Helluva Day... (by Lawrence)

We are more or less moved out of our temporary residence at the Centru Tinku and into our two-bedroom digs in the San Blas neighborhood. We were busy over the weekend purchasing furniture that would be nice enough for us to enjoy, but not so nice that we would mind leaving it behind when we depart. We were pretty smug with our success buying beds and mattresses, that is until I assembled them and realized the mattresses didn't fit the bed frames we had bought. This calamity was amplified by the fact that my Spanish is useless and we had to carry everything back and forth on the roofs of taxis. In the midst of this I confidently ordered a new tank of gas. The propane tanks (used for all kitchen stoves here) are carried around on the backs of motorcycles, tethered with frayed string, dangling precariously from behind the driver. Amazingly, the gas company operator was able to understand my gibberish over the phone and sent a driver. I sent Isabel back into the house to get her camera so she could come outside and take pictures of this unusual delivery service, but I neglected to tell her to not...shut...the...door... Yep, we were locked out. So the gas man stood around long enough to make sense of the situation, and we, having nothing but some money and the clothes on our backs, headed off to find Krista. We found her, and she had both sets of keys, so at least they weren't locked in the apartment.

I had a minor temper tantrum which had Isabel in tears and Krista proclaiming that I had hit the wall of culture shock. I left Isabel with Krista and went off to buy a tape measure so I could provide the mattress store with exact dimensions of our bed frames. I also called the gas man back again only to have him arrive and tell me that the tank he had brought didn't fit the valve on my stove. He left and said he'd be back in 10 minutes. Forty minutes later (and no gas man yet) I left to take a cab down the valley to pick up Sophia from school. We got back to our new apartment and had a terrible scare.

Sophia is TOTALLY FINE, but she fell into the tank of propane we had sitting in our living room (since it was the wrong size and had to go back anyway), slamming her chest into the edge of it and knocking the wind out of herself. Watching your four year old daughter pass out in her mother's arms is something you never want to see. It was at the moment when she went limp that we realized dialing 911 in Peru probably doesn't do much. We were all quite shaken up by her spill, but she was back to doing interpretive dance and sassing her sister within 10 minutes. We will find out ASAP who to call in case of an emergency, but I also noticed a large medical clinic less than a block away from us. My hunch is we would be better served to carry any patients right to the clinic ourselves.

We went out for a healing lunch at Jack's, and then Krista helped me bring the mattresses back to the store. We traded them for ones that would fit our beds and chose some comforters too. I went back to the apartment and unloaded the mattresses from the taxi. I paid the driver and five minutes later realized that the comforters that we had agonized over (and Sophia had grown quite attached to) were still in the back of the cab. Long gone. Damn it.

So the girls and Krista are sleeping under our two sleeping bags and I am going to punish myself by sleeping in my down jacket and long underwear. Bonehead that I am.

Tomorrow is a new day, and I hope it is less eventful.