Monday May 28/12 update
I was up at 5:30am again and got a lot of things done before
heading downtown early. I wanted to get
to the Papeleria Monsalves stationery store near the stadium well before
Spanish class at 10am. I was there well
before 9 but the only thing happening was a dozen men ripping up a section of
cobblestone in the street with crowbars and picks. It is amazing how much work they do by hand. I am sure that we would have had a Bobcat do
this work inside of an hour. They would
rather put men to work. The store
looked like it had been closed down.
Today was our last Spanish class, and even though this tired
old brain absorbs very little, I am going to miss the routine of it all. There
is supposed to be a different kind of Madrigal Spanish class starting next week
but we don’t have any details yet.
Our teacher, Martha Mays, is headed back to the US , she has places in Sedona ,
Arizona and near Boston .
She is another expat caught in the visa trap and she has no idea when
she will be allowed to return, likely not before November. This stuff gets very complicated.
After class I headed to a different Papeleria Monsalves past
Parque Calderon and found two nice permanent markers for marking my DVD’s. However they did not have the double-faced
sticky tabs for putting my photos on the wall, but I managed to find those at a
different Papeleria south of the San
Francisco market.
As I was walking downtown this woman with a heavy accent
stopped me and asked if I spoke English. She said she was South African, had arrived on
her own yesterday, and had been robbed of everything, including her passport,
by a cab driver. She showed me a piece
of paper supposedly showing 3 buses she needed to catch, costing $85, to get to
the nearest South African embassy in Lima, Peru. She claimed she hadn’t eaten and had only a
quarter to her name. I gave her all the
change I had and discussed other options, like calling home (she is single and
supports her mother who is 86), talk to the clergy in the many churches (she
said they wouldn’t help, no Christian charity?), and a few other things. When I got home I fretted that I could have
done more, brought her home, etc but something wasn’t right. I mentioned it to Bella and they discussed the
incident at the afternoon Spanish class. The consensus was that this was a scam and I
am now inclined to agree. Many things
didn’t fit in her story, including how she survived from yesterday until past
noon today and only had a quarter to show for her begging. How she can enter Peru without a passport is another
question….
Arriving on my street I saw the lady down the block that
owes me $20 talking to another woman. She
smiled and indicated for me to wait a moment, so I did. When the other woman was gone she explained
that her operation was for uterine cancer, she had to leave her job, and is due
now for a second operation. She
apologized profusely and I told her not worry about it any more. We think we have troubles….
Across the street I saw this big truck being unloaded of
bricks, and again this was all done by hand so I had to take a short video of
the Ecuadorian Conveyor Belt. Later I
got a shot of all the bricks stacked on the second floor. Gotta love the Ecuadorian work ethic.
Tom Thumb came chattering to my window, waited for me to
open it and extend my arms to hold the feeder and he zoomed right to it. He sure is a demanding little character now
but I love him.
I was so pooped I just crashed for the rest of the afternoon
with Peso to keep guard for me.
Enjoy the pics.
That was today’s excitement.
Hugs to all.
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| 120528 Where's them Italians? The bricks are here. |
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| 120528 Tom Thumb visits again |
