"Nos vemos!"

Life I love you
All is groovy

Listening to music (Simon & Garfunkel, if you hadn't guessed) while sitting on my bed in my room here transports me back to my bedroom in my old apartment. I can imagine that perhaps I have moved to another apartment—someplace a little shabbier, in the East Village, perhaps, where the super has forgotten to repaint the apartment.

But then my gaze flickers over the shelves made of rough planks and cinder blocks. In the heat I feel the blowing of the gale-force fan. (“There really isn’t a low setting: more like 100%, 95% and 90%.”) A rooster crows—they seem to have no sense of day or night. Often they sound not like roosters but like people demonstrating the noise they think roosters should make. A lizard climbs the wall. It is a gecko, I’m told, although despite watching the Geico commercials, I can’t be sure. He makes his clicking sound, joining in the chorus with his brothers and sisters in the walls and on the porch and around the backyard. Geckos are more attractive than ants or spiders, so we let them go where they will. They would make a good pet, or a good mascot, and more importantly, they are said to eat mosquitoes.

While the arrival of the super—well, really just our landlady’s brother—to fix the clogged drain was encouragingly similar to NY life, the other drop-in guests made it impossible to overlook the cultural differences. A Honduran woman who studies in the United States recently told the story of how she stopped by the house of an American friend one day with some cookies. “We’re so happy that you feel comfortable enough to drop by,” the friend told her. But the Honduran woman didn’t see the gesture as signifying any particular sense of closeness. “In Honduras, we go to everyone’s house. You don’t even have to like that person,” she explains. Last night, when we wanted nothing more than to make some dinner and relax, neighbors came by to sit on the porch and play a Shakira CD for us. They were very nice, but even though we were in the midst of a huge house-cleaning project, they were undeterred. When you are tired, or feeling iffy, or about to make dinner, or trying to do work, or hoping for a moment alone—well, let’s say they don’t take a hint. But they will care for you, bringing you devices to pour water from the cooler jugs and juice oranges and tortillas con quesillo. And when they leave they will say, “Nos vemos!"