The Gringo: A Memoir by J. Grigsby Crawford Page B

had any advice on where I should look for a place to stay after my first few months. (It was a Peace Corps rule that we live with a host family for our first three months, after which we were free to find our own place, as long as the rent was less than seventy dollars a month.)
    I think Roberto misunderstood me and instead jumped into general advice for living in my community. “The single most important thing to do,” he said, “is to give the impression that you’re someone who doesn’t drink alcohol.”
    I just nodded and he kept speaking. “The people here, they seem nice, and some of them are. But when they drink, they turn into—how should I put it—ah, they turn into animals . Even the ones that aren’t animals, they drink and when they drink they don’t know when to stop and then they’re, uh, dangerous. I don’t know if you drink; when I was your age I drank, a lot. But don’t drink with these people here. Drink all you want with a few of your friends, but the people here are not your friends.” He dropped me off at the end of my driveway and told me to stop by his house anytime I wanted.

    THAT SUNDAY, MY HOST FAMILY and I drove to a river nearby for lunch and some of the uncles began drinking beer. One of them turned into an animal.
    While we were there, I managed some good conversation with other members of the family. I finally got around to talking to Sandra’s fifteen-year-old sister, Evelyn, about her pregnancy. I’d been nervous about asking her for some time because, for one, seeing such a tiny young girl pregnant was a startling image, and second, I wasn’t actually sure she was pregnant. All the women in her family seemed to have big midsections, so at first I wasn’t completely positive. Then it was undeniable.
    Sitting in the back seat of the pickup to stay out of the heat, I asked Evelyn where the father was.
    “He died.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. When?” I asked.
    “Seven months ago.”
    I paused. “Can I go to the hospital when the baby comes?”
    “Sure,” she said.
    We talked some more and she ran off to go swimming in the river while still wearing her jeans and T-shirt.
    Another one of Sandra’s sisters, Rosa, was in town for the weekend and joined us at the river. (Every time someone new showed up to the house, I was assured it was a temporary visit; the only time that was true, however, was with this third sister of Sandra’s.) Rosa had her three-year-old boy with her.
    Everyone else was down by the river, either swimming in full clothing with the women or aggressively drinking beer with the men.
    I turned to Rosa. “Your little boy is really quiet, not like the others always crying and screaming and fighting. He’s very calm,” I said. After my interactions with the litter of other Mendoza kids, I felt this was by far the highest compliment I could have paid her.
    “Yes, he’s a quiet boy, but he’s been more quiet lately since his dad died,” said Rosa.
    “My god. His dad—your husband—died? He’s not living any longer?” I said. Since I’d become so accustomed to my host family telling me lies, later to be explained as “jokes,” I had resorted to asking a question several different ways to sift out any misinterpretations.
    “Yes, it’s the truth. He died a month ago in an accident.”
    “What kind of accident?”
    “An accident with a gun,” she said.
    “Was it his gun or someone else’s?”
    “His gun. We were outside doing work and we heard a big bang so I ran inside and I saw him lying dead on the floor,” she said. “We don’t know how it happened.”
    “I’m very sorry,” I said. “Is it all hard to explain to your little boy? Sometimes these things are hard to explain to kids . . .”
    “Yeah, it is. He sometimes asks where his daddy is, or when his daddy is going to come back home.”
    A few minutes later I said, “Wow, and Evelyn’s baby’s daddy died, too.”
    “No, no,” she said. “He’s alive.”
    I pressed