Life is Tough

Life is tough, so the saying goes. It was a Thursday evening and we were ditched by the nail lady that does house-calls for $2 manicures and $4 pedicures. There was no telephone call to say that she couldn’t come and we had just hung around the apartment for an hour waiting. It was also the same day that the cleaning lady comes. The lady who washes mounds of clothes, sweeps, mops, does dishes and anything else that is requested for less than $7 for 8 hours worth of work. She ditched us too. Clothes were building up along with the dishes in the sink. I wasn’t overly concerned, but Dee needed sympathy. I suppose one gets used to Colombian life quickly, and I was just at the beginning of my adjustment.

There was really nothing else to do and the only thing we could think of doing was hitting the country club, located at the end of the street, overlooking the Sinu River. Dee was in the hot tub, and I was busy swimming lengths. After a few laps, I noticed she was on the phone. I kept swimming and by the time I was done, her phone minutes had run out. She had a grin on her face and knew she wanted to share something with me.

She had just gotten off the phone with our friend Diego.

“I was telling him the shitty day we had had at school, and then how the cleaning lady didn’t show and then how the nail lady ditched us. He then asked what we were doing now and I told him that we were at the club, you swimming laps and me in the hot tub. And check out his response, ‘Fuck off—life is just too tough for you.’”

We both started laughing. Diego’s sarcasm was oh too true. Colombian life isn’t all that bad at all, for us anyway.