Thursday April 3
It’s sunny today. We aren’t leaving the compound, but I did put a chair on the little balcony outside my door and sat out for a while this morning. Next door neighbors pulled in and got out of the car. We waved back and forth, said Buon Giorno. They have a little 2 ½ yr old boy named Thomas. Cute little guy. For as odd as our existence in this apartment is, life seems a little normal. Here we are meeting neighbors.
The apartment is quite nice. Small but nice. This afternoon the owner has come by again, this time bringing us a gift of more pots for the kitchen. We’ve had to do some creative cooking with just a large pot and a small frying pan. This morning there is a bunch of lilacs on the kitchen table, Luisa has gone out into the yard ( that’s as far as we can get- we can’t go beyond the gate) and picked some for us.
Today Maria , the college student from Venezuela, just stayed in her pajamas all day. She had a good point- why bother, all we can do is sleep. She has brought some homework assignments with her, which she has been working on also. I’m the only one in the house who is working through the day. That has been a godsend , to have activities to keep busy with.
Isabella, the college student from Brazil, has also brought her laptop, however she is not able to get an internet signal. She is just about around the bend on that one. She has her mother here also, who is able to get out of the building, and has sent her into town to research buying a wireless adapter like the one I have. Isabella’s mother met some other Brazilians in town yesterday who are also here in the midst of their citizenship process, and they told her that the police came at 7:30 the night before. So we have now adjusted our daily release time from 6:30 to 7:30, in order not to risk missing the police.
The day has passed quickly, in spite of not having much to do. We’re bored. Luisa has done all the laundry she can possibly do, and has mended a couple of things she had along with her. Andreas, her daughter, is a cleaning freak, so she has bought floor cleaner and cleaned the stone floors, and has gone to town on the kitchen. She says she has run out of things to clean… I told her I would pay her to do my room. She noted that I had my door closed while she was cleaning --- there’s an easy solution.. just knock on the door! She wants the place to look good when the police are here inspecting.
Luisa cracks me up. She has flowers in the rooms and pictures of saints up in her bedroom. We are laughing that all she needs now to be a real Italian is a lot of candles by the saints that we can light up. She says she has no candles…so we have added those to Andreas list for the next day at the grocery store!
I remembered that I have one movie loaded on my laptop in iTunes, so I settle in to watch that before going off to bed. It’s my all time favorite movie with John Wayne and Red Buttons – Hatari. It’s a simple pleasure, but it’s all I’ve got out here. I’m taking it. Buona Notte.
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