Monday, 8th March:
I spent the entire day with Nacho. It was great to see him again. Like everyone here he and his life have changed a bit. What all my friend seem to have in common is the late twenties weight gain. Nacho certainly has not been left out. His sense of humor is still going strong. He is not only working at the university, he has aspirations to be a research professor. He and his wife are work on Master's degrees together. It sounds a bit like me and Betty. Neto is also still working on server maintenance for the university library. We talked for a long time about the change in our lives. He asked me to help with a new project, and if I find the time, I will help. We dropped his car for repairs on the way to a short lunch. And later in the afternoon Daniel Corona appeared in the office. Seeing them reminded me of when I first saw the two of them and Lenin together. It is clear that they are much like brothers. They asked about Lenin, and I filled them in as much as I could. It is a pity that they don't communicate much with Lenin these days. Before long, we drove to Cuautla, a town about 40 miles from Cuernavaca, where Daniel and Nacho hope to rent a storefront and open a new library. It seemed like a typical mid-sized Mexican town. The one big difference is that it is flat. We spent a couple of hours check out several stores that were for sale. We were too late coming back for Nacho to pickup his car, so we went to his office. We were waiting for Jorge to get home. Jorge is a young filmmaker who lives in Mexico City. His mother has a nice three bedroom apartment here in Cuernavaca. When he finally got to this apartment we headed over, expecting to drink beers. Unfortunately, we needed to go to the supermarket to get some. We also go some food for tacos. The beers and tacos were great. I really liked Jorge. He is an open, friendly, well-traveled guy. We swapped stories about places that we had been. He had some great stories about a job that he got in Spain. All his money had run out and a friend that worked for a travel agency asked him to be a translator for some Spaniards traveling to the southern parts of Africa. He came to Cuernava to make a film about a guy that makes rocket-fuel, some peroxide mix. The stuff sounded incredibly dangerous. They plan to use it power a motorcycle for a few seconds - and in the meantime speed it up to 250 kph. Sometime amid all the banter, Daniel had cooked up a pan full of delicious meat for the tacos. Again it was a very enjoyable day and evening. A little after 11:30, I drove up the mountain to the Jimenez casa. All did not turn out quite right. Noé and Josee must have been in a deep sleep, because the 20 minutes that I rang the bell brought no one to the gate. I called Nacho and headed for his house. A few minutes later he called to say that if it would be easier to find to go to Jorge's house. It was easier and I slept at Jorge's.
Tuesday, March 9th:
Noé told me that should that happen again, just to knock on the window of the rental house, so they could let me in. Josee was late getting to work. She made a nice breakfast of fresh orange juice and leftovers- tasty and filling. After she left for work I washed the dishes and got ready for the day. Noé gave me a key for the gate, so I figure I won't have to sleep at Jorge's again. I had planned to make my way into the countryside, but it was not to be. On my way down the hill I stopped at a cell phone shop that handles the MovieStar phones. I wanted to get a local number. He had no chips, but he said that I could find them on the far south of town. I dropped by Nacho's office. He needed a ride to get his car. I dropped him off and headed south. I found the store. The ole Mexican wait forever sign was blinking. So 40 minutes later, I discovered that this large office had no chips for sale. What the hell were they doing? Nada! They put me on to anther office in a mall, called Plaza Cuernava. Finally, I made it to the mall half-way back to the university. Here I was told, no - the new chip was not 50 pesos, it was 200 pesos. But I would get 300 pesos of air time. He explained again how the rate system worked. Seem that if you don't buy a lot of air time up front the cost of each call is very high. As far as I am concerned the low rates are high. I got the new chip and I bought some more minutes. Having spent all my money, except two pesos, I nearly had an altercation with the parking lot people. I love the pay lots here. They are everywhere. In the late afternoon, I got a chance to meet Nacho's wife again, and see his little girl - a bright little girl who is four now.
We were invited back to Jorge's for pizza and beer in the evening, but we never heard from him. I got back to the Jimenez house about 7:30 and was I hungry. When Maribel got home from school about, we went out to eat and talk. She appreciates the English practice. She has good schoolbook sense of English, but not a strong ear for it. When we got back I watched a bit of Mexican TV, and sacked out.