I'm starting this post from Cafe Ole, an organic coffee shop and grocery near the main beach of La Punta. It's uber hippie, uber expensive (for Mexican standards) and seems completely staffed by native english speaking volunteers.
This is one of the aspects of volunteering that I sincerely dislike. I wonder how many actual jobs my work in exchange for food and lodging has cost local people.
The air isn't quite brisk, but neither is it roasting. In fact, it is nearly cool enough to comfortably wear my long-sleeved shirt.
Whoa. Wearing a long sleeved shirt in January. Whoa.
This is something I truly miss when in hot climates. I like sweatpants. I love bulky sweaters (the more they make me look like a grandpa, the better) and fuzzy socks are right up there with beanies so huge they cover my eyeballs. I adore wrapping myself in a blanket and drinking hot chocolate by fires or space heaters or hot oven doors (girl can get desperate). I do not much care for booty shorts, bikini tops (or bottoms) and sometimes I'm struck by the desperate desire to curl up in an enormous Barbara with a steaming mug of gluhwein.
It's 8:30 in the morning. The dirt road in front of Cafe Ole is fairly quiet. Dogs meander back and forth, seeking scraps with their scarred snouts and scouting out locations in which to spend the afternoon napping (punctuated with doleful gazing and half-hearted snarling at passing tourists).
The only people up at this un-Mexican hour of the dayare dedicated surfers and the random tourist who managed to wake up in time for my seven am yoga class.
I miss living in a country/culture where people wake up early. I prefer my coffee shops open at four thirty and people to consider the idea of a yoga class (sans horrified expression) before seven am.
Bourget... you... are never going to live in a party city. That is all.
The air feels fresh. The last two days have actually been relatively cool. Which I notice several different ways.
a) I don't spend the majority of the afternoon zoned out as a sweaty, irritable zombie.
b) I can sometimes drink hot coffee in the afternoon.
c) I need more than a sheet to sleep with.
d) The cats are willing to cuddle on my less swampy lap again.
e) Condensation collects on the tarp covering my shack's palm roof and drip drops on me in the morning. From where Pepe's cats have stopped cuddling long enough to tear holes in my home.
The last week has seen some very interesting guests come and go.
As I've mentioned loads of times in loads of previous posts...
There are few things better than a good avocado.
And there are few things worse than a bad one.
Vajra and Joy.
They're some damn fine avocados.
Brittany and Nick.
Oh man.
Can they stay forever?
(they bring me leftover tlayuda and Asian food. And regale me with stories of wood-scented beard softening shampoo. I leave just about every conversation with Brittany and Nick feeling quite forlorn about the fact that a soft, shiny beard is not in my future. On my face, at least).
Octavia Aurelia Claudia III and young sir "babe, get me a shot!" were not delicious avocados.
(names may or may not have been altered slightly)
They arrived in the late morning a few days ago and seemed nice enough (although Octavia Aurelia Claudia III was already hanging onto "get me a shot" for support). The exclaimed (a bit too enthusiastically) about the easy-going vibe of the place and the general delightfulness of the bottom room in the Casa Kei treehouse. They bought some communal fruit and liberally shared their liberally purchased mezcal.
After being fished out of the ocean because she'd managed to fall asleep whilst attempting her afternoon swim (Octavia Aurelia Claudia III had drunk a rather impressive amount of booze beforehand), Octavia Aurelia Claudia III stumbled back to the guesthouse and into her shower.
The water ran for at least an hour.
Oh man... Pepe would be SO pissed... what should I do? Knock on the door and tell her that water is only turned on Tuesdays and Fridays and that the entire garden might wilt into nothingness if her showers are so extravagant.
"Babe, get me a shot!"
"Okay," Babe, Get Me a Shot extricated himself from the hammock to pour Octavia Aurelia Claudia III her liquor. "You want a double?"
"Yeah, I want a double."
She's having MORE?
My mind raced and pitter-pattered like a frightened rodent.
And is she even in the shower right now? Oh man. So much water. So much MEZCAL. Pepe, where are you? I'm not feeling so hot about the treehouse pants right now.
I'm not an eavesdropper. I'm very respectful of other people's space and am generally fond enough of my own business to refrain from delving into that of others. However, Octavia Aurelia Claudia III made it rather challenging for me to stay out of her business. As she spent a good few hours whinging at Babe, Get Me a Shot and crying at friends (I assume they were friends, anyway) via Skype, demanding that they mail her her passport (don't ask me how she got into Mexico without it) and that they mail it immediately.
She spent the evening dominating the checkered table with stories of her work with music videos in LA, judging me for the fact that all the music on my laptop was given to me by old boyfriends ('cos I don't know how to steal my own), and asking if I could please look at her ankle and tell her why it was so wobbly.
"It's always been this way. It's always been weak. I don't know what happened to it. Here," she thrust her skinny leg towards my lap, "tell me what's wrong."
I exhibited an inhuman amount of self-control by not telling her my true thoughts about the reason her ankles were so wobbly, and instead clutched the pale leg gingerly and said, "Well... I mean, I'm not a physical therapist -- "
"Oh, I don't believe in that shit."
(the good avocado from the top room is a physical trainer. From across the long end of the checkered table, I could see him flinch)
"I have to teach yoga in the morning," I politely excused myself (best excuse ever) and moseyed back to my shack.
Whoa. What a piece of work. I mean, I feel like a terrible person for being insensitive to someone who's clearly quite sick... but... this is not the place for her. Ha. We should send Octavia Aurelia Claudia III to The Sanctuary. Would serve both of them right.
Yes.
I am a terrible person.
I woke up to the roosters and dogs at 3:00 and again to my alarm at 5:00.
It's official. I've been in La Punta for one month now, and the roosters still wake me up. It's better now that I think, "Guacamole!" whenever they're making a din, but even a guacamole din is less than desirable whilst trying to sleep.
The last few days have been emotionally exhausting for me, dealing with all the conflicting feelings about letting go of my five year adventure through Central and South America. As I'm someone who needs loads of alone time and silence in order to sort through all the chaos inside, I'd planned to walk down to the beach to watch the sunrise.
And it's Sunday, so there's no yoga. I can just take my time... journal... figure out how I can view this change of events differently... a viewpoint that doesn't include the words, "fail", "loss" or "hard".
If I want this transition to be easy, the first step is to stop telling myself that it'll be hard. Common sense, Bourget. Common fucking sense.
I stepped out of the shack and used the light of my phone to walk down the rock path towards the kitchen. I switched on the coffee pot (which I always prepare the night before) and went to use the outdoor loo while the coffee brewed (girl's the queen of time management. QUEEN, I say).
A light shone from the bedroom of the bad avocados (Babe, Get Me a Shot was not so much a bad avocado as he was a compassionate enabler of bad avocado-ness). As I sat in the loo, I found myself the unwilling eavesdropper of a heated Skype conversation.
"And my boyfriend has been so awful. Oh, my, god. I'm... I'm... I'm gonna call a safe house, I swear. I'm gonna. Oh, and you need to email me my passport. Right away. Now. And why didn't you answer the first time I called? Yeah, you answered now, but why didn't you answer before? I called you like twenty times."
You're gonna call a safe house? What the HELL? That guy. Has been nothing. But patient with you and all your browning avocado nastiness.
Speaking of browning nastiness... all I wanted was to take a dump, for the love of freshly thwacked coconut. Man. I just. Hate the things I tend to overhear whilst on the toilet. I feel so vulnerable here with my pants down. And trapped. Like that time when I was at the dentist and the guy with a drill in my mouth started casually chatting with his assistant about how he slapped his wife in the face and left a mark that lasted a week.
Slightly scarred, I went to the outdoor kitchen to prepare my breakfast of huevos and quesillo, and nearly jumped out of my yoga pants to see a long, still figure lying on the bricks behind me.
"Umm... are you okay?" I timidly asked Babe, Get Me a Shot.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Babe, Get Me a Shot adjusted his brick pillow and sighed.
"You... umm... can sleep in the hammock," I suggested, not quite knowing why Babe, Get Me a Shot had chosen to sleep on the brick floor.
"It's okay. I'm used to sleeping on bricks."
I sighed.
"I'm going down to watch the sunrise in a few minutes. You wanna grab some coffee and come join me?"
So much for processing time.
"Yeah, that sounds good."
"Okay, I'll see you soon."
We walked down to the beach at 6:30, clutching our coffees and warily eyeing the dogs.
How do I even start this? Do I get straight to the point and ask why he was sleeping on the bricks? Or do I just sip my coffee and wait for him to volunteer. If he wants.
"I hope you were able to sleep last night," I finally said.
"Yeah... I was fine. She's just... she's just so crazy."
"Yeah," I agreed too quickly for tact.
"She won't stop drinking. I got a job for her in the states. By the second day, she was so drunk that she couldn't go to work. At nine am. We were fired and kicked out of her family's home... and now...well, I tried to leave her with her family when I came back to Mexico... but she just called me from the bus station. "I'm in Oaxaca. I don't know anyone. I don't speak the language. You'd better come get me now." What was I supposed to do? I feel like I'm the one keeping her afloat. I don't want to let her drown."
"Yes... but... going along with your swimming metaphor, if keeping her afloat is killing you, then you're not helping anyone. Just... make sure you can keep yourself healthy."
When Pepe heard complaints about the excessive noise coming from the room of the bad avocado and the compassionate bad avocado enabler (yelling, whinging, falling (weak ankles, remember?) and loads of lovemaking, Pepe politely asked the guests to leave Casa Kei.
Everyone gets a bad avocado from time to time and it was really encouraging to see how quickly and tactfully Pepe addressed the situation.
I felt sorry for Babe, Get Me a Shot, but I was something other than sad to see Octavia Aurelia Claudia III walk through the gates of Casa Kei.
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