Blog 50-Digital Todos

Writing at La Fonda
Patria didn't show next morning. I forgot she was unreliable because of her general perfection. I had my mind set on Coral and I took myself to La Fonda Migajas on my own before the sun got high, while the road was still cool. I kept close to the foliage and counted six sightings of the glorious red and black plumed bird. I called the birds Partido because its red and black feathers were like the Partido de la Felicidad flag. I kept meaning to to learn its name.
As soon as I walked into La Fonda Dulce showed me to my favorite table by the door. "Tenemos wi-fi." She kissed me on the cheek. I got onto my TODOS page and was able to finish the Burocrazy section! All I did was upload the whole folder and then made a few edits. Still, I felt accomplished. I had finished something, not everything, but something. I stared out at the plaza, sunlit. On the squat, umbrella shaped branches of the tamarindo trees the leaves glowed, almost fluoresced.
I put my things into my backpack, stood at the door of La Fonda Migajas and saw the crumbling adobe church calling to me from straight across the Coral Plaza, the center of the town. I cut across the Plaza, walked around the glorieta, crossed the street, and stepped into the dark, cool church.
After my eyes got used to the darkness I recognized several of the Señoras de los Frijoles I'd seen in the procession. They sat close together on the front rows. I could see the Priest in his brown robes talking to them. I found Julia sitting close to the aisle on the second row and sat beside her. Several of the women looked at me and waved. The Priest was a dark skinned man around my age. I couldn't remember his name until I heard one of the Señoras call him Padre Ezequiel. He said the group should go as a contingent to the action on Grito Day. Julia gave me a look, grinned and squeezed my hand. “Grito Day is in our karma.”
In the dim light of the church it took me a while to notice that the dusty whitewashed adobe walls were covered with very delicate graffiti, rows and designs made up of what I at first thought were crosses but at last saw were Ts. The letter T, over and over. Soon my eyes got used to the pattern and I saw among the Ts there were numbers, zeros and ones, over and over. After seeing a mural made up of Ts and sets of zeros and ones inside the church I realized I had been seeing Ts, lone Ts all over the Encampment. And in the oddest places there were those zeros and ones. The meeting broke up, the women filled the center aisle, walked outside. All along I had been seeing Todos, eveywhere. The very Todos Anacaona had taken me to see must be the young men Elba Luz told me were concientizados by the Padre, like her own dead husband.
Julia and I stayed behind to talk with the Padre. We walked to the front of the church where the Padre was talking to two women who stood very close to him, talking quickly, moving their hands. Julia leaned into me. "He's handsome but impeccable." It was true. He had a dark brown square face, black wavy hair slicked back. He nodded and said very little. We waited almost ten minutes for the women to run out of words. As they stepped away I moved in on him before the two women seated beside me reached him. Julia joined us, "Mi amiga Marina." She pointed to me. The Padre and I shook hands. He was better looking up close, especially when he deployed his big smile. It must be difficult to have a square jaw, fine nose, full lips and be a priest, one who took a lot of trouble trimming his bigote. I remembered Julia saying he was one of those charming Padres who suffered celibacy. "Women are always on him." I couldn't (or maybe he couldn't) tell whether he was being warm and loving because I'm human, or flirting and soliciting because I'm woman. I thought, he can help me find Ori, that's the main thing. but it was clear that I was the one he was flirting with. I was to meet him tomorrow in the Church office with any documents I had so he could get Ori onto the canje list. Danny had said, we had to throw anything and everything.
Wade In
Anacaona decided we should do small practice Wade-ins every morning to wear the Guardias down, lower their guard. This morning's Wade-in, like all the others this week, we felt our power, even if for only a few minutes before Guardias bore down with hoses on top of the sea water. It was a kind of dance, we waded, they hosed, we left, one more small Wade-in, leading up to the big world convergence Wade-in on Grito Day. Wade-ins made me hungry and I raced back to El Comedor de las Señoras. Guille came up beside me, whispered into my ear, "You won't believe what I just heard! DigitalTodos detoured shipments of air to ground weapons from the base into the Territorio. And the Todos muchachos are planning a dismantling fest. They have this idea they can convert the rockets into high powered hurricane shelter bores..." I must have looked confused. "You don't know about the Zero Ones? Digital Todos? Zero stands for Operation, one for Liberation...They're the reason we have wifi. They've been breaching the camp's encrypted email and chats for years now.." He left me and walked up to where Tanama and Seño Rosa from La Escuelita, were walking arm in arm. He bent toward them, told them his news and moved on.