I first noticed it yesterday afternoon. Naomi asked me to download a couple of books for her kindle and texted me the name of the author. For sure the author’s name had way more letters in it than I could remember by the time I got to my computer type it into the search field, so I waited for the text. Didn’t get it. Hmm… Check WhatsApp. No, not there either. Send it again. Nothing. I finally went to look at her phone to see if she’d actually ‘sent’ it. Yep. Well, I never got it. I copied it into my computer, letter by letter: ‘Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’. See what I mean?
Later that afternoon, I headed out to the beach to take a look at the crowd of people that were winding down their day there. And I looked at all the little drink stands and ceviche bars. And I looked at the gorgeous sunset. And I took a bunch of photos of all of that. I sat down at one of the stands and had a small order of fries. While waiting for them I sent a text to Naomi about my whereabouts. Funny, no cell signal here. No wifi either. No sending of texts. No phone calls. Something is fishy with my phone.
I stopped by the mall that is next to our ‘resort’ and explained my problem to a couple of young workers at a little phone sales booth there. The guy looked up the serial number on my phone, then logged into an official government website — where it was confirmed. My phone has been ‘blocked’. Apparently, in order to discourage bad people from stealing other people’s phones, the government keeps a record of ‘unregistered’ phones. And it turns out that that ‘nice lady’ at the airport who double charged me for my super-duper phone plan not only ripped me off — but ‘forgot’ to ‘register’ my phone, as all sellers of SIM cards and phone plans are supposed to do. So what now? Well, the guy says, I need to go to the one ‘official’ Claro phone store in the big mall 10 kms away in neighbouring Santa Marta — and they can ‘release’ my phone if I can prove that it’s legitimately mine.
And that’s what led to today’s adventure.
I wasn’t sure how best to get to that mall this morning, so I did a bit of ‘research’ on my computer, asked ChatGPT for some advice, and shortly after breakfast (toast and yogurt, in case you’re wondering) I took my ‘useless’ phone and headed out to the street to catch a bus. I knew what route I should be taking, but after watching a few buses go by, wasn’t sure exactly which of the posters plastered onto the windshield of the bus would tell me what route they were going. So I ended up just jumping onto a bus, saying the name of the mall (Centro Comercial Buenavista) to the driver. He looked at me quizzically. I said it slower and louder. Huh? Even louder. He motioned for me to hand him some money and go sit down. By now all the other passengers were clearly a little ticked that this gringo was slowing down there ride.
Well, you probably already guessed that about 40 minutes into the hot and crowded ride, it became clear to me that this bus was not going to get me to the mall. I showed the lady with the baby in the seat beside me my ‘useless’ phone, which showed the Buenavista place name on google maps. No, she shook her head. She ended up getting off the bus with me, waiting at a very warm bus bench for the ‘right’ bus, pushing me onto the bus while yelling ‘buenavista’ at the driver. And just like that! only about 30 minutes longer than it should have taken, I arrived at the big beautiful Buenavista shopping mall.
I found the Claro store near the big cinema at one end of the mall. There was a waiting line. There is ALWAYS a waiting line. I waited patiently for my turn to speak to the expert who was ‘screening’ the customers. (One thing I’ve learned about Colombia: they have a lot of line ups. The ATMS have long queues at each machine, and people sure do take their sweet time at the machine. Here there were several booths with workers just waiting for the next customer — but no, they have a system!) When it was my turn to explain my issue (that is, the two of us typing into my ‘translate’ program, since no matter how loudly and clearly I put together a few Spanish words, she didn’t seem to understand), it turned out that yes, I had come to the right place, but no, they couldn’t help me today. I gathered that the problem needed to involve the government department ‘releasing’ my phone’s serial number, and the government was not working on Domingo, a Sunday.
Really? you mean I came all this way for nothing? I wandered around in the mall for a while. I even stood in a 2-person line at the KFC ice cream cone booth, waiting ever-so-patiently for my little treat. And that wait got even longer when a lady barged in right in front of me just before I was going to order, and when she was done and I was just standing there giving her the evil eye, and she motioned to me to just move ahead and order. What’s the matter with you? A good thing that I was a kind and polite Canadian, and that today is Domingo; I ordered my cheap little ice cream cone and headed back out to catch a bus going back home. I guess I’ll come back tomorrow.
When I got home, Naomi was having a delightful morning, painting at the kitchen table. I was hot, tired, and frustrated. So Naomi got right to work in the kitchen, making us a delicious lunch (Denver sandwiches, in case you’re interested). And after lunch she went out to the pool with her sketchpad. And I did Wordle.
There was some talk of going for a walk on the beach, but by the time Naomi had finished a few calls with friends and family, she declared that she was too hungry to do anything else. We headed to the food court at the next door mall and ate our supper (fried chicken and fries, in case you need to know) at an outdoor table. We stopped at the grocery store on our way home. (Man, beer is crazy cheap in Colombia.)
Back at the ranch, Naomi did a bit of laundry while I wrote this super-long blog post. But before I say goodnight, let me show you the interesting bag of nuts that Naomi bought today.