NORTHWEST AND QUITO

BEAUTIFUL SNOW CAPPED MOUNTAINS
SURROUND THE CITY OF QUITO


Quito is the capital of Ecuador: The city was founded on December 6, 1534, by the Spanish Conquistadors on a site previously inhabited by native Indian tribes living for centuries in this beautiful part of the continent, before the Spanish people came to America. It is located in an Andean plateau about 9,000 feet high and it is surrounded by snow capped mountains on one side, and large and fertile valleys on the other. The Quito climate is generally very mild with temperatures oscillating between 40 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s been said many times that one can have four seasons in one day in Quito, and it is true. You can have a splendid sunny morning with 60 degrees Fahrenheit until eleven o’clock, then you can have three hours of a warm and still very sunny day with 75 degrees, only to find yourself a bit later in a cloudy, sometimes rainy cold and windy weather for one hour or two, and, at the end of the day you may be forced to get your umbrellas and coats to protect yourself from the cold and rainy weather. Nights are normally cool and even cold with temperatures dropping to the mid and low forties.



THE VALLEYS NEAR QUITO,
NATURE AT ITS BEST


The city is surrounded by large, some of them active, permanently snow capped volcanoes, of which, at least four can be seen at the distance in a clear day, adding beauty to the naturally beautiful landscape of the city. The population of the metropolitan area of the city today is approximately 1.7 million, and, by the time we came to Quito in 1976 it must have been around one half
When we moved to Quito, the city was enjoying an exceptionally good Municipal administration headed by Mayor Sixto Duran Ballen, a man who later on became President of the country and, therefore, we were able to witness the building of many of the public works that transformed the city from a backward, conservative, quasi ecclesiastic city, where the most important sites to visit were its colonial churches, built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, into a modern, well planned metropolis, with modern buildings, good highways and long tunnels, nicely planned neighborhoods and good communications. It helped in this process the fact that Ecuador was going through a general time of prosperity fueled by the newly found oil wealth.


MONUMENT WHERE THE WORLD IS
DIVIDED IN TWO HEMISPHERES;
NORTH AND SOUTH, NEAR QUITO


We fell in love with Quito almost as soon as we moved there. To make things even better, we found ourselves forming a group of several young professionals (and their families) from Guayaquil who, just as us, had recently moved to Quito, in the wave of people who had to moved, following the rapid economic growth of the city fueled by the oil wealth. By the time we moved to Quito, Fanny was six months pregnant of our second child, Rafael Jr. who was born on March 12, 1976. Her pregnancy this time was relatively uneventful but she gained approximately forty pounds, so, again she was like a beautiful little walking ball. Fanny wanted our new baby to be born in Guayaquil, where she could count on the assistance of her mother and the rest of the family, shortly prior, during and right after the delivery.
Rafael Jr. (“Rafaelito”) was born on Saturday March 12, 1976 and he was a big, 1’9” tall, weighing 10.4 pounds. I was extremely happy to have now the blessing of two children, a girl and a boy, and having a good, well paid job, living in Quito, a beautiful city, and married to a beautiful wife whom I loved and was loved in return. What else could have I asked to my Creator?




THE COLONIAL QUITO, WHERE RELIGION,
HISTORY, ARCHITECTURE AND ART
ARE BEAUTIFULLY PUT TOGETHER

Our social life was very active and rotated mostly around our Guayaquil friends and their families. Without anything specifically agreed upon, we started meeting on Fridays and Saturdays at one of our places, at least twice a week on a rotating basis. Our entire families used to get together, the adults to play cards while the kids had their own ball with their toys displayed all over the place. The hosting family would be in charge of dinner and music for all. Our children, our wives and we, the heads of households, were about the same age, had about the same level of income, and shared most political and social views of the world around us, but more than anything else, together we felt like being back home in Guayaquil, even as being transplanted to Quito, a city in which there were still surviving prejudices against “the monkeys” as (thank God) ever fewer Quito people call the people from Guayaquil.
We never felt unwelcome to any place we went, that’s something I personally feel very happy to say when I talk about this time in Quito. Our group was so solidly united and so fun to belong to, that not long after, some Quito people joined us, and, of course we welcomed them wholeheartedly. We all looked forward to the weekends together, which sometimes included country gatherings and pick nicks in a place in the country side, only about a mile from the Equator line, which divides our planet in two equal hemispheric halves, North and South. In sum, our life in Quito was as happy as it could have been, we were all extremely surprised that we had little to miss from our lives in Guayaquil; in fact, we all decided that we wanted to stay in Quito and no one, but no one, ever wanted to return to Guayaquil. At the risk that I might forget some of the names of our friends in our group in Quito, I’ll mention Raul and Cecilia Ortiz (Texaco); Antonio and Leonor Sanchez (Gulf Oil), Winston and Elizabeth Izurieta (Nestle), Bolivar and Alicia Rivera (ITT) Alejandro and Fermina Gonzalez (Hilton) Francisco and Silvia Ascensio (Insurance); Alfonso and Martha Silva (Carbajal-Colombia) Francisco and Teresa Valarezo (Farming); Rene and Mirtha Saavedra and Eduardo and Cecilia Espinoza (MD). Each and every one of our friends became like brothers and sisters, each and all of us looked after one another just like we all belonged to a fraternity, and in fact, it was a fraternity. Those were wonderful days!
In the meantime, things started to move fast in connection with the Northwest project in the Gulf of Guayaquil. In accordance with the contract, the company needed to do additional exploration, including seismic studies and drilling in the area under the contract before starting the gas production and industrialization. A very experienced Geologist was brought in from Argentina and a few people were hired to work with him, the technical office was opened in Guayaquil where Alberto Angeleri, a very experienced Argentine geologist was the head of.

The CEPE people kept on insisting that the industrial complex to process the gas and produce ammonia and urea should be the project’s a priority, since there were already enough proven reserves of gas, in the so called Santa Clara Field, The company, on its part, insisted that the industrialization part of the project should be held back until such time when the return on the investment could be assured and that meant that the prices of ammonia and urea in the global market needed to improve materially, since at the current prices of $90/MT, the project was a no fly.
The Italian conglomerate Snamprogetti, based in Milano had been originally contacted by Northwest to be the designer and builder of the industrial project, and, to that extent, a group of Italian technicians came to Ecuador in order to discuss some specifics of the project. When these technicians reviewed the numbers that we had prepared, they all agreed that the project was a no goer, and that its implementation should wait for better times in the market of urea and ammonia.
That was not the position of the “patriotic” people of CEPE and the Ministry of Hydrocarbons of Ecuador. They wanted to have their toy built no matter what, and they wanted to have a meeting -in Milano- to discuss this matter in a more “discreet” environment. Though neither Snamprogetti nor Northwest saw any meaningful purpose in having a meeting in Milano, such idea was forced through by the general manager of CEPE, who, accompanied by a group of four department heads flew to Milano where they would meet with four executives of Northwest and a similar number of Italians from the host company. The little understanding the CEPE people had of the whole matter was never clearer than the day when the GM of that company, a General of the Ecuadorian Army, said in front of the executives of both Snamprogetti and Northwest, that the project had to be carried on because it was politically important for the government to calm down the growing disaffection the Guayaquil people was feeling for the military government. “We need to do something to get the waves controlled in Guayaquil”, the man said, and he showed no shame to do it. He just either did not know, or decided to forget, who would have to pay the bill for the white elephant he wanted to be built.





SEVERAL VIEWS OF QUITO, THE
BEAUTIFUL CAPITAL OF ECUADOR


That same night, the same man, after having a few drinks, invited the Northwest Chairman to have a private conversation, in which the General said he wanted a “contribution” of one million dollars to be more understanding of the situation, or he would press the construction of the industrial complex with Snamprogetti. This was a classic display of “patriotism” from this pathetic man whose understanding of the whole matter was extremely “basic” to say the least. That was the day when the Northwest people fully realized who their business partners in Ecuador were, and that same day was, perhaps, when the whole project, for all practical purposes was killed.

In my next posting: PROPOSING ALTERNATIVES

OFF TO QUITO

THE FAMILY FAREWELL JUST
BEFORE WE MOVED TO QUITO



Northwest was negotiating the gas production contract with the National Petroleum Corporation of Ecuador, known then by its Spanish acronym “CEPE”. Under the terms of this contract, Northwest was to commit itself to explore and produce gas out of an offshore gas field in the Gulf of Guayaquil,known as The Santa Clara Field, which had already been discovered some years back by a prior contractor, and to produce ammonia and urea in an industrial complex to be built in an undetermined place near the Gulf of Guayaquil.
Ecuador was under the government of a military junta since 1972, and, therefore, the military had an absolute control of the oil and gas industries in Ecuador, because they thought they were “the anointed ones to guard the wealth and the honor of the country” or so was the grandiose speech of the new “liberators”, the leftist armed followers of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro in the southern part of this continent. CEPE was under the control of the military and, up to that point, nobody was neither politically nor economically challenging them.
As it has been a tradition in Ecuadorian politics, most of the “democracy lovers” whose speech was against dictatorships when the country was living in democracy, suddenly shut their mouths and kept their pens and pencils safely in boxes under three keys as soon as they got a government job from the dictatorship. Many of them became ministers, vice ministers, ambassadors, department directors, ministers’ secretaries, or simply well paid employees,among whose benefits were the flying first class in government paid entourages to exotic places and fancy dinners with foreign businessmen visiting the country and looking for opportunities in the expanding Ecuadorian economy. That was enough to make them forget their “democratic political principles”, if they ever had them any way. The Ecuadorian military had never been known to be academically very well prepared. It was of little surprise for anyone, therefore, that the national oil company was poorly managed, to say the least. A series of mid level managers of CEPE, young engineers or economists recently graduated from poorly managed universities, and with little or no experience in the field (and whose only merit was to be politically left leaning or newly converts), were the men in charge of “advising” the upper management (men in uniform) in all matters of importance. It was a marriage of convenience between ignorance and arrogance.
Conscious of their importance under the circumstances, these young men usually adopted attitudes comparable to those of Middle East Sheiks, when negotiating with private companies in matters concerning the oil and gas industries; some of them even grew Arab like beards just like the Middle East Sheiks do, to emphasize their grip on oil matters, however, they could barely hide their ignorance and incompetence, but more than anything, their lack of honesty when they saw a chance.
It is under this atmosphere and with those men that Northwest had to seat down and negotiate details of its contract. The head of the CEPE group of lawyers was an honest (exception which oly confirmed the rule), competent communist, Stalinist of the old guard; he had recently returned from Moscow where he had been the Ecuadorian ambassador to the Soviet Union. This man was convinced that negotiating with a US multinational corporation was a good opportunity to squeeze the hell out of the “Gringos” balls. All considered, it was not the best of the environments to negotiate a rational, well thought of contract.
On the other hand, the group of Northwest lawyers was made up of a mix of young and experienced corporate lawyers headed by a very competent and experienced Argentine attorney who had a small percentage of financial participation in the project. It was with these people and under this environment that Northwest had to deal when negotiating their contract. Not an easy task, however, they finally came to an agreement and signed the “Contract for the Exploration and Exploitation of Gas in The Gulf of Guayaquil” and soon they had to start running to make it effective.





MARIUXI (1) AND HER DAD BEFORE WE MOVED TO QUITO


As an Arthur Andersen officer in the tax area, I was involved in the process of advising the Northwest lawyers regarding the tax effects arising from the contract and helping running the numbers to determine the economic viability of the project.
At the time of the negotiations with the government, the prices of ammonia and urea in the international markets were running around $360 per metric tone (“MT”). With such prices, our projected cash flows clearly indicated that the project was not only feasible, but very profitable as well, and the projected investment of approximately $300 million would be recovered within the first five years. The Internal rate of return of the project was in the range of 35%. It was definitely an attractive investment for Northwest.
The ink of the signatures on the contract had not dried up yet when the prices of ammonia and urea, the products Northwest had committed to produce with the gas to be extracted from the gas field in the Gulf of Guayaquil, began to drastically drop in the international markets and our projected cash flows immediately started to show red flashing lights. At an average of $90/MT market price for both, urea and ammonia, the project was no longer profitable , and , therefore, it was economically non feasible. Northwest was not going to invest $300 million knowing that such investment could not be recovered. The government of Ecuador and the CEPE management in particular were deaf and blind to the facts, and they insisted that the industrial complex to process the gas should go ahead. For them, “the economic non viability of the project was irrelevant to the country”, therefore, “the industrial complex should be built no matter what”.





FANNY IN 1975 AS SHE WAS WAITING FOR
RAFAELITO, OUR SECOND CHILD

It was under these circumstances that by the end of October 1975, I was approached by the Northwest management in Salt Lake City with the proposal that I take charge of their office in Quito, replacing an American officer whose wife did not like living in Quito and told her husband to choose between living in Quito without her or going back to Utah to save their marriage. The man chose to save his marriage.
In a matter of three weeks, I was invited to come to Salt Lake City and discuss with the Northwest upper management about the Ecuador project and their proposal to work for them. Frankly, their proposal was one of those that “you can’t say no” to. It was late November 1975, I was in my low thirties and wasn’t about to make a sudden change in my life without my wife’s full participation and agreement. I came back to Guayaquil and immediately and openly discussed everything with my wife, who suddenly became my most trusted job counselor since Pepe García, my great tutor and counselor was no longer near me to draw advise from.
I discussed the issue openly with Fanny, who was pregnant again, and was a bit reluctant to go along with the idea at the beginning, mainly because we would have to go to Quito, away from her mom, her relatives and her friends, but she became a full supporter after we made a complete analysis of the pros and cons of the move. In a matter of a week we have made up our minds, I accepted Northwest’s offer and I would resign from Arthur Andersen effective December 31, 1975. We would move to Quito at the beginning of 1976 and become the Manager in charge of the Northwest office in Quito. The dice were thrown the first week of December 1976, when I submitted my resignation to my position as Manager in Charge of the Tax Division of Arthur Andersen in Ecuador. Bill, the new managing partner of the Firm in Ecuador did what he could to convince me that I should stay and take charge of the Firm’s office in Quito, his efforts included a material salary increase, a company owned car for my personal use and an increased housing allowance, but that was not enough to make me change my mind. I stood by my word to the Northwest people. On December 27, 1975, Fanny, Mariuxi (our 18 month daughter) and I moved to Quito, in the first of a series of domicile moves that we made in the following ten years and which were necessary due to my job obligations.





RAFAEL, IN A CONFERENCE AT THE CHAMBER
OF INDUSTRIES IN GUAYAQUIL IN 1976


Moving to Quito was indeed a challenge for everyone in the family, even for young Mariuxi who was most of the time, but especially on weekends, surrounded by the large family members who came to see her as the “star of the show” in every family gathering there was. They would miss her very much, she would miss them, and, of course we would miss everyone too. A family gathering which included three generations of Romeros took place as a fare well party , days before we took off to Quito. My father, my six brothers and sisters accompanied by their children and grand children attended the gathering, it was one of the very few occasions in which the whole family was all together.
Off we went to Quito and to a totally different environment. Quito and Guayaquil, in spite of being only about 250 miles away in the same small country, used to be (and in many respects they still are) two completely different cities, particularly in climate, altitude, ways of doing business, people’s attitude toward life in general and people’s attitude toward work in particular. I’m not saying either one is better or worse, I’m just saying they were, and still are in many ways, different. Over the last forty years, however, things have changed much in a very positive way, in many respects, and that is mainly due to a much better communication between the two cities, to national TV and radio and to special efforts trying to reach a higher level of integration.



MARIUXI AND RAFAEL JR. AFTER WE
MOVED TO QUITO IN 1976

Though Guayaquil continues to be the largest city in the country with over 2.5 million inhabitants and is a magnet for a massive continuous immigration from all over the country, Quito, as the capital of the country, with about 1.7 million inhabitants, has become a very important economic and industrial center also attracting a lot of immigration from the rest of the country.

In my next posting: NORTHWEST AND QUITO

QUITO IN SIGHT

MARIUXI (1) IN HER FIRST "STUDIO" FOTO


Life was a completely different game for us once we had a family, our world had a new axis, it was Mariuxi. Everything in our lives had to run around her and her well being. We lived in a small but very comfortable apartment, not very far from Fanny’s mother and my sister Lilita who, for all practical purposes continued to be my “adopting mom”.
Mariuxi was a very healthy baby and we did not have to worry very much about doctors except for the regular check ups, until one day when she was about nine months old.
I had gone to Cuenca for work and had been absent for a full week when Mariuxi had fallen very ill, she was urgently ordered to a hospital by her doctor and had been there for two days before I got back home on a Saturday at noon. I was anxious to see my baby when I arrived home only to be informed that Fanny and Mariuxi were in the hospital. I was about to faint, I was so scarred I could not drive and asked Carlos, my brother in law, to take me to the hospital. When I arrived, my baby was lying in bed with all kinds of serum going through her little veins, she was pale, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t open her eyes. She had been diagnosed gastroenteritis, the same disease that had killed three children in my family when they were just as young as my little Mariuxi.
I was devastated, I talked to the doctor in charge of her case, I told him how scared I was, but he calmed me down, he told me the worst was over, he expected my baby to be back at home in two days. I couldn’t sleep for those entire two days, but thank God Mariuxi was well by Monday morning and we took her back home. She had lost at least four pounds but she recovered them in no time. Two months later, when she was eleven months old, I made her walk for the first time; I’ll never forget how she did it. As I used to do every day after work, I took her to play with me, I made her lean her back on the main door of our apartment, and left her standing loose while calling her to come to me, I was about three feet away, she tried a couple of times to walk toward me but she pulled back. Finally, in her third intent, she gathered all the will she needed and walked toward me as I pulled myself back a bit to allow more space for her walk, she had walked about four steps by herself, I couldn’t believe she had done it!. I repeatedly hugged and kissed her and she laughed as out of satisfaction for a work well done. Then, I made her try it again and again and she was soon an expert in the art of walking! By the time she was one year old, she was running around our apartment at will. I loved it…




MARIUXI IN HER FIRST BD, WITH HER MOM AND GRANNY


Notwithstanding the great happiness she brought to our lives almost every day after she was born, it was not until after 25 years, in April of 2000, when Mariuxi, then 26, obtained her degree as a Master of International Business, from the University of Thunderbird, the number one in the world in this field, that I felt as happy for and as proud of her as the day she walked by herself for the first time.
Mariuxi is now a mother of two adorable little boys, Carlito and Matteo, she has made us the happiest grandparents anyone can think of, she lives in Dubai, one of the most dynamic and modern states in the world, she likes it there, she is an important officer of one of the most important companies in the world, she enjoys her work and she also enjoys her family. Fanny and I visit her at least once a year and we are now excitedly expecting her and her family to visit us for the year-end holidays of 2010. This will be the first time our grand children come to visit their maternal grandparent’s home in Ecuador.



MARIUXI WITH HER DAD AND MOM, POSING FOR
THE ARTHUR ANDERSEN BOOK IN 1975



Going back to my professional life, in the summer of 1975, I was promoted to the Manager level in our Firm,and, with the new level came new responsibilities and with them, more traveling and less time for the family. A combination of good and bad news came soon after: Pepe Garcia had been promoted to the level of Partner in the Firm, but he was going to be transferred to the Miami office. My friend, my mentor, my adviser, and my most respected supervisor was going to leave. In spite of the fact that I had developed a very successful career within the Firm over the previous six years, I felt that things were going to change and I was somehow concerned about the coming changes. Though Pepe’s replacement William (“Bill”) Lindbergh, an American partner coming from the headquarters in Chicago introduced himself as a man who would continue Pepe´s successful policies and procedures and practices, I still felt that there were going to be changes affecting me. In fact, only two months after Bill took over, he called me to his office and had a long chat with me. He told me I had been highly recommended by Pepe and that among his plans was the opening of an office in Quito, given the fact that our Firm’s business had developed faster than expected in that city, particularly in the tax area, which was under my responsibility. Then he mentioned that he would like me to be the head of the Quito office, which would require me to move to that city.
Instead of giving him a definite answer, I told Bill that I’d like to take a couple of days to respond, which was more than fine with him. I talked to Fanny about it and, though she was kind of mama’s girl and going to Quito would put a physical distance between her and her mom, she left the decision to me. There were a few things I needed to analyze before making a decision, not the last of them was a necessary hike in my compensation, a housing allowance, a compensation for the fact that Fanny was working and she would not do so in Quito, and a few other things associated to the move to a different city and to new and higher responsibilities. When I came back to talk to Bill, at the end of September 1975, he was willing to meet all my requests, so, for all practical purposes, I was going to be transferred to Quito, effective January 1, 1976. Little did I know that in the following three months, things were going to take a totally unexpected and positive turn in my life and the lives of the rest of the members of my close family!
One of our most important clients in the country was, in those days, Northwest Energy Co., the parent company of Northwest Pipeline Corp. (“Northwest”), a giant in the business of gas production and transmission, based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and providing gas to large gas distribution companies in the states of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Northwest had just incorporated a subsidiary in Ecuador under the name of Northwest Ecuador Co., and was in the process of negotiating a contract with the Government of Ecuador for the exploration and exploitation of gas in the Gulf of Guayaquil, for which they needed local expert tax advice in relation to its future activities in the country. Northwest, an old client of Arthur Andersen’s in the US, requested our Firm in Ecuador for the help they needed in the tax area and I was assigned to the job.
In my next posting: OFF TO QUITO

MARIUXI IS BORN

FANNY IN FEBRUARY 1974, WHEN SHE WAS
SIX MONTHS PREGNANT

By the time Fanny was six months pregnant, we made a trip to visit my dad in Pallatanga, it was the Carnival long weekend, so I drove my 1969 Volkswagen bug the 70 miles to Pallatanga on Friday morning, and planned to spend the whole five day holiday visiting my father and enjoying the incomparable Pallatanga weather and maybe even tasting the delicacies Pallatanga people make in these festivities. Little did I know we were going to have a traffic accident that almost killed us, including our not yet born first child!
It was on Sunday, the most important day of the Carnival festivities, Fanny and I drove a few blocks to visit my uncle Antonio, a man I have a lot to talk about later in my story, and his wife Zoila. We had a chat with them and among the things we talked about was Azazán, the place where Antonio, Zoila and my father had been born, where our forefathers on the Romero side used to live. I remember Zoila saying she hadn’t seen Azazán for over 40 years, so I invited them (they were in their middle sixties) to come along to visit this place. It was a very sunny and pleasant day by the end of February 1974, Pallatanga and its neighboring hills were looking at their greenest best. Green was everywhere, that exuberant green resulting from the combination of good soil, lots of sun, rain and man’s hard work. It was just nature at its best.
After a few minutes of driving toward Azazán, a car coming from the north crashed against my car (going north) as we were taking a curb in our way to Azazán. It all happened in a matter of seconds, In a few minutes, Fanny, Antonio and Zoila were all covered by their own blood, I was also bleeding from my head but was well enough to try helping the other three in the car. It was only a few minutes before some help came from Pallatanga; they took us to our house which was only about a half mile away and called for medical help. My father was crying and his main concern was for Fanny and the baby she was carrying in her womb.
In about one hour the much needed first aid had worked, but Fanny, Antonio and Zoila needed much more than just first aid medical help. My brother Pancho, who had heard the news in the radio and was in Quito (two hundred miles away), moved so fast to provide his help that in a matter of four hours he was already in Pallatanga and took my wife, uncle Antonio and aunt Zoila to a hospital in Guayaquil. I was detained by the police for twenty four hours, together with the driver of the other car until a clarification of the accident was made. The following day I was in Guayaquil, visiting Fanny, who had been subjected to a facial surgery right above her left eye, and another surgery in her right leg. She was fine, but our main concern came from the warning of one of the doctors who said that we should be alert, because if the baby did not start moving within the 24 hours after the surgery, much to their displeasure, they would have to perform an abortion in order to save the life of the mother. The hours went buy as slow as I can’t remember, but, it was only after six hours that our baby started to move, the doctors came out broadly smiling. “The baby is just fine, no reason for concern” the doctors said and Fanny and I embraced each other in extreme happiness. “This baby is going to be tough” I said, and added “as tough as her father”, remembering what my mother had told me about the events prior to my own birth.



MARIUXI IN 1975, WHEN SHE WAS NINE MONTHS OLD

Little else happened after the Pallatanga carnival events, Fanny and I decided that we were not going to take any more trips outside Guayaquil until after the baby was born. Neither she nor I was willing to put our baby at risk any more, so, the time went by uneventfully but not short of happiness and great expectations. We enjoyed going out window shopping and whenever we liked something, we bought clothing for our future child. I confess my preference was for a baby boy, it is just the nature of Latino debutant fathers, whereas Fanny did not have a preference and she said many times “all I want is to have a healthy baby”. So the time went by, and the day of delivery was fast approaching. Since the doctors detected a bad position of the fetus, they decided to perform a C section so as to risk neither the baby nor the mother.
At seven A.M. on June 1, 1974, on Universal Children’s Day, a beautiful baby girl was born. The head doctor who attended the operation, a cousin of Fanny’s, actually showed his head out of the operating room, with his surgery gloves still on and bloody, and said in high voice which we all heard clearly “I’TS A BABY GIRL!, and off he went inside to finish his job.



MARIUXI AND ME AT THE END OF 1975
WHEN SHE WAS 18 MONTHS OLD

I was surrounded by Fanny’s family at that moment; they all were cheering, congratulating me and congratulating each other. About 30 minutes later, a nurse came into the new born babies’ room which could be seen through the glass from where we were, she had my baby in her arms, wrapped up in a yellow blanket, she showed her to us, and I instantly felt like the happiest man in the whole wide world. I fell in love with my little daughter right at that very moment, a love which kept growing bigger and bigger as Mariuxi grew up and which has continued growing non stop until these days. Mariuxi is now the mother of two adorable baby boys, our first and second grand children; those are two more great reasons to love her…
When Mariuxi and Carl got married in Guayaquil, on May 20, 2004, I wanted to remind myself and remind all my family and friends that, notwithstanding the immense love I have for Mariuxi, before she was born, I had wanted my first child to be a baby boy, so, I decided to sing a song for her and in front of her and her groom. The song tells the story of a father who, just like me, wanted to have his first child to be a baby boy and ended up having a baby girl, only to fall crazily in love with her as soon as she was born and forever after.


MARIUXI AT THE AGE OF SIX MONTHS-WITH FANNY

The poem was written by the Uruguayan Poet Angel Canales in the early fifties, and is now a classic song that is sung in almost all Spanish speaking weddings. I couldn’t help but cry while I was singing, because I had Mariuxi and her groom standing right in front of me, while telling them in the song that I have prayed my God asking for a loving husband for my daughter, for a husband that would take good care of her. Mariuxi, her husband Carl and most, if not all the 250 people in the reception room were sobbing with me that night. I couldn’t help but cry out of happiness, as I was singing. The end of this short story is a happy one, my prayers had been certainly heard, Carl is a very loving and caring husband, he is, for Fanny and I, just like one more of our own children, he is also a much loving and caring father for his two young children, and Mariuxi is the loveliest mother, while at the same time, she has made us the happiest grandparents any one can think of.
In my next posting: QUITO IN SIGHT

A GOLFER AND A GENTLEMAN

WHAT A SWING! AT THE AGE OF 34,
FERNANDO HAD ALREADY BEEN THE
NUMBER 1 PLAYER OF ECUADOR FOR
MANY YEARS

When I took on Golf, almost 25 years ago, after my doctor had told me to either change the sport I practiced (tennis) or to look for another doctor because he couldn’t do much for my ever increasing back pain, little did I know that golf was going to become not only my favorite game, but my favorite passion!
Among the many satisfactions and the great time I’ve had while practicing golf over the last quarter of a century, I could mention many things, but a very few of them stand above everything else and will remain in my memory for as long as I live.
One of them occurred yesterday, Monday October 18, 2010, while playing morning exercising golf with my friend Fernando Fiore, the greatest Golf player ECUADOR has ever produced. I was thrilled, honored and delighted to see him make the NINTH HOLE IN ONE of his life, a number not many people in the world can say they have reached.

It was about nine O’clock in the morning and nobody but us was playing, since on Mondays the course is normally closed. Fernando and I with our caddies had played the first three holes uneventfully; Fernando making his expected pars while I was, as usual, struggling to make my bogeys. As I stood watching him swinging, I was wondering just how close to the pin the ball will land. As he finished his swing, I knew, right from its taking off, that this time his perfect shot at hole number 4 was going to sink in the cup, and, guess what... it did. I jumped to give him a five, and a big hug, but just as he does every time he makes a great shot, he remained calm, he only smiled briefly and said to me, “What an irony, I’m making a hole in one at the time when I'm not playing well”. This is the man who pars the course at least three out of every five games, who makes two to three birdies on each side of the course, and who makes at least five pars every nine holes. Modesty, of course is one of his many well known and outstanding characteristics.


FERNANDO (L) WITH HIS INSEPARABLE FRIEND AND TOUGH RIVAL OF ALL TIMES, ISIDRO YCAZA (R), IN THE LATE 60'S

Fernando, who started golfing when he was seven, is the son of an Italian immigrant who fought in WWI, and an Ecuadorian mother. Uninterruptedly he was, for at least 36 years, between 1956 and 1992, the undisputed number one golf player in Ecuador; he successfully represented our country in many amateur tournaments around the globe. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that he is for Ecuador the symbol of Golf, just as Jack Nicklaus is for the United States of America, except that he, unlike Jack, never became a pro.
Today, at the age of 70, Fernando walks and plays nine holes every weekday of the year in our beloved 18-hole home course at the Guayaquil Country Club ("GCC"), just about 15 miles north of Guayaquil, my home town during the summer.

AT 70, FERNANDO STILL IS A GOLFER ONLY A VERY FEW
GOLFERS IN GUAYAQUIL DARE TO CHALLENGE
When I found out from my caddie that he was doing that, I politely asked Fernando if he would allow me to walk and play along. It came to no surprise for me to hear him say he would be pleased to do so, and since, he and I play together almost every morning. Occasionally one or two other friends join us. Ever since I had been doing that, I have been enjoying and hopefully learning a bit, not only from his extraordinary ability to play good golf with no effort, but also, and equally important, from his gentleman`s personality, his clear view of the world’s and local events; his always entertaining conversation; his knowledge of History and his ever entertaining stories about his Golf experience throughout the world. Fernando is a great golfer and a great gentleman as well.
This was not the first time I had personally witnessed the sinking of the ball in one shot, in fact, I, myself have done it twice (twenty two years ago this year); my wife Fanny did it once, much before I did it (and much to my envy) in the same hole Fernando just did it this time; I saw my club's comembers Jorgen Nielsen, Gonzalo Noboa and my friend Eduardo Falquez do it, all at the GCC, but there was one occasion when I saw it done, at The Remington Gulf Club, in Kissimmee, Fl,where I live one half of the year, by my also dear Argentine friend Miguel Acevedo who visited Guayaquil in July 2009 and played at our course.



MY ARGENTINE FRIEND MIGUEL ACEVEDO AND I, AT THE GUAYAQUIL COUNTRY CLUB IN JULY 2009

None of us, except Fernando Fiore, is a good golfer; we just play golf for the pleasure of doing so, and dream, as most golfers do, to be able to improve our game some (ever elusive) day, however, the fact that we have made one or more holes in one, only confirms the saying that “GOLF IS LIKE SEX, YOU DON´T HAVE TO BE GOOD AT IT TO ENJOY IT”.

SALUD FERNANDO!

A HAPPILY MARRIED MAN

FANNY AND I ARE MARRIED

The day of the wedding, September 1, 1973, at 11:00 A.M, the Church of St. Juan Bosco was filled with friends and family, as I entered the church accompanied by my father and my sister Lilita, I could see and smile to many of my friends, school and classmates, work colleagues and relatives, among them my sisters and brothers. Pepe García, my boss and his wife were there too, and I felt much honored that they were as he had postponed a holiday trip with his family only because he wanted to be with me on this very special day.
Following the tradition, Fanny was taken to the altar by her mother and her husband Aquilino, a man who helped Fanny’s mother to raise her three children since they were very young, with the love and respect of a dedicated and loving real father. Fanny, in her wedding gown was splendidly beautiful as she approached the altar where I was waiting for her, accompanied by my father and my sister Lilita. When Aquilino finally gave her to me and, together with my father and sister quietly walked away from the altar and into their assigned chairs and I was left alone with Fanny, I felt all my blood coming right into my head, out of emotion, out of sense of responsibility, out of happiness and out of love for the, soon to be, my wife. I never felt so unconditionally and undoubtedly sure of what I was doing. I felt extremely happy with myself and with everything around me. All of a sudden, all the doubts I had about getting married had been left behind, all I wanted to do was look forward to having my own family, my wife and children, I have never looked back to regret what I did. That was just the way I wanted to do it!



FANNY AND I AT THE RECEPTION. MY FATHER WAS MY BEST MAN AND MY SISTER LILITA, MY SURROGATE MOTHER

The wedding ceremony took about one hour and included a full mass in which many of the people took the holly communion. Fanny and I promised each other in front of God, the priest and everybody in the church, that we would remain together for the rest of our lives, in poverty as much as in prosperity, in health as much as in illness, in sadness as much as in happiness, and that we would be faithful to each other until we were to be separated by death. I listened each and every one of those words profoundly when I said them as well as when I heard them said by Fanny. Thirty seven years have passed since, and she and I have remained together, loving each other in poverty as in prosperity, in health as in illness, in sadness as much as in happiness, we have loved and have been faithful to each other and are still committed to each other today as much as we were back in September 1, 1973. Fanny and I have three wonderful children, whom we loved and cared much for when they were just young children; and we love them as much today when they are responsible self sufficient professional adults and will love them for as long as we live. We also have two beautiful grand children and expect to have many more, they are the prolongation of our lives, they are the little trees which will grow, become big and leafy and will carry on our heritage, our principles, our love, and, of course, our blood throughout the world, proud of their own selves and proud of their origin, the humble origin from where their forefathers come, but determined to reach out to the world, to reach very high, never ashamed of their roots…

TWO DEAR FRIENDS, FANNY AND I AT THE RECEPTION ROOM
AFTER THE RELIGIOUS CEREMONY

Fanny and I married without much time to prepare for our life together. I can’t say I was a penny wise individual, therefore, I had no savings to draw from, to get our basic things ready for when we got married, that was the first time I had to get credit to buy anything. My sister Lilita was the guarantor for the furniture we bought at a friend’s store on credit; there I bought the essentials for a modest two bedroom apartment we rented not very far from my sister’s. The basic things for the kitchen I was able to buy, but a few other things came from presents we got from friends and family on the wedding day. That is how we started, we didn’t have many things, but we had enough things to start as an independent and happy couple. Fanny was a teacher working for a public school and, though her salary did not make a great contribution to our budget, it helped in the sense that I did not have to worry about her personal expenses. My salary was very good for my age and for my status as a single individual, and once I got to be disciplined in my expenses, it proved to be enough for my new status too. I couldn’t believe it, it was like a miracle, as soon as I got married I was able not only to cover all my expenses as a head of a household, but, much to my own amazement, I was able to save money, for awhile I truly thought that God was repeating with us the miracle of the multiplication of the bread and the fish. The fact of the matter is that we were never short of anything essential, and we were even able to have little luxuries here and there.
About six weeks after we got married, Fanny told me she had started to feel a bit different. “I feel kind of sleepy at work”, she said one day, and added “I also feel like I have a bit of nausea”. I felt a mixture of confusion, anxiety, curiosity, excitement and hope. Confusion because I wasn’t sure if what she had was a symptom of fragile health, or was it just the first symptoms of being pregnant. I felt anxiety because, deep in my mind I was really hoping she was pregnant but at the same time I though it was too early for that, I felt excitement because I really wanted to be a father. And, finally, I was hoping that it wasn’t anything serious with her health but it was what I had been dreaming…we were going to have a child!
Within two weeks our best wishes were confirmed, Fanny was diagnosed as pregnant, and soon after, her tummy started to grow incredibly fast, she had begun to gain a lot of weight, she had a lot of nausea, any time and and anywhere, and, of course, she began to feel the “urgent need for some things to eat”. The first three months of her pregnancy were plagued of all the above. Sometimes she woke me up late at night and asked me to take her to eat “carne en palito” a kind of barbecued meat cooked on charcoal, and served with a little wooden stick like a shishkabab. They used to make it in a place about 20 minutes away from home. It was pathetic, but at the same time it was fun, because I liked living though, and participating in the process of her pregnancy in the day to day, howev er, it wasn’t fun some other times when she was vomiting her carne en palito, right after her late dining session.


FANNY AND SOME OF HER FRIENDS AT THE RECEPTION

Right after the first three months of pregnancy, Fanny started to feel better, the anxiety for eating was gone and the nausea as well. Everything was smooth now; her tummy was growing so fast, it almost grew before my eyes. The bigger her tummy, the more beautiful she looked to me, If anything, I was crazy about the whole thing, I already started to feel like a “father” and we started to talk about the name for the baby. If a boy, he would have my name so he would be a junior, but if it was a girl, Fanny wanted to name her “Maria Auxiliadora” (“Mariuxi”) the name of Virgin Mary in an advocacy of which she was a great devote of. Our discussion centered about the fact that I also wanted to name the baby after my mom, which Fanny did not disagree with, so we would name our baby (if it was a girl) Maria Auxiliadora Lucrecia. We had a deal on the names. In the meantime, Fanny gained 40 pounds by the time she completed her nineth month of pregnancy. Since she is small (5'4), she started to look like a walking ball, and she still was beautiful!
In my next posting: MARIUXI IS BORN

GETTING MARRIED, A TOUGH DECISION TO MAKE

RIO DE JANEIRO-THE WORLDWIDE FAMOUS
COPACABANA BEACH


In June 1973, back from the conference in Brazil and my holidays in Chile, I was assigned to several jobs in Guayaquil, Quito and Cuenca and I was also given the responsibility of training one of my assistants to support me in tax matters. It was by this time that I began to think that I should take my personal matters a little more seriously, particularly in what relates to my relationship with Fanny, whom I had been dating for over four years already. I was seriously in a mood to propose her, but I still had this hidden fear of getting married, a fear which as you may all know, arose from my sudden and irresponsible marriage in 1964. So, I had this internal conflict, I had become 31, I was not a kid any more, I wanted to have a wife, a home, a place of my own to come and rest, a confidant companion, a person to share my life with, someone to tell my good and bad things of the day before going to sleep, someone to hug, kiss and make love to, and someone to wake me up with a kiss in the mornings, but, at the same time I was afraid of losing my freedom, of becoming dependant, of being “chained” to one place and one person, and no longer being able to do what I wanted, when I wanted it, with whoever I wanted for as long as I wanted. It was a terrible conflict, which I guess it is a conflict that most men may have when they have lived a life as free and as self sufficient as the one I had been having for the previous four and a half years.


SANTIAGO THE BEAUTIFUL CAPITAL OF CHILE

It was trying to deal with all this conflict those days when one night I was “caught” by Fanny when I was taking a girl friend to her home as I was coming out of work. I assume she thought my friend and I were getting “closer than acceptable between friends” in the car, and that was enough for Fanny, that was the drop that spilled the glass. She stopped our relationship altogether, she did not answer or return my calls, nor she would accept any invitation to talk personally. A month went by and she and I did not see each other. I felt terribly bad for this outing, and I had to do something to reverse it. So, one night in early August I decided that I would see and talk to her at her home, “no matter what”, and will ask her to marry me as soon as possible. So I went to see her, only to find out she wasn’t there, she had gone to visit her grandpa whose birthday was being celebrated that night. Since I had finally made my mind, I decided that I would go and find her wherever she was and whomever she was with. So I did, and at about nine o’clock, on July 30 of 1973, I entered Fanny’s grandpa’s apartment, and after briefly greeting everyone, I asked Fanny to come apart and talk to me, which she accepted. The loud music in the living room and the people’s loud talking could be heard in the background, but that did not prevent me from telling Fanny that I was sorry for everything that had happened in the past, and that I had decided to ask her to allow me to share the rest of my life with her, I was almost trembling as I was talking and she must have seen it in my eyes that I was damn serious about what I was saying, she must have felt that I really meant every one of my words, so, in a matter of five minutes of talking, she embraced me, she said she loved me as much as I loved her and that she accepted to marry me!. We asked her mother (who never liked me very much) to come and listen to what we had just decided. She drew a light smile in her face and said she was giving her blessing to our decision. Fanny’s mother and father had split many years back and he had not played any significant role as a father since Fanny was eight. Nevertheless, Fanny was going to communicate with him and let him know about our decision. A few minutes later Fanny and I decided that we would marry on Saturday September 1, just a month away. We needed to run, time started to fly.


BUENOS AIRES ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL
CAPITALS OF LATIN AMERICA
I had my own family to communicate the news to; my family was made of Lilita, my dear sister and surrogate mother and her husband Lolo whom I respected and loved as if they were my own parents. I also had to tell my father who was living by himself in Pallatanga, my home village.

I came home that night and asked Lilita and Lolo to listen to me, they knew it was something important and paid close attention to every one of my words, I was not really asking their consent to do what I was going to do, but I was very respectfully telling them about my decision and asking for their blessing.
My sister Lilita showed me once more how mush she loved me. She said “Rafico, I had seen you grow from a young and smart little kid, to become a responsible and caring professional man, I believe you deserve to have your own family, you are already 31, and it is just natural that you get married and have your own family”, she then added “you have my blessing, you can count on me, I don’t feel like I’ll be losing a son, instead, I feel like I’ll be gaining another daughter, that’s the way I feel and you can tell that to your future wife”. She ended her little speech with her eyes wet, she was very emotional and almost crying; “I love you Rafico, I love you as much as I love my own children and I can’t tell you I’ll miss you, because I expect you to remain close to us after your marriage”. I was also sobbing and when I rose from my chair to go and embrace my sister who was sitting right across the dining table, I noticed Lolo was also silently sobbing. He didn’t say a word, he only stood up and embraced me and let his emotions flow unrestricted. The three of us remained silently sobbing and embracing one another for several minutes before we noticed that their four children, who were supposed to be in bed since it was late at night, had somehow found out what was going on, and had been hiding and silently watching the whole scene and were also sobbing. A minute later we were all embracing one another just as one solidly united family would.
The next step was to let my father, who was in Pallatanga, know about our marriage. I made a special trip to let him know. He was also very emotional and for the third time in my life, I saw him cry; only this time it was clearly because he felt very happy about his son. I told him I wanted him and to be my best man, while my sister Lilita would be my God Mother and would take my mother’s place in the church’s ceremony, and so it was.
A month passed by and the big day arrived, we would have our marriage take place at the Church of St Juan Bosco, the priest who will bless our marriage would be Father Guido Camilotto, an Italian priest who was the dean of the parish. Camilotto was a man who had lived in Guayaquil for over thirty years and was a real follower of the Ten Commandments, but more than anything else he was a man who loved God and helped his fellow men and women for the love of Jesus Christ.
In my next posting: A HAPPILY MARRIED MAN