Training Day

Woke up with the rooster’s crows at 4:30 am.  He must have been the early bird rooster and lives directly on the other side of my wall.  He was apparently the alarm clock for the rest of the roosters because in five minutes the whole valley echoed with crowing.  I have a feeling this alarm doesn’t have an inactive weekend setting.

Breakfast was pan with a small avocado and a little salt and what I think was some kind of sweet, runny oatmeal.  My family seems like a typical American family in that they’re all on the go and eat at different times, if at all.  The mom is busy in the morning getting the kids ready for school before she goes to work, her brother was sleeping in because he worked late.  In the morning, there was a new face in the living room.  It was a distant cousin who’d not been in town for about 15 years since moving to Argentina.  He’d clearly met up with friends he hadn’t seen this whole time and raged like he hadn’t seen his friends in 15 years at a festival for whatever virgin they were paying homage to that night.  Somehow he found his uncle’s house, his cousin was hanging out outside, let him in and he crashed on the couch.  He woke up frozen and hung over.  I felt his pain. 

We headed down to the bottom of the hill to catch the combi to go to the training center.  The combi is smaller than a real bus but a little larger than a 15 passenger van.  We caught the bus at the busiest possible time.  The combi was packed with students.  As the combi slowed down a lady jumped out and pushed us into the crowded bus.  “Sube! Sube! Adelante! Adelante!  (Get in! Go to the front!).  The driver looked and moved like he was on Thorazine but drove like he was on amphetamines.  The speed limit is “faster”.  When we got to our destination, the same lady yelled for us to get off.  No coffee needed after that.

Training was training.

On the way back, the combi was not quite as full and I got a seat after a couple of stops.  We walked around for a little bit and headed back to the house.  A little band was kicking up on the corner.  I asked the little girl next door what the occasion was and she said it was a celebration because the new roof was finally installed.  They christened the building with a bottle of champagne and threw out candies to the kids.  I was nervous the kids were going to be diving for candy amidst the broken glass but they put a bag over the bottle before they broke it.  Some lady came out with a couple of plates of food and handed me one of them.  The old man was cooking me dinner but I didn’t want to offend either so I took the plate of food back to the house, ate it, and ate the plate of food the old man cooked.  Full.  And the party rages on.  So far, there are 5 milk crates stacked up in the middle of the group.  Doubt they’re filled with milk so I’m pretty sure they’re going to be out there for a while.