Calor
Park bench
April 2006
HEAT: It's an embarrassing situation in a culture known for impeccable personal presentation. The moment when you have to peel yourself off the plastic seat of the bus and then pull at your skirt that is stuck to the back of your legs. It's my stop (why does no one else appear to sweat?). In the bus people have been talking about "La Calor". Calor (heat) is really a masculine word, but the need to personify it further is due to the fact that "she" has so much hold over the town. People who have spent their whole lives here, pull out their fans, shake their heads and exclaim to each other about the heat as if they somehow expected something else.
The bus stop in the neighbourhood of San Jeronimo stands surrounded by packed ocre earth. It is dusty, hot and dry. Twenty metres away there is a tree looking suspiciously like a wattle; the only shade in a fifty metre radius. Usually at this time of day, when it isn't so hot, a few young guys sit under it on their scooters, passing time, sharing cigarettes and discarding their cans on the dusty ground. The odd dog is about with their master, relieving themselves on the dry earth and happily scratching the dust over it. In a few hours it will be baked hard. Apparently, they say, to tread on dog pooh brings good luck. In a small square nearby, there is a small play ground for children under six. It is surrounded by tall white boxes of flats, surrounded by more dry earth and more dog pooh.
Today everything is deserted. No dogs, no children, not even the drunk woman who occupies one of the seats in the square, chatting away merrily to any one or anything. Where could she be? It's 42 degrees. Heat is radiating from the concrete plaza, the concrete walls, the asphalt streets. Orange trees throw a meager shadow every seven metres. I think cool thoughts and shift my backpack to the other shoulder.
It's hard work being a fish out of water. Especially when it's as hot as this. Tiredness comes quickly and without much visible excuse. I start to wonder am I anaemic? Do I need vitamin tablets? What's wrong with me? People would say that that's just life in a foreign country, the constant rubbing up against things different. I feel like some kind of shadow, a two dimensional cut-out figure feigning energy and enthusiasm.
To cheer myself up I will add some news about Drogueria Osario, my favourite art supply shop. I have discovered that there are no queues on Friday mornings. However, Julio,the proprieter likes to gasbag when there is no queue, so I still took 45 minutes to buy three tubes of oil paint, Liquin, turps and a canvas. Because I am now officially a regular, I get the pleasure of passing the time of day. The other day, Julio let me into the secret of how they have stayed open so long. The shop was opened by his father-in- law in 1943, his wife was born in the rooms above. He told me it was all about customer service. The little details, the advice, the sense of community. Giving warmth. At that moment a guy departed the store with his six month old baby which Julio's wife had been cooing over in the doorway (no room in the shop for prams). Julio leans over to me and confides. See that guy there? He's an artist, crazy as they come. He has four children to four different women! They were all born in the same month! Fancy!