My Life in Argentina and Beyond

Friday, August 28, 2009: The soft glow of the yellow light was on the kitchen table. The woman watching TV just before she had to leave the house she had been cleaning all afternoon. This is a house, she thought to herself. It looks, feels and is a real house. Why can't I have something like this again? And then, she remembered why: the mortgage fraud/foreclosure experience in GA took away my savings and the gumption I used to have. How can I fight and keep fighting when everything is a great big NO? How can I possibly get anywhere when there is that obstacle, this other obstacle to overcome? Reluctantly, the woman took the heavy bags in her hand and closed the door. She walked with sadness in her heart to the subway stop. One more coming, one more going back. Always going back. I want to be used to these small, tiny trips back and forth, but I am not, she thought. I will never get used to them.

Monmday, July 14, 2008: I saw him standing over me. Here, Miss, this is a subway ticket, he said. Something in me didn't believe him. I sat on the steps of St. Bart's on Park Avenue and 50th. Quickly checking my purse, I discovered that my wallet was missing. The man ran away and I chased him down Park and then over to Lexington and the subway station. Police! Police! I shouted. Who would hear me at 3 in the morning? But I persisted and went after him. On one of the steps going to the trains, I saw my brown leather-like wallet open, face down. By some miracle almost everything inside it was still there. The thief had been a small time, cowardly thing.

Thursday, July 10, 2008: Today, early this morning, I fell on my face when I woke up from my subway naps. Hit my nose and my forehead.