We cross the street and go down the way for pizza. The hotel had called Terry to meet up with us. "You're with Granada Department of Tourism?" she says. "Or something to do with Moon Guides?" I say, no, that isn't us. She shrugs, 'oh well, don't tell anybody. Just pretend.'
Terry and her sister Nancy live unusually splendid lives. Both were Peace Corps volunteers, but on opposite sides of the globe. Terry fell into the life of public service, living as an expat in Chad, Sierra Leone, Pakistan. She was stationed in Afghanistan just after the war, and in Iraq, just before.
Talking about being an American hotel owner in Granada, Terry says, "You have to be socially responsible." Terry has lived that other life - the American who understands the world from street level, in all its poverty and moments of injustice. Terry has involved the hotel in a kind of community activism.
"It's wonderful the way they just live among everybody else," Terry says. She is referring to the dozens of handicapped children who live in a shabby building not so far from the hotel. There, they form a kind of commune - making and selling artwork and clothing, their elaborate crafts. "But the owner wants to sell the building, so we are trying to find a new place for them."
