In which our unlikely adventurers try to get internet and learn that they will never get mail.
“Oh yeah, what’s the address here?”
I’m sitting at my downstairs neighbor’s table, one exactly like mine, and my neighbor, Antoinette, is helping me get internet and cable in our unit.
“The address?” She says in a strong French accent, “That is a tricky thing, there isn’t really an address.”
“So how do you get mail?”
“Mail?” She laughs, “You don’t get mail. No one gets mail and if you do it takes four months.”
I’m dumbfounded and it shows.
“You have to let go of the ideas you had before and just turn your brain off here,” she says, very seriously, “It’s easier that way.”
“So,” she continues, she’s been communicating with Telecable, a local internet/TV provider via email, “she is asking for a credit card and a copy of your passport.”
I feel a check in my soul.
“Are you sure you’re on the real website?” I ask, kind of chuckling, but mostly serious, “That’s a lot of personal information there.”
“Oh, Yeah,” Antoinette says, “that’s a good point. I’m pretty sure this is right. I have her email right here from the website.”
I haven’t seen the website or confirmed the email, but it seems rude to doubt my new friend who I know nothing about but is being so kind as to help. You can get someone at the cable company who speaks English, sometimes, maybe, like one or two days a week, but it’s faster if you have someone who speaks Spanish. So Antoinette is translating for me.
“Tu nombre y tu tarjeta de credito,” she mumbles, taping her keyboard, “Bon, Bon.”
It’s her mixture of English, Spanish and French that tickles me. She talks to me in English, reads out loud the Spanish from the email and responds to the answers in French. Antoinette and her husband Norman are from Quebec so French is their first language.
“I admire you moving down here and not speaking the language. It’s very brave,” she says.
“Thanks?” I think it’s a compliment. I’m going to take it as a compliment, she doesn’t sound like she’s making fun of me.
“There, OK,” she says, “I emailed the passport photo. I think we have it all. I’ll email you when they have an appointment to bring you the box.”
“Great!,” I say, standing up from the table, “Again, thank you so much.”
“It’s no problem at all,” she says.
As I leave I’m hopeful that I’ll have internet tomorrow cause, dang, it’s like living in the early 2000’s right now. Sometimes my phone works, most of the time it doesn’t. It's as if the wind carries the signal on a whim and I'm forced to see the world around me instead on the one my smart phone creates. It's tempting to try and live without it.
It’s been a steep learning curve in these first two days. The language, which I know un poco, the roads, the directions, the lack of addresses. Seriously, it’s not 2314 Valle Verde, it’s on the main road turn at the Auto Mercado, and it’s the little building with the green roof, that’s not the directions, that’s the address!
I’m gonna turn off my brain tomorrow and see how that goes. Wish me luck.
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