el rinconcito

Paletas are basically popsicles. All over Mexico you will see people pushing carts selling them. Here is a picture of a typical paleta cart from the flickr user Made in Mississippi..

They are all very similar looking, like a small freezer on two big tires. It's strange, I've driven in very rural parts of the Yucatan of Mexico, two hours from anywhere really, and somebody will be pushing one of these things down the side of the road with not a customer in sight forever and ever.

It doesn't surprise me to see them all over Charlotte where I worked all this week.

This past Wednesday, I was returning to my hotel from work and noticed a classic paleta cart with salesman near the front of the hotel. After relaxing in the room for awhile and doing a little net surfing, I went to the restaurant across the street for dinner and could see the guy with his cart from there as I ate. I spent a long time in the restaurant. From the time I first saw the paleta guy, about three hours had elapsed and it was getting dark. As far as I could tell, nobody had talked to the guy and he had sold no paletas, though I did see him eat one. I was getting curious and decided I was going to go talk to him as soon as I finished eating.

It had been hot and humid that day, and the guy looked really withered as I approached him. I'd guess his age to be in the range of 18 to 20. He was *dirty*, bad dirty, and his clothes were so filthy that they had a sheen to them. He was very sweet, personality-wise, and chatted readily. His name was Rodrigo and he came from the state of Chiapas, Mexico, which is right next to Guatemala.

I asked Rodrigo if he spoke English:
--un poquito (which means "a little", but in reality means next to none).

So there he was for three hours that I knew of, dirty, tired, sun-baked, and not able to talk to anybody.

I asked him what was going on. He said, "they were supposed to come pick me up, but I think I've been forgotten". Apparently some of these popsicle guys are dropped off and picked up by somebody each day, but they were way late in coming for Rodrigo.

Then he confessed that he was very nervous. He was worried that he might get bothered by the police for standing there so long. He asked me if I thought the hotel owners, who were sitting nearby, were angry at him. I told him they didn't seem to be, in fact they didn't seem to be aware of him at all.

He then moved close to me and let it all out:

"What do you do for work?"
"Is there a job for me there?"
"Can you help me get a job there?"
"Do you know of any jobs anywhere?"
"I need a job, man."
"I'm not eating all that well."

I kind of freaked out at the gravity of his situation and wanted to bolt. I told him that I was going back to my room, but if somebody bothered him, to come get me, and I gave him my room number and pointed to the distant door. We said "que te vaya bien" to each other ("bye" in other words), and I split.

I sat down on the sofa in the room and promptly fell asleep. Over an hour later I woke up, and said, "Rodrigo!" I ran out there and he was gone. They came for him, I suppose.

What a situation young Rodrigo was in. I then thought I should have offered to get him something to eat or drink, to use the bathroom, chatted with him more, whatever. I wasn't thinking.

Everybody knows I have this "almost a month off from work" and have already gone a tad unstable on day #2, so I might as well tell a story. I'm verbose and like to ramble, using many commas.

My furnace/air-conditioning unit broke down about a year ago, so I bought a new one, the most expensive one the company had, and it comes with a 12 year warranty on the whole thing, labor included! The central part, and the most expensive piece, the heat exchanger, has a 20 year warranty. Can you imagine that? I'll be nearly done here on Earth by the time that warranty expires. It wasn't that much more than the cheaper units, and I liked the idea of not having to pay anything if it fails after so many years, plus they had 12 months same-as-cash financing.

Anyway, as part of the deal for buying the expensive "Cadillac" unit, though it's not made by Cadillac suprisingly, I get a semi-annual (that means twice a year) inspection and check-up of the unit, kind of like going to the doctor for a physical. Today was my day for the check-up.

The technician called and asked if he could come 2 hours earlier than the scheduled appointment as a job had canceled and he was now free. I detected an accent in his English. More on this later.

About 30 minutes later there was a soft tap at the door and he was there, waiting. He looked really shy, and seemed to get annoyed at my overly wordy and friendly greeting. For some reason I sized him up as emotionally needy and decided to probe and engage him in as much conversation as possible as his schedule would permit.

It hit me as odd, but he immediately asked me to try to guess where he was from, saying, "you hear my accent, don't you?" I picked a country at random and said, "Latvia". He said, "Wow! Not bad, but incorrect". I knew I was on to something, so I started guessing what countries I could think of that are over in that area: Russia, Belarus (I love the sound of that name), Lithuania. He then said, "I am from the former USSR". I was perplexed as to why he would be that vague and use the name "USSR", which for me, brings on memories of the Cold War, or the Beatles song, "Back in the USSR". Was he looking for me to talk about communism, Brezhnev, Nixon, or whatever? Finally he said he was from the Ukraine, but had lived near the North Pole and in Moscow. I then launched into a discussion of my Internet friends from "the former USSR" who are so cool and post so many pictures that I enjoy. I talked of my love of the beauty of Moscow and how I would like to go there, you know, the usual things you'd talk about with a furnace technician. He seemed to get sadder and sadder the more I talked. I got the impression that his dream of living in America did not include servicing furnaces. I mean, being a furnace technician is not a bad job, but maybe "over there" he had been a doctor or an engineer, and had hoped for something a little similar here. You never know where people are coming from in their lives. Maybe he even "did time" (means incarceration) near the North Pole? I'll never know.

He did his stuff and walked softly and shyly back to his truck and left. I continued to sip my coffee and surf on my opera.

That's my story for today, day #2. Maybe I'm overthinking things.