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7-Mar-2008 : At the heart of Fair Haven's growing Ecuadorian community, a new Internet cafe is opening passageways home.

Richard Toral (pictured) hadn't seen his son for 15 months when he set up the cafe in the parking lot next to his brother's restaurant. Now he can see his family with the click of a mouse.

Richard opened T. Caffe Internet at 557 Ferry St. on Monday. It's the next in a series of businesses the Toral family has launched in a struggling part of town.

Inside the Internet hut this week, the walls glowed with a fresh coat of bright yellow paint. The scent of eucalyptus hung in the air from a candle. A flyer offered a range of services for recent immigrants: money wiring, a public notary, phone cards, and a fax and copy machine.

Richard, a slender 43-year-old, sat back in a swivel chair, wearing a yellow shirt matching the color of the walls.

Things were different when he moved to the U.S. 13 years ago, he said. Working non-stop at tedious jobs to make a living, he didn't have his own computer. He bought calling cards and listened to his family over a pay phone.

After he plugged in one of three computers in the new store, Richard tested out the equipment to reach his son. Toral sat by a space heater in the hut, in a parking lot at Lombard Avenue and Ferry Street. He put on a pair of headphones and looked at a web cam.

His son sat down in an Internet cafe near their hometown village of Sigsig, Ecuador. The two had a video chat.

Now Richard hopes to make those connections for others in Fair Haven's immigrant population - including fellow Ecuadorians, whose population has been growing fast over the past few years. Thirteen years ago, there were hardly any Ecuadorians here, he noted. Now there are at least a few thousand, though there's no official count.

"We Don't Give Up"

The experiment in entrepreneurship comes after years of labor. Toral followed his brother to New Haven, working as a dishwasher, a cook, and a landscaper. With the help of a class at the Spanish American Merchant's Association, they both learned the basics of running a business and have now opened their own stores.

Richard's brother, Luis Toral (pictured), 44, said life hasn't been easy working on that block. He's been running his own businesses at 249 Ferry St. for six years now. He's lost count of the number of times he's been robbed.

The money wiring agency he used to run got ransacked on a regular basis. His wife's store, Cositas Musicales y Algo Mas, has been held up several times in broad daylight.

Luis said the robberies have become a fact of life in that part of town. They go unreported, or suspects get away. "People are afraid to tell the police," he explained. "They don't talk. Something needs to be done."

In September, he closed the money wiring agency and opened up Toral's Restaurant in its place. Within a month, burglars broke in at night, raided the freezers and stole many kinds of meat. In February, they pried open one of the doors and stole his two plasma TVs. Luis bought cheaper TVs and metal grates for the windows, and persevered.

Thursday, the brightly colored joint was hopping with the tunes of Enrico Iglesias. The menu offers mostly more popular Mexican food, but the walls show hints of the owners' homeland. The plates come heaped high - the chaulaf?n, an Ecuadorian specialty that's basically a big stir-fry of meat, vegetables and rice, was enough to feed a family of four.

A white sign boasts what appears to be the secret to survival: a menu of exotic non-alcoholic drinks with rejuvenating qualities.

Viagra Natural, Luis explained, is an energizing shake of avocado, milk, sugar and quail eggs. Vuelve a la Vida mixes beets, carrots, Aloe vera and cactus. They're all natural, mixed with fresh ingredients, he said.

The cactus drinks turned out to be the inspiration of a Mexican kitchen-hand. And the strength to carry on as entrepreneurs in a new land, against the threat of violence?

"We're a stubborn people," Luis explained. "We don't give up easily."