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Chapter Three: A House in Ca
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chapter three o A House in Cañar old house falling down Today we are in Cañar to finish negotiating for the house we spotted earlier this week, and I’m surprised at how nervous I feel. I really want this house—it’s on the Paseo de los Cañaris, not far from the storefront where we lived eight years ago and in a perfect location on the edge of town where the roads come in from the country. The concept of renting is still relatively new to Cañar, and I’m amazed that we found a place so easily. After 27 Cañar walking by a house without curtains and peering in to see that it was empty, we tracked down the landlady (with the help of Esthela), arranged to take a look, and told the landlady we wanted it, all within a few hours. When I first knew we would be living in Cañar this year, I imagined us in one of those dark, old, two-story adobe buildings in the center of town— most likely over a storefront—or in a falling-down mud-and-thatch house in the country (though an inhabitable empty house in the country is almost unheard of in this area). In either case, I figured our living quarters would be dark and chilly and cramped. In the country we would be unlikely to have any of the amenities that we associate with modern life, other than electricity: no indoor running water, heat, bathroom. In fact, most Cañari country houses do not have even a latrine; people use the great outdoors, as they have for millennia. But the house we found on Monday has it all: running water, electricity, a bathroom, even a phone line.When the owner, Nelly Cantos, first showed us the house, she unwisely revealed that the last tenant, the municipal property registry office, had paid twenty dollars a month for the past three years. Therefore, logically, we offered thirty dollars. Nelly said she would have to talk to her husband, Víctor, a migrante ilegal in Queens, New York. Thus began a week of negotiations. We would call each day from Cuenca to see what Víctor had said the night before, and he always told Nelly to hold fast at fifty dollars, which would nudge us to increase our offer by five dollars each time. One day Nelly said—rather unconvincingly, I thought—that she had other people interested, and even though I didn’t believe it, I immediately felt anxious about getting the house. I hate the tension of uncertainty, the waiting and back-and-forth haggling; I would have agreed to fifty dollars the first day. Michael seems to love it, however; he says to quibble as a buyer shows respect for the seller. So today I wait impatiently in Estudio Inti with Esthela, sitting on the blue painted bench that belonged to us when we lived in the storefront, while Michael goes down the hill to have the final talk with Nelly. Soon he’s back at Estudio Inti with a glum look, making a shrug that says, ‘‘What could I do?’’ But there’s a half smile lurking, and I know his tricks well. ‘‘It’s ours?’’ I ask. ‘‘Yep,’’ he says. Nelly had firm orders not to waver, so we have the house for a year at fifty dollars a month. Bytwoo’clockthatafternoonwearesittingwithNellyinalawyer’soffice on the town square. She has insisted we draw up a legal contract, which is very formal for Cañar, where in our experience things are usually arranged 28 [54.156.48.192] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:23 GMT) A House in Cañar by a handshake, but since Michael and I also like the idea of having the protection , however dubious, of a paper agreement, we happily go along. The lawyer, whose name is Wilson González, according to the plaque beside his door, is one of the legions of abogados in Cañar. All, with only one exception that I know of, are mestizos—that is, non-Indians—and all, without exception , call themselves ‘‘Doctor.’’ They work from one-room offices that open onto the street to more easily serve drop-in clients, which is how most people take care of legal business here. Dr. González’s office is a plain affair, one small room in a row of oneroom offices...