Day 102: November 24, 2007 Last Saturday in Salta
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2007
1
102
202
Trip End
Mar 01, 2008
Salta,
Argentina
Saturday, November 24, 2007
The day was cool and gray with occasional showers. I wrote for most of the morning. Elena left around 2:00 for an afternoon. It appears that she either lost her camera or it was stolen from her backpack. That's too bad; she took a lot of good pictures. Fortunately, she uploaded most of them to her Facebook.com account. There is a chance that she left it at the internet place near the school but I'm afraid it's gone.
I spent the late afternoon in the office. The damn Brevard College internet email access is down again. It must get shut off when the janitor turns out the lights at night.
Marcela Casini called me at 5:00 and invited me to join her and her English teacher at a café in El Centro. I took a cab into town and met them at El Palacio on the west side of the square. Her English teacher, Suki Jantzen, is an American expatriate who has lived in Salta with her husband for the last five years. She is the same age as I am and grew up in New York City. A professional clarinetist by training, she moved to Sao Paolo, Brazil and lived there for 10 years, playing with their symphony. She is also a soprano and teaches voice. While there she developed her gift for languages and speaks English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish fluently. She does simultaneous translations, I think in all of these languages, and spends several months each year in Europe as a contract translator. In Salta, she teaches English, as one of the few native speakers in the city, and teaches voice at the Catholic University. She was very interesting and obviously knew how to enjoy her life. She was very excited to speak with another American. Not too many of them come around to these parts. I felt a little sorry for Marcela because almost the entire conversation was in rapid-fire English. I was surprised at how well Marcela speaks. She is too embarrassed to speak with me in English at the office.
The women ate sandwiches and I had a hamburger. We broke up at about 9:00. Marcela and I walked a couple of blocks before we found cabs to take us to our respective homes. When I arrived, Bernardo and Jorge were on their way out, leaving me alone to guard the compound. I spent a couple of hours on the Asheville Citizen-Times website reading the news and the forum comments about the stories. I can't believe the number of bigoted, marginally literate, rednecks that twist every story to blame the problem on liberal democrats, gays, and illegal immigrants. Fortunately, there are voices of reason on there too.
Bernardo was back when I went up to the apartment at 11:45. He soon went to bed and I stayed up until 12:30 to let Elena in. After she went to bed, I watched news programs until 1:30 before turning in.
