Communication and Exercise

14 March 2009The pool picture belongs below. How to move it?

On Thursday morning, Katia rushes into the teacher’s prep room saying, “Oh, here comes Marcela to do our hair!”…What? Tonight is the first Parents’ Night, kind of like Back to School Night, but no one told us. The Directora likes to have us looking neat and pretty in our uniforms, with hair done, so she pays Marcela to help us. So, I schedule and show up for a quick combing during my prep hour. (If I’d known, I would have worn different clothes to school.)

Rushing home after class, I tell Yobani that I need the uniform (green polo and light tan pants) cleaned and pressed by 5:30. She says, "OK, but I don’t think the shirt will dry. It’s now 2:20.” She immediately washes the uniform while I eat lunch. After lunch I check the well wrung out clothes and apply emergency drying action: roll each item up in a towel for 10-15 min, then back on the line. Then the clouds roll in! (But it’s still very hot.)

Finally about 5:10, I see that she’s ironing the clothes. They dried completely except for slight dampness on the collar, which disappears in 5 minutes at the 85-degree evening. All’s well that ends well. Photo note: English staff: Teri, Esther, Robin, Maureen, Katia

Exercise

I decide that since I won’t have time to go swimming on Thursday due to the meeting, I’ll go Friday. I get there about 6 pm as usual only to be told that the club is closed because there’s a party that night! Grrr, after trudging down there, hot and sweaty, I can’t swim.

I wander around town a bit, semi-looking for some school supplies, but the librerías are swarming with parents and kids stocking up (a little late) for school. I still feel hot and grouchy so I head on home and take a nice cold shower.

Saturday morning, after Mercado, I pull myself together and head for the Club. Arriving around 10, I go to the gym to lift weights first. But, the locker that holds the small weights is locked with a little padlock. I ask one of the young men if he knows who has the key. He says, “I’ll check.” Comes back in about 5 min, saying, “Ahorita.” (This technically means right now, but often actually means, “Yes, I heard you, and some time something may happen.) So I continue with my other routines. Finally, about to give up, I spy an official Club Grau maintenance man. I ask him. We go ask someone else. Then someone else. That man pulls out a key, and we all traipse back to the gym. He opens the locker, I take out the weights I need, and the two Club guys move stuff around for a while. When I finish, the locker door is again closed and locked! So I put the weights in another locker and head for the big pool.

I swam, dodging a few kids, for about 20-25 min. I noticed when I got home, that I had gotten a swim-cap sunburn on my face and a slight redness on my back and arms!
OK. No more swimming at midday!

More exercise: Tonight, Monday, I went to the pool and started swimming. After about 10 minutes, an official Club guy tells me the pool is closed for maintenance. (I did see the sign; it said Piscina en mantenimiento, but it didn't actually say it was closed.) So he suggests I cut the swim short and take a serious shower to get the chemicals off. I kick through a couple more laps and decide to get out. Might as well lift weights now that I'm cooled off.

Again the weights I want are locked up, there are about 10 hefty young men in the gym, the radio is turned up between extremely loud and unbearable, but hey, exercise is important. After about 15 minutes, a women I've gotten to know, Maritza, comes in. We decide to take action. She goes over to the boom box and in the process of turning the volume down, she turns it off. The guys are not happy. One comes over and respectfully finds a different station and lower volume. Maritza calls someone at the club to open the weights locker, but about 15 minutes after the "ahorita", I give up and head for home. Time to hit the books anyway.