The Panama Hat Trail by Tom Miller

Author:Tom Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780816537471
Publisher: University of Arizona Press

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

“ALL WE HAVE IS OURSELVES AND OUR STRAW”

After I had found another hotel, Adriano González picked me up in his Travelall for the ride once more to Biblián. The fifty-five-year-old comisionista was going to show me the most critical transaction the sombrero de paja toquilla goes through: the sale from the weavers scattered throughout the countryside to the exporting factories, via the middlemen.

Born and raised in Biblián, González moved to Cuenca when he turned twenty-five. He spends four days a week in Biblián; the rest of the time he delivers hats to the factories and handles the money end of his trade. At a height surpassing six feet, González towers above the hundreds of weavers he deals with every week. That morning he wore a shirt with snaps up the front beneath a cardigan sweater and a gray jacket. A woman sat in the backseat the entire trip as if she wasn’t there; she didn’t say a word, nor was she spoken to. For more than an hour the chola received less attention than a Latin American seatbelt. Even in the rearview mirror González didn’t notice her. When the three of us got out in Biblián, she started carrying things into Adriano’s house. I motioned to her, mouthing silently: “Who’s that?”

“Oh, her.” González seemed surprised that she had been acknowledged. “That’s my servant,” he said, at once answering the question and dismissing the subject.

“What’s your name?” I asked her later.

“I’m the servant,” she replied.

I introduced myself. “And you are—” I said, hanging the sentence in midair.

“—para servirle,” she answered. At your service. In the highlands of Ecuador, it had become increasingly apparent, you either have servants or you are one. There’s very little in between.

A long hallway led from Adriano’s front door to a kitchen. A dark living room, also serving as the office, was off to the side. The main area, between the dark room and the kitchen, consisted of a large open space separated from the entranceway by a couple of low tables. An adjoining driveway had room for the Travelall, stacks of hats, and a dog. Inside plumbing distinguished the house from most Biblián homes. By the time we had parked the car and sat down in the open area, the servant already had water boiling for coffee and was heating up some bread she had bought at a storefront bakery down the block.

A light drizzle began. Across the street, Humberto, who sat on the ground in front of his house selling tallos of toquilla straw, started gathering up his paja to save it from the rain. Isabel, a neighbor from one block over, stopped him to pick out twenty-six tallos, enough to weave three or four hats. She gave him sixty-five cents, twenty-five cents less than he asked for. “I’ll pay you the rest on Sunday when I get the money,” she said, pointing her head toward González’s place.

“You know,” González said, “my work is very hard and I’ve become quite good at it. The main thing is that you have to keep up with it every month, every week, every day.

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