10-27-10
I was disturbed this morning at 8 am, shortly after finishing my daily, icy-cold bucket bath. (Really, is there any more pleasant way to start the day?) For once, the disturbance was a soft tap-tap-tap at my door, rather than the roosters cock-a-doodle-doo’ing me to the very brink of insanity.
I answered my door dripping and hastily clothed in shorts and a t-shirt. As it turned out, it was two of the girls from my village’s small school, informing me that la directora of the school needed help with her printer. I glanced at the clock, and told them that I could come at 8:45, on my way to the bus stop to catch the 9 am bus. No, they said. She needs me right now. I heaved a sigh. Of course she does.
Though I had a hard time imagining what kind of printer emergency could be so severe that it couldn’t be put off 45 minutes while I ate breakfast and dressed, I followed the girls anyway, as they showed signs of dragging me bodily to the school unless I agreed. Ever since I helped one of the teachers print some photos last month, they seem to think I’m some kind of computer whisperer. Apparently, all I have to do is tenderly stroke the computer and/or its various accoutrements, and it will freely do my bidding, up to and including printing, surfing the net, hacking into secret government databases, and dancing the rhumba. I’m really quite talented.
In this case, I was hoping that she wanted something simple, like printing more pictures. After all, hacking databases from a computer that has no internet takes time, and I had a bus to catch. I walked into the schoolyard to screeches of “L’Emilie! L’Emilie está aquí!!”, in the same tones that the occupant of a life raft in the middle of the ocean might say, “Land! I see land!” Alright, it was slightly gratifying to be greeted that way. Especially since I was obviously wearing pajamas and strongly resembled a drowned rat. I found the directora in the small computer room attached to her office, wringing her hands over the printer. Apparently, it stopped working mid-print, and when they ripped the paper out of it by force, the printer shut itself down completely in protest of such an abuse. They wanted me to get it running again.
After checking all the connections and pressing the power button futilely several times, I was all out of ideas. I asked her if she needed it running today. She said yes. I asked her if she needed her prints this morning. She said yes. I offered to print her material in Chalate and give them to her in the afternoon as my best alternative. She said that she needed to print invitations that had to be sent home with the students by noon. In a slightly accusatory tone, I might add.
Oh well, there goes my semi-mythic status. I left the schoolyard in disgrace, still dripping, and still wearing pajamas. No departing cheers accompanied me. I was shamed, ignominious in my failure.
At least I won’t be called upon to teach the computer the salsa next month.
