Break Time is Coming
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Five work days left!
Last week was our annual winter concert. We spent the week rehearsing for the Thursday night performance. Zachary was so excited. We have been practicing his three songs every night for the last several weeks. He also got to be a Russian dancer in “The Nutcracker.” All in all it was a very exciting week.
Today the family went separate ways. Carrie and Zachary headed to the beach while I loaded into Steve and Laura’s car for a trip to Tintoreros. I am getting a little tired of the beach. I think I have been to the beach more times in the last fourteen months than I have been in my entire life. It’s not that I never want to see the beach again, but the road trip to Tintoreros was a nice change especially since I didn’t drive.
Tintoreros is an artisan market. We have been there several times. It lies about three hours away near the city of Barquisimeto. There are lots of things to buy, including hammocks, leather goods, jewelry, and various wooden items. They have these great wooden flowers for purchase that are so cool, but so fragile. Anyway, I bought some gifts and spent good time getting to know the Carahs. They went there ready to shop. Laura had a list and we were not leaving until she had something for everyone on it. There were probably a few folks who didn’t get checked off, but she did pretty well.
Of course, no road trip is complete here without a visit to the local constable. I’m still unclear as to why he wanted to stop us, but the story goes something like this; we were driving along, minding our own business when we encountered a checkpoint. This is not uncommon here and usually they are quite harmless. I’m not sure that Steve saw the officer wave us to a stop so he continued driving. By the time Johnny Law managed to catch up, he was not very happy. As Steve does not speak a lot of Spanish, I jumped out of the car to help out.
This man was speaking so fast, I could understand nothing. He refused to slow down and instead just kept repeating the same thing over and over again. Even though I told him I understood little, he just raced on. I tried to call our friend from the school so she could help, but he wouldn’t let me. Instead he insisted that our paper work was not in order. This seemed odd as the car is brand new, but we didn’t want to argue. He informed us that we now owed 460 Bs (about $100). In order to pay this fine we would have to leave the car there with him, take a taxi back into town, go to some bank, and pay them there.
As I was working this ridiculous idea out in my head, Laura slipped him 200Bs. Needless to say he softened quite a bit and allowed us to call our friend. Our friend let us know that the kind officer needed a little more holiday cheer. We slipped him another 200 and headed on our way. I love the police!
Five days left until break. We leave Friday to journey to Angel Falls, the tallest waterfall in the world. It’s a week long odyssey that includes twenty hours of driving, air travel in a small plane, a couple boat rides, some camping, and a whole lot of walking. I can hardly wait.
MJR
Five work days left!
Last week was our annual winter concert. We spent the week rehearsing for the Thursday night performance. Zachary was so excited. We have been practicing his three songs every night for the last several weeks. He also got to be a Russian dancer in “The Nutcracker.” All in all it was a very exciting week.
Today the family went separate ways. Carrie and Zachary headed to the beach while I loaded into Steve and Laura’s car for a trip to Tintoreros. I am getting a little tired of the beach. I think I have been to the beach more times in the last fourteen months than I have been in my entire life. It’s not that I never want to see the beach again, but the road trip to Tintoreros was a nice change especially since I didn’t drive.
Tintoreros is an artisan market. We have been there several times. It lies about three hours away near the city of Barquisimeto. There are lots of things to buy, including hammocks, leather goods, jewelry, and various wooden items. They have these great wooden flowers for purchase that are so cool, but so fragile. Anyway, I bought some gifts and spent good time getting to know the Carahs. They went there ready to shop. Laura had a list and we were not leaving until she had something for everyone on it. There were probably a few folks who didn’t get checked off, but she did pretty well.
Of course, no road trip is complete here without a visit to the local constable. I’m still unclear as to why he wanted to stop us, but the story goes something like this; we were driving along, minding our own business when we encountered a checkpoint. This is not uncommon here and usually they are quite harmless. I’m not sure that Steve saw the officer wave us to a stop so he continued driving. By the time Johnny Law managed to catch up, he was not very happy. As Steve does not speak a lot of Spanish, I jumped out of the car to help out.
This man was speaking so fast, I could understand nothing. He refused to slow down and instead just kept repeating the same thing over and over again. Even though I told him I understood little, he just raced on. I tried to call our friend from the school so she could help, but he wouldn’t let me. Instead he insisted that our paper work was not in order. This seemed odd as the car is brand new, but we didn’t want to argue. He informed us that we now owed 460 Bs (about $100). In order to pay this fine we would have to leave the car there with him, take a taxi back into town, go to some bank, and pay them there.
As I was working this ridiculous idea out in my head, Laura slipped him 200Bs. Needless to say he softened quite a bit and allowed us to call our friend. Our friend let us know that the kind officer needed a little more holiday cheer. We slipped him another 200 and headed on our way. I love the police!
Five days left until break. We leave Friday to journey to Angel Falls, the tallest waterfall in the world. It’s a week long odyssey that includes twenty hours of driving, air travel in a small plane, a couple boat rides, some camping, and a whole lot of walking. I can hardly wait.
MJR
posted by Bronx to Timbuktu at 6:23 PM
1 Comments:
Sadly, our Venezuelan friends are embarrassed at the news of this event, but I have moved on, preferring to believe that this is a process in a country that is growing. The people have been molded by the corruption all around them, but Venezuela will evolve one day to stand as a proud country based upon strong tradition and values...let's see...let's hope!
Thank you for the great day!!
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