BACK IN GUAYAQUIL

GIRLS IN GUAYAQUIL DRESSING IN LATE 60'S STYLE

I flew back to Guayaquil on January 15. Besides a full bag of hopes, I took with me nothing but my black and white TV set, my Hitachi transistor short band radio, a suitcase with my clothes, including a pair of brand new business suits, a few dressing shirts, a half dozen dressing ties and about four thousand dollars I had saved during the two hard and long years I lived in NYC. The heaviest luggage I had to carry was in my heart. I was going to miss Anita, her voice, her smell, her hugs, her kisses and everything we did together, but I knew it was all behind, we broke up for good, and I needed to make my best effort to forget and start anew, which I finally did. It wasn’t until after at least a year and a half that I felt comfortable going out with another girl. I used to look around, and every time I saw a young good looking girl I couldn’t help but compare her to Anita, and no one, but no one, was even close to her! During the first three months after I got back in Guayaquil my nights were horrible. I had difficulty going to sleep as I used to think about her for hours before falling asleep, and even then I used to dream of being together again. Sometimes I thought I was obsessed without remedy, but, then, slowly but consistently my obsession began to vanish and I started to see some light at the end of the tunnel. It was only then that I started seriously dating Fanny, my wife, and the girl whom I dated for more than four years before I made up my mind and asked to marry me. As I said to my daughter Angie one day when she and I were digging deep into our hearts, “I’m very glad things turned out the way they did, because if they didn’t, I wouldn’t have had the family I have; I would have had the children I have; I wouldn’t have had the wife I have, I wouldn’t have been as happy as I have been for the past 37 years. Placing the bricks in this part of my life’s building was not easy, nor was it fast, it took more than four years to do it, but I did it with the mastery of an experienced mason, I did it in a way they would be solidly in place for a lifetime!.

My mom and several members of the family were at the airport to welcome me as I arrived in Guayaquil. I had missed mom very much, I had never stayed away from her for so long in my entire life, so I was extremely happy to see her again, but I found her very feeble. Something was telling me she wasn`t in good health. Though her lovely smile and her brilliantly loving eyes were still there and shining, they were undoubtedly trying to hide the pain and the sadness she had been carrying for some time, and her whole body was showing signs of. I told her I was going to fulfill my promise, I was going to bring her to live with me. I told her I got a good job which would allow me to be fully responsible for her health and well being, and that she didn’t need to worry anymore about making ends meet. That was going to be my responsibility and I was prepared and ready for it.

Everyone in the family was very happy to see me back. I needed to make a few arrangements before I rented an apartment and furnished it before my mom and I were to move in together, but I wanted to speed up the process and decided to rent immediately a couple of rooms at my sister Letty’s house, which would allow my mom and I to be together right away. I didn’t want to wait any longer; I saw the need for me to stay close to my mom so I could take care of her, especially her health. She suffered from hypertension (which I have inherited from her) and needed to be constantly seen by her doctor, her cousin Dr. Joffre Lara-Montiel, one of the best cardiologists in the country. I knew the savings I had brought with me would be very helpful to start out, and so, in less than a week time my mom and I were back together.

Just as it had been scheduled, on January 19, 1969, at nine AM, I showed up for work at the ARTHUR ANDERSEN & Co. new office in Guayaquil. I was instructed to dress with a two piece suit and tie. That was the way “auditors” used to dress in those days. I was met by Pepe in his nicely blue carpeted office located in the third floor of the PYCCA building on the corner of Boyacá Ave. at 9 of October Blvd., in the heart of the Guayaquil business district. Pepe was a 36 years old, about 5’9”, his nose slightly oversized, fair skinned, black, getting grayish hair, elegantly dressed and easy smiling, who’s accounting and auditing education had been taken at The University of Havana, in his native Cuba in the late fifties and early sixties. He had been working for The Firm for eight years and had been trusted to open the Firm’s office in Ecuador, due to his gentleman’s personality, his vast knowledge of Accounting and Auditing and his experience acquired in the Firm’s Miami office.

BOLIVAR SQUARE IN DOWNTOWN GUAYAQUIL

Pepe made me feel very welcome; he explained to me that the new office was being opened because the Firm was anticipating a new era of business opportunities in the country. Ecuador was just beginning an era of fast economic growth because for the first time in history, it was going to become an oil exporting country. This, he said “will make the country attractive to foreign investment, it will create job opportunities for people, especially for young ones, and will bring prosperity and wellbeing to the population”. He was right; the decade of the 70’s was one of unparalleled economic boom for the country. The resources brought in by the oil exports allowed for the construction of new highways, hospitals and schools around the country, unfortunately, the country did not mature politically in parallel with the economic development, and the ever present corruption in the government and in all other areas of society in addition to the totally uncontrolled growth of the government bureaucracy and the corresponding expenses, did not allow people in the lower income levels to enjoy the benefits of the oil boom. By the end of the 70’s the country entered an era of “aggressive indebtedness” which not only slowed down the country’s economic and social growth, but ended up placing full brakes to the rhythm of economic growth and social development. The two following decades had been properly called “the lost decades”.

Pepe introduced me to the few people already working in the office, among them, three graduates of the Monterrey Tech School in Mexico (Raul Molina, Franklin Mazon and Fernando Doylet), whom I had previously met at the U of G, and who were joining the Firm the same day as I was. He also introduced me to Manuel Alvarado, a graduate of the Getulio Vargas University in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who had been hired months before us, and to three locally hired young men who were still attending school. Pepe took me around the premises, which were not big and comprised of two offices looking to the Blvd, one of them was Pepe’s, and the other was the conference room. There was another office right across the conference room, which was empty at the time, and was later occupied by my first direct supervisor, Gerald (“Jerry”) Windham, a Viet Nam veteran who was a senior auditor and came all the way from Chicago on a three year assignment to Guayaquil. At the end of the corridor and to the right there was a space for the secretaries and a files’ room, and at the bottom there was a 700 square feet space with no desks but only large working tables assigned to the auditors’ staff, where I was going to have my space for work as one of the junior staff members of THE FIRM.

In my next posting: ON THE RAILS AND READY TO GO