Frijol Blanco

It's another perfect evening. The sun is setting. I walk up the street and turn around to see the last, fading image of the ocean(it's an hour away by car, but visible at my altitude on clear days). Indifferent, stray dogs pass by without even a glance. The people are much different. Eduardo, one of my better friends here, greets me with a growing grin that lights up his two year old face like a bonfire. I pick him up and toss him into the air. He screams in delight. I tossle his hair, and speak to him in english. I call him eddie. I tell him the girls will be after him in no time. He watches me walk away, probably wondering why people always come and go at no notice, a novice in our mobile world.
Now it's twilight. The park seems to have been built for this hour of the day. The trees loiter like the unemployed. Their shadows hide the town's aspiring lovers and thoughtful populace. The lights hover like little suns, the bugs their own galaxies.
At one end of the park gather a group of adolescent boys. To the stranger they are the hardest to reach. They are at once somber and suspicious. But i am less a stranger, if not a mystery.
"qué pasa?" one of them says. This is an invitation to sit and talk. I study their faces and realize i recognize most of them. Students, workers, all of them quiet individuals by day, a bustling and raucus collective at night. We chat. Someone asks why i am here. I tell them about the peace corps and about me.
"Y habla Ingleis?" they ask. We continue talking in Spanish.
"Do i speak English? Yes."
"And you have a wife and some girlfriends?"
"no. Neither."
This continues until someone asks my name. Mine is a common one, even here. And boring to the unadoring. So they ask my nickname.
"I don't have one."
They prompt me for one anyway, but i object. "How can someone give themselves a nickname? It has to come from his friends."
We experiment with a few possibilities. It's now very dark, but our laughter fills the void of warmth left by the vacant sun. Someone says something that i don't understand, and someone responds, "no, i know like ten kids named 'bean.' "
Someone adds, "Frijol blanco," white bean. Everyone laughs. I laugh. Not that fitting-in laughter, but that full laughter that is meant for friday nights with friends.

---
Two months pass. This evening, sitting in my house, i celebrate my acceptance into this town, into this life, at each calling of my nickname by the passers by:
"HOLA FRIJOL BLANCO."

Life is good. Where as before, i knew few, and no one was willing to greet the unnamed stranger, i am now greeted by many people i know, and many people i do not. Time passes like it always has- too quickly- but is more enjoyed.
And my work is progressing nicely. Maybe sometime soon i will write about it.