In country X

Ecuadorian women were not trained to be companions nor did they know how to carry on a conversation.

From Living Poor, written by a Peace Corps Volunteer who came to Ecuador in the 1960s. He lived in a village on the coast long enough to start a cooperative, avoid a few drunken machete fights, and discover the impossibility of an 8-hour workday on a diet of bananas. I put down One Hundred Years of Solitude and finished it in two days, it was so good. Not everyone can breathe through months of true cultural difference and not everyone can write well. Great literary non-fiction is special.

As for the quotation, I had to read it twice, because it smacked of ¨In country X, the people are Y.¨ Then I counted my conversations with Ecuadorian women. Beyond superficial chats at the beach and the bar, and the bilingual comedies with my language partner, none.