Don't Visit Granada?
It figures I’d miss the first major round of summer tornadic activity back home, Sunday night. Word on the street was that Francis – working at the Creve Coeur airport – had to take shelter at a nearby farmhouse. All I could do was stare at KSDK’s weather radar on my laptop while Cardinal fans were being evacuated into the recesses of the stadium in the wake of two tornadoes somewhere in the area. Made me even more homesick. Yes, there’s rain here, but I haven’t heard a single rumble of thunder.
It didn’t seem to matter that it was a national holiday in Colombia; most of the stores were still open. Sort of like back home. The Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul taking place on Monday meant that we couldn’t take official custody of Yali until Tuesday morning.
Anyway, in order to kill yet one more day of pretty much nothing to do – except for Oxbear still working remotely from his laptop whenever he could – we waited for the rain to die off before walking to the shopping center. The cheaper shopping center with fewer options. Not that we can tell the difference anyway.
A box of crayons for Yali. I don’t know if he has an artistic flair or not, but he grabs for my notebook any shot he gets to scribble out some inspiration. He needed his own drawing utensils. Also a few bananas, avocados, cookies, M&Ms, Pepsi … we have our priorities straight.
When we returned to the hotel, we talked to Daniel again. We met Daniel our first day in Villavicencio; he was visiting from Norway with his family. Daniel had been adopted from Colombia 23 years ago and had now returned to find his birth mother and foster family. Yesterday, he had met some of his foster family in Granada, two hours’ drive away.
“How did it go?” Oxbear asked him. “Your dad said he couldn’t come with you?” (His dad has a huge white-blonde mustache, full-blown Nordic style.)
“Yes. You see, it is very dangerous for white people to go to Granada. And when I got to the village, I could see why. There were people sitting on all the roofs with big guns. And there were no roads. Only mud. And very jungly.”
Back in our room: laundry. Hand-washed in the sink. I hung socks and shirts up to dry while Yali made faces at himself in the mirror.
Swimming in the pool for the boys after Yali’s nap. As soon as he saw the sunblock, he got excited.
Skype with big brother, Puck. Anything Puck did: crazy face, hand gesture, fingers up the nose, Yali just grinned and copied him. That sounds about right.
After one week removed from the U.S., amongst the ten thousand things I miss about home, I’d say hot showers are crawling higher up that list.