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now doubling his charge—an extra hundred dollars, and he wants door-to-door service.
    One of our vaudeville acts ensues. The boy hasn’t seen his family in two years, I point out. (“He’s not a boy!”) He’s too tired to walk. (“So am I, and I’m the one who’s been driving all day!”) So, I’ll drive him. (“It’s not that far.”) Even if it’s not far, Leonardo has to carry a suitcase and a box full of spaghetti for his mother . This poignant detail doesn’t seem to affect Bill the way it does me. But then, the plight of small farmers doesn’t make me want to join their struggle by buying a coffee farm. The Leonardo impasse finally ends with a settlement: I’ll stay with Bill, unpacking our things, and Homero and Eli will drive Leonardo home in the pickup.
    It’s a moment in the trip I will hate missing. Leonardo running out of the pickup, surprising his auntie sitting outside their front door. Homero recounts the cries of joy, the tearful embraces, the exclamations over the box of spaghetti. Bill listens, penitent, if defensive. “He might be poor, but he’s still a spoiled brat.” It may be, but even if it is spoiling, certain things—not counting my jewelry—seem a shame to withhold.

    While Homero and Eli are off delivering Leonardo, our host Charlie shows us around. The outhouse is down a path, bordered by small bushes to which half a dozen scrawny goats are tied. Every time you head for the facilities, you set off a round of bleating, so everyone is apprised of all your movements, including the ones your bowels make. The bathroom is literally a place to bathe, a structure with a thatched roof and four sides covered in tarp. You lift a flap and enter. Inside there is a big basin and a small container for throwing water over yourself. As for the water itself, Charlie holds up a hand. “It is coming.”
    A little while later a sister and the two young nieces appear, carrying buckets from the river, which we know from having forded it earlier is a distance away.
    The other hut behind the house is the kitchen, a small dark room, blackened from the charcoal fires inside. Above the door on a wooden plank someone has written a series of numbers. It turns out to be the cell phone of a fifth sister who is working in Florida, the mother of the two girls. I ask for their names.
    Soliana shyly whispers hers. “Rica,” the older, bolder one pipes up. She has a megawatt smile that makes you smile just to look at her.
    “ Rica means ‘rich’ in Spanish,” I tell her. When Piti translates, Rica keeps smiling the same blinding smile as if this is no news to her. It occurs to me that with a number of uncles working in Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic, her lucky name was picked for a reason.

Tomorrow’s plans, to bed at last
    Night has fallen, and Piti and his brother Willy are due home. They will take shortcut paths where the pickup cannot go. It is a dark, moonless night, but Piti claims he could find his way blindfolded, as he has been walking these hills since he was a boy.
    Before he leaves, we discuss plans for tomorrow. The wedding is supposed to take place at the unlikely hour of eight thirty in the morning. But this is actually a good thing, as our party will have to leave right after the ceremony. Tomorrow is Thursday. Unless we get to Cap-Haïtien tomorrow night, nine hours from where the wedding will take place, we will have a hard time making it to the border in one day before the gates close on Friday at five o’clock.
    “We are coming with you,” Piti decides on the spot. By we, he means his bride, Eseline, and their four-month-old baby girl.
    “Piti, it’s your wedding!” I try to reason with him. “Don’t you want to stay and be with your family and other guests?”
    Piti shakes his head. “There is the problem with money. I have used all the money.”
    Bill and I have already sent Piti some money for his wedding present, but now we offer him some additional funds so he can