EIGHT THOUSAND MILES FROM QATAR

Eight thousand miles from Ecuador's Chota Valley, where a gringo and his girlfriend sit in the November moonlight, watching a dozen boys kick a soccer ball on a concrete court and looking for a face neither has seen in five years, the Ecuadorian national team takes the field in Qatar, preparing for their second World Cup match against the Netherlands.

“Charley is out there somewhere,” I say, surveying the concrete swarm in front of me.

“Would you even recognize him? He’s a teenager now.”

I nod slowly, not confident enough to answer out loud. Alexis repeats the question, and the slight irritation in her voice pulls my attention from the game. She’s staring straight ahead, cradling her backpack to ward off the evening’s chill, fighting fatigue after the six-hour ride from Quito. I skip the nod this time; yes, I would recognize him.

Noise erupts from the court, and I turn back to watch one of the teams celebrating a goal. A group farther down the bleachers begins an elaborate cheer, but my focus lingers on the scene in front of me — scanning the faces, looking for Charley. Suddenly, a voice speaks from my left: “¿De dónde eres?”

The question goes unanswered as play resumes. The action is raw, unrefined, just like when Charley and I sat here five years ago, cheering for his older brother Eddy. The voice speaks again, asking where we’re from, and Alexis, who understands Spanish but only knows how to say the colors, answers her in English.

A halting response: “You are… from… United States?”

Alexis smacks my leg, and I turn away from the game. “Yes, we’re from the States,” I explain in Spanish, “but we’re visiting Santiago —”

The girl cuts me off to shout toward her friends. “They are American! I told you!” She looks back slowly. “Wait, did you say ‘Santiago’? You know Santiago?”

I hesitate before responding, unsure how many qualifiers the answer requires. That I only met him on the bus? That I only stayed here for a week? That I haven’t spoken to him or his family in years? I decide to keep it simple. “Of course I know Santiago, but we’re just here for — ”

The girl cuts me off again to relay this new information, but the rest of the group has already arrived. A small boy wearing the bright yellow of the national team's jersey jumps in. “Santiago Mendez? From here?”

“From right here in Chalguayacu.”

Soccer Jersey is incredulous. “Imagine Santiago actually knowing an American,” he begins, but I lose track of the banter that follows. I turn to check in on Alexis. A gaggle of younger children has emerged from who-knows-where, bombarding her with questions and, from the braver ones, requests to teach them bad words in English.

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Look at you. You’re a star.”

“I can’t communicate anything,” Alexis counters sharply. “And listen, I think we should figure things out before it gets much later.”

The girl doesn’t give me a chance to respond, snapping her fingers to get my attention. “You really came all this way just to see Santiago?”

“Yes,” I say, omitting the fact that I never got a response on Facebook when I told him I wanted to visit, or from any of the four Charley Mendezes he’s friends with; omitting, too, that Alexis is absolutely certain the family doesn’t even live here anymore. “To see Santiago, and also to watch the World Cup tomorrow.”

“¡Vamos, Ecuador!” Soccer Jersey shouts, grabbing the front of his shirt and holding it out proudly.

“¡Arriba la Tri!” I respond, but the girl is shaking her head in disbelief.

“All this way just to see Santiago. How long are you staying?”

“Long enough to watch the match, that’s it. And not just Santiago, of course, but Blanca too, and Eddy and Charley — ”

“Oh, Charley’s out there now. Hey, Charley!” she calls toward the court. “Charley Mendez!”

I give Alexis a wry smile: See, I told you. She smiles back. Barely.

The girl keeps calling, but I cut her off. “No, don’t do that. But we need to find the house. Can you remind me where they live?”

“Just up the street,” she responds. We’re on our way.

******************************************************************************

“How many gringos do you think Santiago brings home for a week?”

The question stops me about fifty feet from the house. From where I stand, I can see Blanca in the front yard. She’s clearing off the clothesline, folding items one by one and filling her hamper. The view is familiar; my confidence, on the other hand, is wavering.

I close my eyes and search for the smell of detergent. Over the past five years, particular sensations, including the floral scent I imagine filling Blanca’s hamper, have brought me back to the Chota Valley. Despite my fond memories, though, I have no idea if the family feels the same, or if they’ll even remember me. Alexis is unconcerned; after our complete inability to contact Santiago, she seems satisfied just knowing the family still lives here at all. She repeats her question — surely, I concede, I’m the only one — and nudges me toward the house.

Blanca faces away from us as we enter the yard, gently moving her hips to the music coming through the doorway. At our approach, she turns around; a few hesitant steps in our direction, and we're face-to-face. As she pauses to consider the specter in front of her, I fumble with a greeting: “I don’t know if you remember me, but — ”

I cut myself off to look through the open door behind her. The light is on in the front room, the table set for a late meal just as it was the night I showed up. He sat next to me on the bus, Santiago explained then. I thought I would show him around. I remember Blanca shaking her head, laughing at Santiago’s impulsivity. She filled my plate first.

Blanca leans over now to set down the hamper, and the couch comes into view, beneath family photographs on the wall and a framed portrait of Jesus. I joined Charley there that first night and asked him questions through his stuffed monkey, Pedrito. We returned every evening, reading separate books while Charley paused occasionally to ask for translations of his favorite words. He created his own English-Spanish dictionary that week, but I have no idea if Blanca remembers our lessons — or, as I've just begun saying, if she remembers me at all. Suddenly, my confidence falters again, the home no longer feeling as familiar, the laundry line less reminiscent of the —

“Zachariah!”

Alexis will tell me later that Blanca threw her hands into the air and pulled me in for a hug. She’ll claim that, when Blanca let go, I just spun around in circles because my words had failed me. I won't be able to confirm any of this, having blacked out from delight, but once I regain self-awareness, after my first thought of Thank god she’s here, I blurt out an explanation.

“We came for the World Cup! I want my girlfriend to meet Santiago and —”

Blanca interrupts me, nervously explaining that Santiago is away working.

“And you and the boys,” I finish, and she beams. “We thought we could find somewhere to watch the match tomorrow, somewhere with la gente, with everyone.”

“Here,” she replies simply. “You’ll come here.”

******************************************************************************

The taxi drops us off the next morning, one hour before the match begins.

The first time I visited Chalguayacu, I had come from Loja, a provincial capitol in the southern highlands. I was finishing a year teaching English and wanted to explore the country. I had already visited many of the smaller Black communities up and down the coast. Before I left, I wanted to see the Chota Valley.

Nestled in the Andes just south of the Colombian border, the Chota Valley's history of resilience intrigued me. Jesuit missionaries first arrived in the area in the 16th century, establishing haciendas on indigenous land. African slaves were brought from the coast to work the cotton and sugar fields, and their descendants remained in bondage until 1852. Following abolition, communities of freed individuals settled in the valley. The area has been the heart of the inland, Afro-Ecuadorian population ever since.

My colleagues in Loja didn't understand my interest in the region. They had no connections for me, either, so I was lucky to meet Santiago on the bus. He had just finished his work week in Ibarra, the nearest city to the Chota Valley. I told him how excited I was to be visiting this part of the country. When we reached the turn-off for Chalguayacu, he invited me to stay with him.

Five years later, as Alexis and I walk the cobbled streets, I point out some of the signposts of that previous visit: here, the corner shop where I got beer before watching pick-up soccer games, and where the owner teased me, reminding me every time to bring the bottle back even though I had never forgotten; there, the street corner where three abuelas taught me to salsa dance and tried to set me up with every young lady who walked past; up ahead, the concrete card hall where the old men gathered, and where they pulled me in one night to teach me a local game whose rules and name I’ve long since forgotten.

On either side of us, a near-continuous stretch of clotheslines runs in front of the houses. Charley and I played volleyball every afternoon that week, smacking a soccer ball over Blanca's laundry and recruiting other kids to be our opponents. When he wanted to play football, we’d move into the street. I always insisted on playing with Didier, the smallest boy in the group. Our offense consisted of one play: me chucking the soccer ball into the air and, if Didier caught it, running down and carrying him into the end zone.

Farther down the street lives Santiago’s brother Marco. He visited one evening with his twin daughters, Katy and Nedy, while I was working with Charley on his translations. The girls wanted a lesson of their own, so I came over the next day and taught them the days of the week and how to count to ten, how to say “Hello, teacher” and “Good morning, teacher.” The girls’ enthusiasm delighted me. I wanted more. Before I left, I told Marco I would come back one day and open an ESL school.

It took half a decade to return, but I'm hopeful people still remember me — the gringo who broke the rules by being interested, who left his mark in the short time he was here. And yet, though wandering eyes follow me and Alexis through town, these are stares of disbelief rather than of recognition. With time remaining before the match begins, I suggest we continue walking, but my perspective has shifted. The filter of hospitality has vanished. I see my surroundings instead with the markings of despair that my former colleagues must have imagined: broken tiles under our feet, barren yards and crumbling brick walls. A heritage of neglect on the community that bore its burden.

We turn a corner and pass a plot of cinder blocks, some construction that looks unmistakably familiar from the last time I was here. Two children emerge from the site, passing a soccer ball back and forth. One kicks it off the wall, and the other heads it back; another pass from the first, but a broken tile redirects the ball toward me. I put out my foot and kick it back. The boys hardly notice.

Encouraged by this burst of activity, I turn to Alexis with a flourish. “Here we have the famous construction project of Chalguayacu. It was just as impressive five years ago, when —”

Alexis interrupts me with the question I suspect she’s been wondering since we arrived. “What did you do here for a week?”

It was the same question I heard the first time once word had spread of the gringo staying at the Mendez house. The same question asked at the start of another sunset soccer game, when I showed up to cheer for whoever was playing; when I left early to help Blanca prepare dinner; when the next day arrived and I was still in Chalguayacu, wandering through town and chatting with everyone I met. What are you doing here?

The simple truth was that I liked being part of the community. I liked the feeling that my presence here mattered — the conversations I had on the street and the time I spent with the children, that ESL school I was determined to come back and open. That had been enough for me, but I wish there was something more to offer Alexis. Something to show the spirit of the town. A street party for the match, perhaps, or a bomba circle.

I had bugged Rodolfo, Santiago’s other brother, all week before he finally introduced me to bomba, the fast-paced, rhythmic music of the Afro-Ecuadorian highlands. He showed up at the house one afternoon with some friends on the street. He led me outside and pointed to two of them. They stepped back. I took my spot in between.

Bomba traditionally features the guitar but, on the streets of Chalguayacu, can be played with virtually anything; in this case, that meant one guy strumming on a cheese grater, another blowing on a granadilla leaf, and two more banging on buckets. Rodolfo handed me a couple of claves to knock together — easily the most traditional instrument in the bunch — and a Fanta bottle filled with puro, the fermented-sugar moonshine of the Chota Valley. I took a swig as he returned to his own bucket opposite me. Then I passed the bottle to the left, and the music began.

As the bottle made its way around the circle, one singer after another improvised lyrics over the rhythm and the high-pitched wailing of the granadilla leaf, producing a combination of storytelling, freestyle rap battle, and insult comic roast that ranged in topic from some people’s girlfriends to other people's wives, and from those same people’s sisters to — well, that was mostly it. I banged the claves while the music filled the air. I had been accepted by the community for a week, but this circle was their most precious gift: sharing the spirit of the street as though I were one of their own.

Now, as Alexis and I make our fourth right turn around the soccer court, I struggle to remember what I sang in my clumsy Spanish when the Fanta bottle returned to me — only Rodolfo’s gentle encouragement and the good-natured goading from the crowd. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the children from before running toward us. One of them comes to a halt, raising his hand in a half-wave, and Alexis points at his shoes. The laces have come undone. She makes a motion of tying a knot, and the boy bends over to fasten them. He scampers off, leaving the whisper of a “gracias” behind him.

These children are too young to remember me, but this is what I’m looking for: validation from a familiar or not-so-familiar face, some trace of the welcome I received here and the relationships that remain. I visited five years ago searching for a secret slice of the country that I could keep for myself. The Chota Valley never left me; I hope part of me never left here, either.

******************************************************************************

“Hey, it’s James Madison! We got Madison!”

Alexis shoves the dollar coin in my face and shuffles through the rest in her hand. “Sacajawea… Sacajawea… Monroe!”

She lets out a small whoop and shows me the handful of change. Ever since learning that Ecuador uses American currency, Alexis has been on the hunt for presidential coins. With my own arms swimming with halftime beers from the shop, she pulls two more coins from her pocket and adds them to the collection. “This means we’ve got 1, 3, 4, and 5!”

Washington. Jefferson. Madison. Monroe. Not too shabby.

Alexis takes a little leap and nearly loses her balance. She gives her head a quick shake. “Man, that moonshine went right to my brain!”

As if on cue, a voice calls out from the side of the road: “¿Toma otra copita?” I look over, and one of the three men we passed going the other way extends a bottle of puro in our direction. He gestures for us to come over and take another swig.

Like a moth drawn to the flame of the peeling Fanta label, I veer straight toward the curb. Alexis, however, lets out a groan. “I don’t know,” she says, “that last shot burnt everything going down.” I don’t disagree, but with Ecuador losing 1 - 0, we need all the good mojo we can get. I shift the bottles in my arms and throw back the shot.

Slightly wobblier now, I lead the way. “Up ahead,” I say, gesturing to the far side of the street. “That’s where Santiago’s brother Marco lives, the one with the twin daughters.”

My thoughts turn once again to the girls. I imagine them inside the house, using the English they’ve learned since our time together — reading a book on the couch, perhaps, and practicing their favorite phrases. The scene immediately transforms into the school I never got around to starting, the one I thought would’ve drawn me back by now. In my mind, I see a classroom filled with students from all over the Chota Valley. The girls are there. Charley, too. Learning the language they first spoke when I arrived.

I don’t notice Marco standing outside until Alexis elbows me. I call out to him, but he shows no recognition as he approaches the fence. I try to break the ice, joking about finally returning to open the school. Nothing. I explain that I visited Santiago years ago, but his face remains blank. Suddenly, I’m worried that I’ve misidentified him.

“You're Santiago's brother, right?”

“Yes.”

“So you're Marco?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Zachariah! Do you remember me?”

“Yes.”

He finally says something substantial, but his speech is nearly incomprehensible; the local dialect was hard to understand even after a week the first time, and Marco’s accent was the most challenging. He continues talking, but his tone doesn’t get much friendlier. His words don't become even remotely more intelligible.

Marco looks at me when he finishes, apparently expecting a response, but I’m speechless — he could just as easily have invited me back this afternoon as told me never to return again. After a moment, he simply pats me on the shoulder and walks into his house.

Stupefied, I turn to Alexis. "Don't look at me,” she says, “I’m not the one who speaks Spanish. Let alone whatever that was.”

I follow her away, trying to reconstruct what Marco said. Something about that first lesson with the girls, maybe? His frustration that I never returned? I want to go back and explain that I left with good intentions. I want to point to Katy and Nedy and the book I know is in their hands. I want to remind him of all the other students that would’ve benefitted from the school, but another thought stops me in my tracks: What if he's forgotten?

I try to conjure the fantasy again, but the image has disappeared from my mind: the children gone and the school vanished, my name scrubbed from the facade. All trace of my influence —

Suddenly, shouting erupts behind us. The men with the puro are cheering, and one calls out that Ecuador has scored.

The game is tied and Alexis has four-fifths of the Virginia Dynasty in her pocket. Things are looking up.

******************************************************************************

I was awake before the sun rose the morning after the bomba circle. The music and puro had gone long into the night, and my head throbbed as I stumbled to the breakfast Blanca prepared for me: a cup of sweet coffee, cold from sitting out all night, and an humita — a corn-and-cheese paste baked in a corn husk, similar to a tamale. Rodolfo had invited me to his plot of land in the mountains that morning. I was still eating when he burst into the house.

“Zachariah, you’re awake!”

I winced as Rodolfo bounded over. He reached out and touched my cup, shaking his head mournfully at the temperature and replacing it with the one he had brought for himself. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Rodolfo hadn’t told me much about his work, but the first task, I discovered, was finding a ride. He suggested we try his friend Eduardo, a late arrival to the bomba circle who had brought an entire bottle of puro for himself. I wasn't surprised when no one answered the door; to his credit, Rodolfo didn't appear to be, either. He raised his hand and mimed the quick throwback of a shot of alcohol. I followed him away.

Three houses later, I was beginning to suspect the entire town was still recovering from the previous night. “Rodolfo, look,” I began, “maybe we should just — ”

“No, no. Don’t worry. I’ll go this way, you knock over there.”

I looked doubtfully up the empty street, hoping Rodolfo had a backup plan — something other than waking strangers up to ask for a ride in a language I couldn’t reliably speak. Instead, he placed his hand on my shoulder and stifled a mischievous grin. “Trust me,” he said unconvincingly. “You’ll be fine.”

He walked away to continue canvassing, and I discovered a sudden interest in watching the grass grow. Luckily, it didn’t take long for a truck to pull up from behind. Rodolfo was standing in the back, calling to me: “Zachariah! Zachariah! I told you not to worry!”

As I climbed in, a bottle of puro hit me square in the chest and fell to the flatbed.

“Everything good now?”

“Sí, claaaaro,” he said. Of course. "Let’s go!”

It’s five years later when Rodolfo reminds me of that adventure. There are four of us watching the second half of the match in Eddy’s room — Rodolfo and Eddy on the bed, Alexis and I in chairs next to it — and the announcer’s rapid-fire Spanish calling the 1 - 1 tie is giving me a conniption. Punctuating his story with a gentle “tranquilo, tranquilo,” Rodolfo urges me to stay calm. Just like that morning, everything will be fine.

Suddenly, in the 59th minute, Ecuador threatens to score again. From the corner, Angelo Preciado crosses the ball in front of the Dutch goal. The ensuing shot is deflected by a defender, and Gonzalo Plata secures the ricochet. He launches the ball from just inside the box. It clanks off the crossbar and bounces feebly to the side.

As the defense sends the ball the opposite way, the announcer goes absolutely ballistic and Rodolfo prostrates himself on the bed. “No, no, no!” he cries, pounding his fists. “How could he miss that!”

I can’t help chuckling to see Rodolfo’s unshakable calmness finally shaken. Before I can remind him to stay tranquilo, though, he’s recovered. “Todo bien,” he assures me with a grin. Everything is good. He taps me on the chest, patting the #13 of my Enner Valencia jersey, Ecuador’s star player who scored the lone goal earlier in the half. “Just get us one more, okay?”

In the commotion, Charley has come running from the kitchen with the last of the halftime beers. Rodolfo gesticulates toward the doorway — “Charley, my boy, it was this close!” — before changing track, signaling for the bottle instead. Charley holds it out. The cap is still on. Rodolfo tells him to toss it anyway.

As Rodolfo raises the bottle to his teeth, Alexis leaps up and frantically pantomimes using an opener. With a wink, Rodolfo displays the cap already in his palm. He motions for her to sit back down and hands over a cup. “To Enner Valencia!” Alexis exclaims. I pound my jersey in agreement.

“Sí, claaaaro,” Rodolfo responds, but then he points at a poster of Agustin Delgado on the wall behind me. As the national team’s second-highest all-time scorer, Delgado is a legend of Ecuadorian soccer. Most notably, he netted the opening goal in the country’s 2002 World Cup debut, a campaign which began an unprecedented tally of four World Cup qualifications in the 21st century.

For the men sitting in this room, ‘Tin’ is also something like the patron saint of the Chota Valley. Born and raised in Ambuqui, just a few miles from Chalguayacu, he was one of the first recognizable Afro-Ecuadorian players on the national team. His success opened new opportunities for Black players — while fewer than 10% of Ecuadorians are of African descent, they compose three-quarters of the team at the 2022 World Cup — and turned soccer into a unifying force, helping combat Ecuador's history of anti-Black racism.

Delgado is a worthy honorary, and Alexis and I echo the others’ praise: “To ‘Tin’ Delgado!” Turning back to the game, we catch a hard tackle being made on an Ecuadorian player. Rodolfo erupts at the no-call, but Alexis is already on her feet, shaking her fists at the screen. “Give him a yellow card!” she shouts. “GIVE HIM A YELLOW CARD!” She looks at the stunned faces around the room. “Amarillo,” she adds quietly, finally making use of her limited Spanish vocabulary. The room nods in admiration.

Over the final stretch of the game, Ecuador will outplay the more celebrated Dutch squad, coming away with a tie and never looking like the lesser team. This is a result Agustin Delgado and the entire Chota Valley can be proud of, a declaration of existence in the face of invisibility, and I'm grateful to be included in the small celebration that follows: a gift so much more generous than the ones I've been offering in return.

As we watch the team walk off the field, I imagine my former colleagues in Loja doing the same. Taking notice at last.

******************************************************************************

When we reached our destination that morning, Rodolfo tossed his backpack off the flatbed and hopped out. I followed, struggling for balance after the bumpy ride. As we walked to the field, he gave me the run-down. “Right in front is sugarcane. On both sides, also sugarcane. Farther back?”

“Potatoes?”

“Good guess,” he groaned. “Well, this is it, and now you’ve seen it. Go explore.” Rodolfo gestured to the open space around us and reached into his shed for a shovel. When I said I wanted to help, he looked at me doubtfully; when I insisted, his face turned almost apologetic. “Just enjoy the view before you leave.”

I walked to the ridge of the plateau. Down below, at the end of the path that would lead us back to town that afternoon, people had begun to emerge for the routines of another day. I looked for Santiago’s house, but the only distinctive mark amongst the cobbled streets was the construction that would still await completion half a decade into the future.

From the edge of Chalguayacu, my eyes followed the winding road to the larger town of El Juncal and the trickle of the Chota River. I gazed at the mountains beyond, jagged rock rising into a cloudless blue, and the ghosts from the valley’s history stared back — watching Rodolfo toil in his field, just as he had in the weeks and years before, just like his ancestors when they first arrived in chains. In my periphery, a bus came into view: traveling from Colombia and heading toward Quito, people leaving the valley or simply passing through. Moving forward while the work in the mountains remained.

Five years later, after the match has ended, Alexis and I board that same bus in El Juncal.

“Caña, dos por un dólar,” a voice calls out as we settle into our seats. An old woman is selling sugarcane up front. “Dos por un dolarito.”

The woman walks down the aisle, repeating her offer — two for a dollar — until she reaches our row. I hold up two fingers and gesture between me and Alexis. The bus lurches forward, and the woman steadies herself, digging around in her basket with her free hand. She gives me two choice pieces — “Gracias, abuela” — and I hand back a five-dollar bill.

While the woman counts the change, I pass one piece to Alexis and bite into the other: fresh from the ground, just like Rodolfo grows above. Here, she's telling me, take this; here, like a bomba circle or a soccer celebration, like a shot of puro on the sidewalk, take that, too. I tried to leave my mark on Chalguayacu, imagining my reflection everywhere I looked. I came back searching for evidence that my time here had mattered, but it turns out the only legacy was the one left on me instead.

Here, take this; here, have that. Something to keep, even if just a memory.

The bus picks up speed as it leaves town, passing children on barren fields kicking soccer balls and clouds of dust. When the woman gets off at the next stop, I realize I’m still clutching the change from the five-dollar bill. I open my fist and look through the coins with Alexis.

Sacajawea. Sacajawea. Sacajawea. Rutherford B. Hayes. Here, take this.

Eight thousand miles from Qatar, where the Ecuadorian national team vies for World Cup glory, life continues in the Chota Valley and a bus travels farther down the road.

Zachary D. Shell lives in Denver, Colorado, where he teaches seventh grade Language Arts and constantly dreams of going back to Ecuador. If he's not singing with his barbershop chorus, you can find him writing as his favorite local coffee shop. Now. You can find him there right now.