Sandwich Bamboozlement
I woke up from my slumber in the 3rd row seat in our van to a gas station with Red Level, Alabama dirt. The kind of red where if you inhale when walking through a dust plume and get an MRI of your lungs, the physician would be able to see the once clear lungs covered in red soot. Like red red… Like blood red red…you get the idea.
We all piled into the Argentine-Shell-Wanna-Be and purchased “lunch” which I will discuss in story #2 of this blog. When we all walked in—all the Gringos (White Americans) plus the Chocolate Drop (Me), the workers had a look of perplexity and shock—why are they all here in the middle of nowhere not able to speak Spanish? So we’ve figured out the best way to tell how much we owe is by typing the price into a calculator, then they show how much we owe and we pay it. Not difficult. There were tons of sandwiches to choose from in this mini-Shell. Most of the students got one and then went to go sit and eat. Like we always do, we wanted to see how much we paid for our food and who got the best deal. Little things are entertaining when you’re on the road for long stretches of time. We soon found out that we were bamboozled! Some sandwiches were MUCH more than others and the workers there used our inability to decipher prices and speak Spanish fluently so that they could get extra profit.
Lunch at an Argentine Gas Station
So bad dieting. I’m not a fast food, snack food, or processed food in bags sort of person. I would love to make enough money to spend half my paycheck and not be homeless at a Whole Foods, but alas…I’m broke and my current state doesn’t look like it will be changing any time soon. I’ve had two lunches in gas stations in the past two days. I’m really empathizing with my digestive tract right now—I hope it’s not angry with me. So in trying to translate my lunch choice options, I came up with very bad things in which to ingest. Also, I don’t eat pork or cheese. Lucky me—the only sandwiches available were ham and cheese. I don’t think this country is very big on health bars with soy nuggets and brown rice syrup. I had to get next best thing: Lay’s Potato Chips, shortbread cookies with chocolate, and apple juice. Vegetables, bread, milk, and fruit. Perfect! No more griping. I could have starved tonight so I am grateful for my well-balanced and nutritive filled sustenance.
Frisked
Yesterday, while I was the unconscious passenger in the back seat (I actually drooled sorta today—it was bad), we got to a crawling speed. No big deal—another toll booth. I went back into SleepVille. Then I felt the van pull over to the side of the road. “Hmm…this is new.” I’m awake now, but my vision is quite fuzzy. They asked a few questions. Then they asked to see all of our passports. 3 minutes later they come back to the van and tell us that we have to get out of the van with out luggage. Oh no!!!
We pile out of the van with our backpacks—and tell them this is all the luggage we had (not the case at all). They stand there are ask us tons of questions. Then they pick 5 students randomly and take them to their Police Docking Building to be searched. About 15 minutes later, we were good to go. Then they asked to see the driver/program director. They take him back. When he returned he was hot and mad! They made him pay a fine because his lights were not on—an Argentine traffic thing. The fine was $300 pesos or $75 American dollars. He had asked for a list of grievances against them and they were quite reluctant to show him that and to give him a receipt for the fine. Basically it was a bribe to the police—a mandito. I think they just were hungry for lunch and used us for pizza money. Oh Latin American Justice.
We all pile into the van again and are ready to get on the road after being frisked by the police. THEN we start the engine and to no avail. The battery is dead. Fantastic. So we all wondered if it’s ok to go ask the Argentine police for a jump after they had just finished searching us for drugs. We decided against that idea. I don’t know what happened after that. Something about the van being diesel and some light needed to be on…that’s all manly mechanic talk.
On the road again.
That’s all for now.
JLP
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