I slept well Sunday night, thanks to the heavy walking during the day. There are some important differences that I’m beginning to perceive. For one, the air: it does smell different. Always a slight quality of stale milk to it. The switches. All of the electrical switches around here are mounted on their side. I know, it’s crazy. And of course, the roads. Everyone drives on the right side, I don’t know why. I’m sure I’m going to get knocked down one of these days, as I always find myself looking for oncoming traffic in the wrong direction before crossing. Other than this, everything else is fine.
I had a fairly uneventful Monday, at least during the day. I spent all of it at UniTierra, writing and reading. They have a good number of computers over here, and a lot of them are connected most of the time.
I returned home (home for now = Casa Dracula) at around 6:00 in the evening, stopping by at a bakery to pick up some bread for breakfast the next day. Do?a Caterina (yeah, I finally know Dracula’s mother’s name. And the one I thought was his sister is actually another paying guest. I asked her her name, but have forgotten it yet again), returned around 8:00, I went to sleep around 9:00. At around midnight, Do?a Caterina came into my room, asking me if I’d seen Chivo at Unitierra. Chivo together with some others is helping Dracula build some kind of shed on some land Dracula owns outside the city. They’d been to the terreno, as it’s called, that day, and Caterina was worried because Dracula hadn’t yet returned, or so I thought. I offered to call up Belinda whose number I had, since she lives on the ground floor of the same house as Daniel and Megan and Chivo (I think) also lives there. When we tried the number, it was busy. Caterina was getting increasingly agitated about I wasn’t sure what. She said something about tablets and danger. I gathered that she may be out of some kind of medication or that Dracula had maybe taken some of her pills or maybe knew where they were. She’d decided to go to look for him. I had no choice but to offer to accompany her. We left home and found a taxi after some time. I assumed we were going to Belinda’s house. As it is, my mind was boiling over with fears that either the taxi driver was going to waylay us or that we might be victims of a carjacking (taxi-jacking?). It didn’t help at all when the taxista drove straight passed the turn we had to take to get to Belinda’s house. We were driving for quite a while until we reached our destination. Dracula’s terreno. We had to walk quite a bit through slush and muck created by the rain until we reached the place. It was dark and I could see the shed and a canvas tent. Also a frisky black labrador, but I don’t want to talk about that. Caterina looked all around, but no luck. We went back to the waiting taxi and drove all the way back to Belinda’s house, where we finally managed to get Chivo out. He said that they’d returned a while back, but that Dracula’d gone to a party. We returned home where, tired and confused, I went back to sleep.
The next day, on waking, I saw Armira (I think that’s her name, the chick who’s a paying guest at Caterina’s) alone in the hall. I asked her to explain to me what had happened the night before. Turned out that Caterina is on prescription sleeping pills. For whatever reason, she may have suggested that Dracula take them as well. Only later, when she’d found one box of pills missing, did she realise that she’d forgotten to warn him about the dosage. Her doctor had warned her not to take more than a certain amount, as they could prove dangerous. And what worried her was that Dracula might take more than the prescribed amount and put his life in danger. But I suppose when she’d heard that he was at a party, she wouldn’t have had anymore reason to worry, because who sleeps at a party?
I arrived Tuesday at Unitierra with much anticipation. Gustavo was to return today from the US. I was checking my mail when Sergio, who helps manage Unitierra asked me for help with some software problem. I returned home to collect my pack of CD-ROMs, and without thinking too much, a box of sweets as well. I was working at the computer when a slightly old, energetic character breezed in. I barely had the chance to turn around before I was embraced in a warm hug. At last, I’d met the man most responsible for making this trip happen. I picked up the box of sweets I’d brought and offered it to him as a welcome gift. As he had to conduct a seminar soon thereafter, he asked me to join him for lunch. In the meantime, he instructed Mary, the receptionist to have me sign a receipt for 3000 pesos, which I was to be my initial allowance. I hadn’t done anything yet, but was already being paid an amount equal to Rs. 12000!
We went out for lunch where we spoke about what I would like to do and what he would like me to do. We established an easy rapport and I began to feel a whole lot more confident about my stay. For starters, I am to help Gustavo edit some texts he has written in English. Then the next month, there are going to be arriving people from indigenous communities from New Zealand, North America and India. I have been asked to be part of a group that’s going to be receiving them. Other than that, Gustavo is going to help me with my Spanish, by giving me some texts, which I am to memorise. According to Gustavo, this is to help me get a feel of the rhythms and cadence of the language. And according to him, after a while, something will click inside my head, and it will be a lot easier for me to use the language.
I can feel the Mexican bug starting to kick in.