Dow who?

It's Friday evening here at UMAR, and you can practically smell it. All the teachers have had their last classes, and all pretense of working has been abandoned, here in our little corner of the campus. An impromptu game of office football (soccer) has sprung up, with a ball of paper held together with tape. A cluster of French teachers discusses their weekend camping trip to Cangrejos, a beach a couple hours from here. Not far in the distance, the students have gathered at one of the larger intersections of the pathways, and we can hear the lightness in their voices as they discuss which club, which party, which clothes.
We are all waiting for seven o'clock. That's when we can punch out, when the buses and taxis arrive to take the students away; outside the gate there's almost certainly three or four trucks and cars with amplifiers bolted to their roofs, ready to begin blasting advertisements for local clubs, their eternal promises of fun and frolic. One of them, Litros, is having a foam party tonight, where they will fill the dance floor with bubbles, and this seems to be the club of choice for most of the kids. Even so, they will be there at the gate, with their speakers and billboards, their pretty girls handing out flyers and somewhat disturbingly insisting you will have a good time.
But it's relatively quiet in the Centro de Idiomas; even the shrieks and shouts of the football game are muffled by the jungle. The sun still grazes the tops of the trees, but here, under the canopy, it is definitely twilight. Crickets have begun their nightly symphony, the iguanas and lizards seem to have disappeared to whatever safe nook they wait out the cool of night in, even the flowers seem still and peaceful and ready to rest. In less than an hour, we will give the jungle back to them for the weekend; only those few professors who live on campus will remain, and most of them will leave too, to visit family or go to a beach or whatever.
And I will leave, and happily enough. Home, slowly, (still have water in my carburetor), a gentle putt-putt down the hill to my home, which feels more so everyday. Later, many of us will meet again at the Dublin, where Richard may convince me to try my hand at darts again, and Alex the bartender will likely make those tiny margaritas with the rotgut tequila that only a few hardened regulars drink, which is why he gives it away to us, and Angela will probably watch whatever sports happen to be on the flatscreen, and Gary will flirt shamelessly but charmingly with whoever happens to be around, and later, perhaps, we'll all go to a new club, opening tonight, the owners a married couple, he's American, she's Mexican, who have treated us well at their little cafe, and are now embarking on bigger ventures.
Somewhere north of here, the global economy is melting down, and the impacts of it will surely reach deeply into Huatulco. But for now, it's only Friday evening, and it's time to go.