Saturday, April 19th, 2014

Last night I received a short email from Luz explaining that she is spending a lot of time at the clinic because her brother has cancer.  I thanked her for sharing that with me and told her that her brother is her priority right now and that I hope he recovers fully soon.

I went to bed at 10pm and had difficulty getting to sleep.  I heard trumpets outside, probably from a church service, and that kept the dogs across the street yapping nonstop.  (No wonder so many people leave town for their fincas!)  I got up once to close my bedroom door, got up again and turned on the fan to try to muffle the sounds outside, and got up again to put the blanket on my bed.  The last time I checked it was 12:30am and I think I finally fell asleep shortly thereafter.  I got up once during the night to go to the bathroom.  I got up about 4:55am and heard a continuous muffled sound.  My best guess, as I looked out my window, is the dogs across the street had been barking all night and their throats were hoarse.  At least that’s what it sounded like.  At that moment a motorcycle pulled up and rang the outside doorbell.   The son of the family in 201 has a motorcycle I sometimes see parked downstairs in the alcove.  Now I know why it’s always gone when I do my jump roping at 7am, because he probably leaves with his friend at 5 in the morning.  I finally woke/got up at 7:10am.

I had breakfast at the hotel followed by some time studying my Spanish verbs at LM.  I left at 11:30 and stopped at Exito to buy a package of crackers.

I left the apartment at 12:30 and was surprised to see Jhon sitting outside his office.  He said he didn’t go anywhere; just stayed in his apartment watching TV, listening to music and spending some quality time with the ladies.

I waited about 5 minutes for a bus and still was at the Envigado Exito before 1:30.  Teresa arrived about 5 minutes later.  Today, without a jacket, I could see her figure much better.  She doesn’t have the big Colombian butt, her legs are nicely shaped, but she was wearing one of those corsets like Beatriz had me buy for her.  It seems to me to be more like a tight t-shirt.  At least today we’re holding hands without feeling self conscious.  We walked back to the metro and got off at Industriales.  (According to my guide and map we should now be very close.)  We took a taxi from there and for 5mil were soon at the village.

It was a hot day so the first thing we did is she got a cold beer and I got a semi cold bottle of water.  We found a place in the shade away from all the action and sat down in the grass for a bit.  She got a phone call and that reminded me to take out my cell and I got her cell phone number.  She will rattle something off in Spanish real quick and then look at me and say “you don’t understand?” and I’ll say “I don’t understand” and we’ll both smile and laugh.

Here are a few pictures I took of, and from, the village including Teresa.

We had a nice late lunch sitting upstairs at Restaurante la Fonda del Pueblo overlooking the courtyard.  We both had the chicken salad and fresh juice for a total of 45mil.  I asked her if she would like to see my apartment afterwards and she said “yes”.  And then I finished my sentence and said “with kisses” and she gave me this look and said “no”.  After lunch we stopped in the church for a few minutes and said a prayer and then walked upstairs where there is quite a view of Medellin.  I could make out the Stadium but I didn’t recognize much else.  About 4pm I got a call from Harry but I didn’t answer it.

Afterwards we took a taxi to my apartment for 10mil.  She was pretty impressed with it and all the plants but she told me I have to move one particular plant closer to the window because it needs more light.  I showed her some pictures of my kids on my laptop and the website of my step sister – Cyd J Conner - who is a painter.  We left there and walked down to Viva CC where we each had a single dip Snickers ice cream cone with whipped cream at Popsy for 11mil.

We took a Circular 302 bus to Aguacatala and got off just before it got dark.  She told me I don’t need to go all the way to Exito with her but I walked her to the train, bought her a ticket, and said goodbye at the entrance.  I did get a little kiss on the lips though.  She said something about Sunday that I didn’t understand but I told her to email me.

I caught a Circular 303 bus back to Viva and found Harry at LM.  When he called earlier he wanted to invite me to come to his new apartment where he’s working with his computer.

Back at the apartment I watched Reservoir Dogs on Netflix while eating popcorn – with butter.

T-shirt of the day: Coup d’etat - In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.