Day 277 Cable Guys

Tuesday 12 May 2009

Yobani sent a text-message to Teri yesterday saying it was raining hard in Ayabaca and she wouldn’t be home until today; I’m expecting her about 2:30 this afternoon. Midmorning the gate bell rings. I walk into the kitchen, pickup the handset and say, “Quien es?” I hear a man’s voice say, “Hola,” and I repeat my question to silence, so I hang up. As soon as I’m back at my desk it rings again. I repeat my words and I get the same response so I say in an irritated voice, “Por favor, quien es?”—nada. I slam the handset down. It’s not uncommon for beggars to walk the streets of Miraflores and randomly ring gate bells. Sometimes I feel like it would be best for me to simply not respond to the bell, but I know this is motivated by selfishness. Teri’s view is that thieves might ring the bell to test if anyone is home, so it’s always wise for us to answer the call. After slamming the phone all is quiet, but I’m curious.

In about five minutes I stroll quietly to the front gate and look through the peephole. I see a man dressed in a brown uniform with a clipboard across the street and heading my way; he rings the bell and I ask who it is. He says, “Buenos dias,” and adds a couple of quick sentences, that I don’t get, while holding the clipboard up to the peephole. I’m satisfied he’s harmless so I open the gate, greet him, and say, “Que pasa?” I see Meche hovering across the street so I’m really not worried about the guy with the clipboard, who’s still running on but I catch only the word “cable,” so I think he might be selling cable TV. I say, “No entiendo,” and wave at Meche to come over. Meche greets me, says, “Esta bien,” and points over my shoulder behind me. I turn and see a guy standing on the roof of the house to the left of ours and he’s holding a black wire in his hand that trails off behind him. At the same time I hear the guy with the clipboard say the words “por internet,” among several other words I don’t comprehend, but it’s getting the keyword in context that makes for communication.

“Ah, si, si, no problema,” I say and, as soon as the last word is out of my mouth, the guy with the wire steps onto our roof, walks across it to the other side, and shouts to another guy I see holding a coil of black wire on the roof of the house to the right of ours. The latter guy throws the coil to the former, who catches it, seems to make a rigid connection, thoroughly tapes it up, and then walks back across our roof.

I don’t learn who the internet is for but when the cable guys leave the black wire is left strung across our roof, sagging through 35 feet of space to the adjacent roof, where it disappears on the horizon along with the no longer used TV cable.