Communication Frustration

Travelling in Mexico thus far, one of the main challenges we have faced is in communications with those back in the U.S. I wrote the following story yesterday to help elucidate how this can be a problem, and, sure enough, was delayed in posting it until today because of computer difficulties. It´s long for a blog posting, but I thought the details of the event were crucial in getting the message across. As a disclaimer, I have to warn you that it may be migraine inducing even to the reader.

It´s the 16th of September, Mexico´s Independence Day, and this seems to be the only internet cafe open here in the 300 year old city of Loreto. It is on the main drag, which is packed with small stores--all kinds of boutiques, bakeries, taquerias, farmacias--but has by far the smallest proportion of internet cafes out of any even modestly populated area. The internet is slow, but most things take considerably longer down here (with the most obvious exception being food service). A spontaneous desire to use the telephone seemed easy enough, given there was a public phone visible across the street, and I had seen a small grocery store next door that in most cases sell the cards necessary to call long distance on the phones. The first hurdle came early on, as the store was out of phone cards. Thankfully, the store owner was as helpful as most people are in Baja, and she didn´t take much nudging to get a potential other vendor out of her. The Pescador, a supermarket just a couple blocks down the street, would certainly sell me a card, she said. After a few block walk, during which it had begun to rain lightly, I found refuge in The Pescador somewhat reluctantly purchased a 100 peso ($10) card, which, though it would provide 20 solid minutes of phone time, seems like a lot when compared to Skype (which can be difficult to find). On the way back up the street to the phone across from the internet cafe, I found a different phone. Before I even took the card out of its plastic wrap, I noticed the ¨telephone unavailable¨ notice on the screen. Shrugging it off, I was mainly considering the various tales I would soon describe to my friends and family back in the states, back at the phone across from the internet cafe. I get there, and that phone simply does not have any words on the screen, an obvious sign of disfunction. Looking down the street in both directions, I don´t see another phone in sight, but I take off back in the direction of the Pescador and the central plaza area, certain I will find one rather soon. After passing the Pescador, I see the familiar yellow and red pattern of the phone enclosure box just a little further down the block. Upon approach, however, I see there is not actually a phone at all, and just the box, on its stand. At this point the rain picks up a little more, enough for me to stretch my bright green Mexico soccer jersey over my camera bag, hanging at my hip. A warm afternoon drizzle, nothing compared to the deluge that Joel and I were surprised by earlier in the day. As I reach a phone that works two blocks further down, I´m happy to stand in the rain and chat it up until my card runs out of time. Spirits are high, reinforced by the continuous yells of ¨Viva Mexico!¨ in my direction--Independence Day is a good time to be wearing a Mexico soccery jersey. As the screen shows five seconds of talk time left, I tell my parents that I will call them right back. As sure as I was that I would find a grocery store closer than El Pescador, I was wrong, and so the cashier happily sold me another $10 card. Thinking I could find another public phone back in the direction of the internet cafe, I ended up walking well past it, a total of 6 or 7 blocks, before I found not one, but two phones, directly across the street from one another. This could be my big break, I thought, as the rain gave way completely and I could feel the sun easing up, despite the increased humidity of the afternoon rain. The phone on my side of the street, upon entering the card, gave me the word ¨falla,¨ which I dont know, but I presumed to mean fault, because the card didn´t work. The phone across the street was also disfunctional, but gave me a ¨tarjeta rechazada,¨ which I know means ¨card something.¨ On my way back to return the card to El Pescador, I saw another phone down a side-street, and, sure enough, I got another message that I had to return my card. Upon arriving at El Pescador, I simply told the cashier that the card was not working, that it was worth nothing, that I had walked at least a kilometer and found three phones to confirm this, and that I wanted another card. He tested the card on what seemed to be a smaller, more discreet version of the phones outside, which was just five steps to my right. I wasn´t sure whether it would have been worse or better whether it was going to work, but I was mainly just trying to make the man feel bad when he saw that the card didn´t work. Unfortunately, he was willing to give me another card, but was out of $10 cards, and could only offer me a $20 card if I gave him another 100 pesos. I outright refused to pay for a $20 card, tried in vain to get him to give it to me instead of the $10, and got him to tell me another possible store before storming out the door, ignoring his ¨adios¨ in order to show my frustration. Walking more vigorously and with a healthy glisten from the moisture and sweat, I arrived at his suggested locale, which turned out to be the store right next to the Internet cafe I had tried at first. Pleading for help, they suggested I try a pharmacy, which at only a block and a half away, was closer than El Pescador. Sure enough, I was able to buy a $5 card from the clerk at the pharmacy, and then off I went to the phones up the street, clustered together a few blocks on the other side of my starting location, the internet cafe.At the first phone I reached, I inserted the card, and voila! Magic, it seemed, that a dial tone would be the sound coming out of the receiver. With a bit of heavy breathing, I call home, hear my mother say hello, and begin to tell a somewhat shorter and more exhausted version of what I have written here. Upon finishing, I am just as exhausted as when I began talking, and wait to hear my mother´s response. Nothing. Looking first to the receiver, then to the phone base, I see the word Falla once more. This time, with utter disdain for this horrible place where I could be so unlucky, so pitiful. With what little hope I had left I tried the two phones nearby, but was shot down twice more. It had taken me what seemed like the better part of the afternoon to walk back and forth, but with as much energy as ever, I paced back to the pharmacy, looking to get another card and explain the situation to my parents, who the whole time I could picture waiting and wondering what had become of me. Having tested my disfunctional phone card vocabulary on the cashier at El Pescador, the pharmacy clerk seemed to be surprised by the vigor and articulation with which I explained the uselessness of the card he had sold me. All he had to say was ¨no retornable, no garantia¨ for me to go into a tirade. Trying to speak another language and come up with new phrases to describe my degree of anger and his degree of injustice was difficult, but I managed to presevere, given this was the third time in my spanish speaking career I have gone off on somebody else for heinous acts of the like (the second time was with a park ranger -- look out for that in an upcoming blogging). The possibility of buying another card was gone by this point, particularly from this man. I felt betrayed and deceived, and although this man told me he could do nothing to help, I was so upset I even found him difficult to look at. Looking around the store, my eye caught the bright pink of a Pepto Bismo bottle. For well over a minute I stood there, looking around the store, both waiting to see if he would give in and considering whether to grab the Pepto and run like hell. It would surely come in handy in the coming weeks, and would have given me some justice and revenge. The man would have had no chance catching me, even given the fact I was wearing slightly slippery flip flops. But the chance he could use his own phone and call the police was greater, and the chance the police could find a gringo in a bright green Mexico soccer jersey, turquois aviators, and a bright pink bottle of Pepto seemed to great for me to commit even this, the most just of crimes. And with my head to the ground, tired and having surrendered completely from defeat after defeat, I returned to the internet cafe, to take out my frustration via blog. These difficulties have a tendency to get me down, particularly because such an amount of misfortune and difficulty in accomplishing so simple a task seems so rare in the states. By the time I had reached the internet cafe, I had begun to completely ignore the shouts of ¨Viva Mexico!¨, instead the resentment inside me forced thoughts of whether I even wanted this Mexico to ¨viva¨ at all.