The Heart of a Child

By Gary Tomlin

It’s Carnival weekend in Vilcabamba, Ecuador,  where traditionally, the Lenten season is welcomed with a community water fight. To celebrate Christ’s ministry on earth, the good Catholics administer a public, mass baptism. So much so that the most popular items on the street vendors’ carts are plastic zip bags, that hang around your neck and protect your phone from the indiscriminate water.

I had been in town a couple of times in the previous week and watched tradesmen working feverishly to get a new village sign installed. Four foot tall, lighted, colorful letters, that spell the town’s name, glistens new on the edge of the park.

Squads of the village youth were in the park every day drilling and field testing their ordnance.

I had the good fortune to visit Guanajuato City, in Mexico’s central mountains, several years ago during Carnival time. Their tradition is to fill egg shells with confetti and somehow reseal them. Revelers break the eggs over each other’s heads to the extent that, when the night is over, the street is ankle deep in confetti. 

Ecuador is more earthy. They use regular old chicken eggs, but they confine this aggression to their youth. I happen to be at San Sebastian Square, in Loja, one afternoon last week, when school let out. All these teenagers, in their navy blue and white school uniforms, poured onto the street with the momentary excitement of being free from their academic constraints. They were busting eggs over each other’s heads. Pretty much every kid on the street had a broken egg dripping down the side of their face. There was unrestrained joy in it, but it was one of strangest things I’ve ever see. Imagine a Salvador Dali painting of the Zombie Apocalypse. 

The small children across Ecuador fill their lives with mischief and courage. I think their unrestrained and outgoing energy comes from being raised in culture where every action is weighed against its environmental impact.

I call them, “the little goobers,” and  see them as the nation’s force for a bright future. They are a joy to observe in their daily pursuits. Except for today in the park, there were pint-sized snipers on the balconies surrounding the square, gleefully drenching passersby below without fear of reprisal.

The bigger kids controlled the water supply at the Central fountain, adults with buckets of water and big water guns patrolled the perimeter of the park. No one was safe or exempt. If you don’t want to be wet be somewhere else.

Being a dignified old gringo, I toured the Central Square and took a few photos, but kept myself above the fray.

I found some high ground in front of the church and began filming the carnage until I took a barrage in the chest from a woman who seem quite pleased with her aggression towards me.

She got so close to soaking my camera that I decided it was time to bail.

But as I was leaving the war zone, anger grew within my core. Not going take this without response.

Negotiated a deal for a double barreled weapon from a street corner arms dealer,  and made my way to the fountain to load it. I took a round in my left shoulder from one little guerrilla as I was loading, and another in the back as I withdrew from the ammo dump. 

Charged  with the adrenaline of battle, and undaunted by my wounds, I circled wide around the peripheral vision of my target and hugged the church wall, so as not to be seen. I came up behind her to within four-feet and unloaded both barrels  with a blistering spray on her exposed back.

My satisfaction was very short lived. I made a fatal, tactical error. It didn’t occur to me to hold my fire until she was empty. She spun around and unloaded a full clip twice the size of mine, and gut shot me.

Out of ammo. Demoralized. I handed off my weapon to an old man who might make better use of it, and withdrew from the field of battle — defeated.

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