Our companions in Ecuador were the young Tugulinago brothers. In addition to making the most severely elated music I’ve ever heard, they perpetually blind-sided us with these colossal smiles. The youngest brother is Efraim. Like me, he started playing with his band at a very young age. Like me, he was forced to learn a whole bunch of random instruments. And also like me, he was jabbed and teased by his older brothers the entire time. I knew I wanted to write a song about him that could be about me as well. But as I started to compile the tune from melodies I had already created while riding through the Ecuadorian hills, and a pan flute line the brothers had played, I became increasingly afraid that I was writing the happiest song in the history of the band. But I finished it anyway with one intended purpose: that Efraim would smile when he listened to it.

• Otovalo, a small town in Ecuador, lies in the shadow of a volcano.
• Agave is a small, succulent plant. Its Mexican variant, the maguey, is the basis of tequila. Agave nectar has also been used as a sugar substitute.
• El Señor es siempre bueno, roughly translated, means “God is always good.”