last working years. Hers are to earn enough money to fulfill her children's dreams. On what slender legs our different worlds stand!
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