SantiagoBear

03:07 am: I skipped another day
. . . but I'm back.

I got an email from my former parish priest, in Shelby, wondering if he could give my address, etc., to parishioners who were asking for me. He also told me that one of the gals I used to enjoy visiting in the nursing home, there, had died this last week. Over 100 years old. Really cool old lady. May the soul of Mary Hoppes rest in peace. She deserves paradise.

I think I may have created a monster. I taught David how to play backgammon. It's not that popular a game, here, and when you buy a set, the instructions are in English . . so it's not likely to catch on anytime too soon. But he's taken to it like a fish to water. He beat me 2 games, this afternoon, which is unusual. I have this dice-psyching thing that I apparently do unconsciously. When he beat me the games were quite close. Yesterday I backgammoned him twice. But he's learning. He'll be a good backgammon player soon, and I have missed having that kind of competition.

On Sunday night, David informed me that he'd found a great house for me to live in. One of his classmates is moving to San Vicento (about an hour outside of Rencagua, which is about an hour and a half from here). She and her family live in a 4-bedroom house, three up, one down, 1 1/2 baths, enormous kitchen, living and dining rooms, back yard with fruit trees and a small swimming pool.

They want $150.000 per month for it. That's $20.000 less than I'm paying here. It's 2 blocks from Lider the off-price supermarket I go to most often, but I have to use the metro to get there. It's way off the street . . no noise at all. The back yard is surrounded with huge, vine-covered fences. It's private. I do like it.

But I have a 1 year lease, here, and I've only been here 6 months. Both David and Ramon argued with me on Sunday that if I find someplace better, I should just break the lease. The gal who's trying to rent me the other house seemed surprised that I'd be that conscientious about a lease, too. At the least, I'd lose the deposit. But the landlady is Sergio's cousin. I don't want to break our friendship, too.

I promised David I'd talk to Sergio tomorrow.

I'm actually trying to live on about $95.000 less every month than I had when I arrived. That's how much the value of the dollar has decreased since June. Today the dollar is worth $514.64. It's up a tad since the weekend, but not anything to write home about.

Ramon is supposed to come by tomorrow (Friday) for a lesson. I'll try to get some sleep, and be ready for him.

Life is such a series of surprises.