[Cue quiet snork.]
Three years ago it was all over.
I've photographed it dozens of times in dozens of places.
Sometimes only a pair of nostrils in an ellipse, sometimes a circle with two eyes, two nostrils, and a mouth line. Sometimes one or the other accompanied by an OINK!
I read the last as oinki. Whatever, exclamation mark or the letter I, it works.
My pal was everywhere, including a couple of feet below the second-floor roof of Mercado 10 de Agosto. That's a public market. It's full of people all day, and when it isn't, it's locked up tight.
I don't know how Oinki got there but there Oinki was. (Gone now. Painted over.)
Gone from a lot of places now. Faded. Washed out. Washed off. Hidden under corrective layers of new paint.
Whatever — however, my friend is fast fading from the scene.
So I was happy today to see Oinki again on Avenida Loja. But hurting. And it's only a matter of time before Oinki is no more.
Like all the rest of us.