En El Noche
Tuesday, Jun. 17, 2003

Like the first night here, the first half of the night last night slept wonderfully. In fact it was quite nice since it was cold and Alison and I had to cuddle to keep warm. However, after about two, when I got up and used the bathroom, I couldn't get back to sleep. It was a dog barking that did it.

Alison had me set the alarm on my palm, what I'm typing this into, a cheap IIIxe, for six. I think she had me make it snooze for ten minutes after that also. I stayed in bed and only got up later.

Breakfast is always at 7:30. Today it was sausage fried in eggs and refried beans, and of course fresh tortillas and hot salsa. The thing that was different, besides the sausage in the eggs rather than ham like yesterday, was the huge amount of fruit they put onto the table.

Yesterday, I had my first fresh mango and some little green thing with lots of seeds. I liked the mango, but it was a little messy, and I didn't care for the little green thing. Today, I tried Papaya. And these papayas aren't the dinky ones we get in the US. This was a huge thing cut like a cantaloupe. I wasn't able to determine whether I liked it or not. It was a very alien flavor.

There wasn't much work today for us who cortar cabello. Also, I've taken to calling hair pelo rather than cabello. It's just easier and keeps me from calling hair an onion like I did yesterday.

Almost at noon, I got my first customer. A boy who wanted a cut we really didn't do. Paul wasn't there and I assumed that I could do long on top and short on the bottom. I also thought I understood that they wanted the line between the two to be distinct, like some kids do (and is generally considered cool by most kids). Well, they didn't want that but I sent Alison to get Paul and he fixed it.

After that, I was a little discouraged. If you don't know me well, you don't know that my main flaw is that I'm easily discouraged.

Adding to this discouragement was one of our translator's telling me a story about a person who talks alot without knowing much and no one liked to be around that person. I assume he was talking about me since I keep wanting to learn Spanish. I'm sorry if he finds me irritating. And that further discouraged me.

Then I had two brothers who came in. They were about 9 years old. Their hair was about four inches all around. I was told that they wanted the #2 cut, which is 11/16 of an inch. I started and the first boy made me stop when he saw huge amounts of hair falling off his head. I explained in my best Spanish, which was pretty bad, that it would look fine and that I needed to finish.

He fretted and complained while I was cutting. I think I was giving off waves of doubt about my abilities. But, he turned out fine.

While doing his brother, the same thing happened. This time I said, in Spanish, that he was handsome with his long hair and he'll be handsome with his short hair. Besides, I also said, it's not that short.

The big problem here is that I've got my head still mostly shaved. I figure my hair is about 2mm long right now.

Paul showed up again and I asked him to finish around the ears and the neck. He did it exactly like I did the boy's brother, which made me feel a little better.

Lunch was a very small amount of soup, thin cut chicken with a mushroom gravy, refried beans, Spanish rice, and a pepper and onion salsa. And the usual hot salsa was there.

The translator who made me feel that he was criticizing me put all my doubt to rest by criticizing me in front of a group of 18 people at lunch.

When the woman asked if I was finished, I said "S�, I eat very quickly. I kind of wolf down my food." Which, granted, is too much English that she won't understand. Mean Translator Man said, "You know, when you know that they don't know much English, just say 'no' and leave it at that. There's no need to say anything else." And if you want to know the tone of voice he said it in, condecending. Alison is my witness. And this further discouraged me.

I think I cut one more head of hair in the afternoon. I'm not really sure. I know Paul did and I took a picture of the cute little guy.

Around this time, the skies opened up and it rained and rained. It's the rainy season here, after all. And with the rain came the cold. Hace frio.

First, I just stayed in Laborio's house and drank coffee. The coffee helped me feel better as it gave me some energy. My choice with the cold was to either go through the rain back to my room to get my jacket and be wet and cold with a jacket, or just stay moderately cold. So that's what I did. The second one.

I went back over to the chapel where Paul and I had been cutting hair and Paul and I talked about how I was discouraged with the haircuts. It was agreed that the tools we had weren't that good. Also, he told me that last year when Jim came down, a real barber, that Jim would fix hair that he messed up. That and the two boys were picky. But both of them liked their hair once we were finished too.

After the rain let off, I went back to my room, put some more deodorant on since there is no AC here. Heck, there's no front door here. I also put on my boots as I was wearing my black futuristic shoes. Marylin complemented me on them. They are very well armored, I must admit. She was thinking of them as far as her paramedic husband goes. I also got my jacket and hat.

When I got back, I stood around and talked to people. The translator who wan't so nice earlier was there and since he hadn't seen the house we are staying in, I invited him to come look. He said, "Oh, are you going to give me the grand tour." I responded by saying I couldn't really give that grand a tour since I didn't know much about the house except that I really liked it.

It ended up that the fellow who let us into the courtyard from the street was Laborio's nephew, the builder of the house. He designed the floorplan and has poured every bit of concrete. He even made the ornate surrounds around the lights in the ceiling. I thought they were those cheap plastic ones you can buy at Home Depot. Wow, this place is nicer than I thought.

This little tour with the builder seemed to get mean translator and me on better relations. Good, since I have to work with him.

After that, I went and found Alison and ended up watching an episode of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius in Spanish, but with the sound off, as we talked about different things. It was the episode when Jimmy's head is on his hamster and vice versa. One of the things I talked about, rather animatedly, was a response to one person that they'd heard that the second Matrix movie is almost exactly the same as, prepare yourself, Monster's Inc.

Now, I'll not go into my multi-part praise of all both films and detailed analysis of the Matrix world, since it made everyone in the rooms eyes glaze over. But, please, Monsters Inc as The Matrix?

After this was the church service, which was long but refreshing. I think tonight's was about 1.5 hours long. I'm really getting better at understanding Spanish. I also realize that the poor people in this barrio have better educations than the people I deal with at work, and at work we all have degrees.

Some of the new words I leaned to day was llevando, I think that's rain. Llevar, which is call, as in a phone call. Pecador, which means sinner, and not only do I hear that in songs, but it was written on the back of some freakish bus that went by.

Seems all the busses which run route 18 here in Etecapec are privately owned and they can choose whatever decoration of lack thereof for their bus. They can also choose the font for the "Rota 18" and I've seen tricked up ones with Altezza style lights too. I've got to take pictures of cars at some point. I love the Ford Ka which is sold here.

Today , we took pictures of several cute ni�os y ni�as. I really hope the pictures come out.