Ecuador

1990 -- One of the first things that we did upon arriving to Salinas, Ecuador, was to get Pampero ashore to fix the worm problem. My father spoke to the military there, and somehow (probably through a lot of baksheesh) got them to agree to slip her in their area. Once that was done, Phil worked very hard removing rotten planks and replacing them, though he couldn't replace them with white beech, what most of her is made of.

My brother and I made friends with a few of the militia, and as was our wont, made a cubby house. In it we had all sorts of junk that we found, and one of our little escapades included making a little fire in there, and we forgot to put the embers out properly, so one night it was set afire. The water wasn't too far away, so it was bucket-time, and we threw what must have been half the harbour onto it.

My mother thought it a good idea to put us into school, and so found a local primary that would take us. This was the time that both myself and my brother ended up in the same grade. A lot of friends were made by both myself and Damien, though when we were caned for not doing homework, we got up and left, never to return. It was a unanimous decision by us both, and our mother never made us go back, either. It was a poor school, for the working class, and it didn't even have a toilet! We had to ask people living nearby for usage of facilities if we were desperate.

The staple food of the region were bananas. Or, as they called them, bananos, which I might point out, is not the Spanish word for bananas, which is platanos. This was a special kind, which people used in cooking either green or ripe. When ripe and fried, they were very sweet. Boiled green ones were used instead of potatoes; they were very starchy. My mother adopted this style of cooking while we were there.

When back in the water, we were made to stay a while longer, for my father had an accident. A very large barge was cast adrift, and it came up against Pampero, threatening to do harm. My father—rather stupidly—put himself between the barge and Pampero, and got his chest squished. My mother then had to go up to Caracas to get permission to stay on, for Phil needed x-rays and the like to see if he was okay.

During this time, Damien and I had fun exploring—and hurting ourselves -- and making friends with the people around. I recall Juan Antonio, who was a good friend to us both … he was a local who made a move on me. As a young girl, I had no idea what to do, and ended up showing how "much I liked him" by punching him and the like.