Rear Window

So far my life in Venezuela consists primarily of sitting in front of our large sliding window in the living/dining room, facing out and surfing the internet with the computer in my lap (that's why they are called laptops!). That is the only spot in the house with semi-reliable wireless connectivity (thank you “Arias Family” whoever you may be). I feel a little like Jimmy Stewart in the classic Alfred Hitchcock film “Rear Window” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047396/). In “Rear Window” Jimmy Stewart plays a wheelchair bound photographer who sits and looks out a window in his New York apartment building for weeks and he thinks he witnesses a murder in another building. Well, there certainly is nothing that exciting here, but I do spend most of my time sitting in front of the window watching as Caracas goes about its business. We were informed that a Venezuelan couple in a different apartment building in which there is embassy housing was recently robbed at gun point in the parking garage, so who knows, perhaps I will witness a robbery. Frankly, the crime situation has me a little bummed out. Everyone keeps telling us that we must be super careful, not to carry a bag or backpack while walking to the embassy, that we could be robbed day or night while walking on the street, keep all the doors locked all the time, don't go outside a few selected areas of the city and on and on....Without a car and with the spectre of crime constantly hanging over our heads, there is little to do other than sit at home. We have been out a few times, thanks to the kindness of others for rides, but I still feel cooped up. I went to the mall about 100 yards from our apartment, that is a 1.5 km walk or drive (it is down a steep hill through which there is no trail and the road loops around) for groceries and a bathing suit. I have also walked to the embassy several times, but after dark we don't get out much.

My command of Spanish is the other factor that severely limits my ability to interact with society. While I can communicate at a basic to intermediate level, carefully formulating questions in my head before asking them, I am always unprepared for the torrent of Spanish words that come in response. I will say “how much is this swim suit?” in Spanish and the answer will be “yadda dadda dad dayada dydayd dydyd, pero, yadad dada dayda yada proque dadyda dadada. Entiende?” Hell no I don't entiendo, but I usuallly smile, nod and act like I understood. I think that approach could be causing some problems. For example for two weeks I have been trying to get bottled water delivered to our apartment. Don't worry, we have water delivered by the embassy, but I need to get a service set up because the embassy water is temporary. I have spoken to the building manager about this three times and as near as I can tell she has assured me each time that water will be delivered next Tuesday between 8:00 and 9:00 am. But it never happens. When I ask her about it she says “dios mio” and assures me that it will come next Tuesday. I think. She could just as likely be telling me that she is the manager of the damn building not the water delivery service and to call them my own damn self and schedule the delivery for next Tuesday like everyone else in the building and to quit bothering her about the water. Another example: Supercable, the internet and cable TV provider, just called. They called just about everyday last week to try to sell me internet and cable TV. I think. Each time I told them we would secure internet and cable through the embassy. We were finally able to set that up and are awaiting installation. When they just called, not understanding what the young lady on the phone was saying, I informed her that we already had Supercable, internet too. I even gave her the contract number. She had a puzzled tone in her voice as she asked my name and then thanked me. It dawned on me after I hung up that she might have been calling to set up the installation and I just assured her that we already had cable and internet. I don't even know if I screwed up or not. In a country with already notoriously slow and inept service, I just injected an element of confusion that did not previously exist.

Mary has been working on the NIV line (Non Immigrant Visas) doing as many as 100 interviews, in Spanish, per day. For the most part these are people seeking tourist (B-2) visas or business (B-1) visas but she has been seeing a number of professional baseball players, including some major leaguers. Unfortunately, the celebrity of baseball players and sports figures in general is lost on her. She came home the other day and asked if Detroit and Atlanta had baseball teams. I told her they did and asked why and she said that two of the ball players she interviewed played for those teams. She was interviewing major league baseball players and did not even realize it. She just made sure they really were employed by a baseball team (they get a lot of minor leaguers as well) and were legit. The NIV line is pretty tough, mentally exhausting work. The line of people is relentless, they get very few breaks and everyone desperately wants a visa, most of them professing a desire to go to Disneyworld. She has about two minutes with each one to make the decision to issue a visa to the US or not.

Tomorrow we are going on a group trip to Parque National Henri Pittier, (http://www.parkswatch.org/parkprofiles/slide-shows/hpnp/hpnp01_eng.pdf) which is in an area much like Caracas, only unspoiled (o.k., less spoiled). It is a high range of mountain cloud forest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_forest) that rises about 8000 ft from the Carribbean Sea. It boasts one of the largest concentrations of birds in the world, and we are likely to see all sorts of parrots (loros), macaws, and other exotic tropical birds as well as tree sloths and monkeys. The coast has some beautiful white sand Carribean beaches and the area is known for its cacao, which is the base ingredient in chocolate. I have heard that there is a wonderful chocolate maker that is on our itinerary.