El cajero

Yesterday we canceled our intercambios because we have a 5 page paper due tomorrow along with two exams the day after tomorrow, so we figured this would be beneficial for our studying. Also, Livey decides that it's a good day for a walk, and that we should start walking every day! So we leave at the usual time we leave for intercambios and decide to walk to the Zocalo to find the elusive market where Marina found a foot scrubber, and also Livey needs to see if these pharmacys down here have some medicine she needs, and I need to withdraw more money, as at the moment I only have 11 pesos to my name. So we begin our usual walk to the Zocalo, trying to practice our spanish, and arrive at a pharmacy, where LUCKY US! there's a cajero (ATM) right there inside! Two birds with one stone. Excellent.

So I put my card in, put in my pin number, and tell them I want 1500 pesos (100 US dollars). "Do you want a reciept?" It asks me. Why yes I do. I press the button, and suddenly it goes back to the main screen, "Please insert your card." I was distracted at first and didn't notice what had happened. "Did you get your card back?" Livey asks me. I stare at the machine. No. No I did not. And no money came out either. I look around me, then look back at the machine. Then I look at Livey, and then back at the machine. What? I bang a little bit on the machine. Nothing. Confused, I walk up to the person behind the counter. "Mi tarjeta esta a dentro de la caja." (My card is inside the box) I'm not sure if she understood me, because who even knows if that's correct spanish, so she turns around to leave and then about 10 seconds later I see her taking inventory of a little fridge filled with soda. Ummm... okay.... I walk over to her again, feeling stupid. "Umm, tengo un problema." She looks up. "Digame." (Tell me) I again tried to explain to her my problem, and finally she gets it. She walks over to the machine, inspects it for a bit, says some spanish words to us in which we understood that we had to call the bank to find out what to do. Frustrated, I take the paper and me and Livey head off to find a public telephone. I'm saying small cuss words at this moment, like "damnit, I just want my stupid card back. Just open the dang ATM and get it back to me. Ugh. ITS IN THERE, I KNOW IT IS." and others among those lines.

We finally find a phone and I call the number, trying to understand all the options for all the numbers, which I pretty much fail at, so I just start pressing random numbers and hoping it'll get me to an operator. No such luck. So Livey tries, and she succeeds in getting a ring tone, and hands the phone to me. A lady answers and say some stuff in spanish, and when I think it's my turn to talk, I say, "Hola, soy Ashley, y tengo un problema... mi tarjeta esta a dentro de un cajero." And then she says something very quickly in spanish, and I say, "Otra vez?" (Again?) and she says it again, and I make confused noises, and then the line goes silent, and then dead. Wonderful, she hung up on me. Livey gets back on the line, and I look desperately around for someone to help. There's a guy standing in a store doorway about 20 feet away, thank God for mexican store workers who like to stand in doorways and help shoppers as soon as they even glance at the entryway...

"Senor? Puede ayudarme?" (Can you help me?) He nods and while we're walking the couple steps back to the phone, I explain to him my problem. Livey gives him the phone, which is apparently on hold, and then he totally takes over. He explains everything, says, "ah-huh, ah-huh, si..." several times, talks a little more, asks us where we're from, then suddenly looks at me and says, "la tarjeta esta destruida," and it's then that I start crying uncontrollably while trying to hold it in, which doesn't work very well at all. My card is DESTROYED? WHAT?!? I have no money! I'm in Mexico and I have no money! I didn't even bring my credit card because WHO KNEW something like this would happen?! I HAVE 11 PESOS. THATS LIKE LESS THAN 50 CENTS. I'm stranded. It'll take months to get me a new card. WHAT THE HELL?? Why would the stupid machine destroy my card?! "WHAT the F***" I say out loud (Sorry Mom), and the guy on the phone for us looks at me kinda nervously, and then continues his conversation with the lady on the phone. Livey is trying to calm me down, which isn't working very well. Finally the guy gets off the phone, talks to us for a bit and tells us that we need to call Visa and they can get me a temporary card, but I can't withdraw money from it, and I should call my bank at home and do something... We thank him profusely and start walking home, letting out a string of cuss words, and for once I'm glad that most of the people here don't understand english.

We get back to my house, explain to my mom, and call my profesora. "You need to go down to the bank and demand that they open the ATM and GIVE you at least the pieces of the card that are left, so we KNOW it's destroyed and your bank can send you another one. Go talk to them, you should even SCREAM, DEMAND that you get that card back. You're American, they can't touch you!" I decide that I'm not really comfortable with this, so we decide to meet her at the bank that owns the ATM machine in 15 minutes. When we arrive, the bank has already closed, and my profesora has to yell through two glass doors to be able to talk to the security guy who's on the other side... Eventually we find another public phone and she calls the bank and talks to them for about 10 minutes, in which we figure out that if a card isn't returned from a machine, the bank automatically closes the account. So our profesora hangs up, gives me a calling card, and I call my parents so that they can call my bank and have them close the account and send me a new card, which SHOULD get here within a week, and in the meantime I'll just have to borrown money from Olivia. So today Livey got her walk that she wanted plus some, and we spent 3 hours running around Oaxaca figuring this out rather than writing our 5 page paper and studying. Great.

But of course, whenever something bad happens, something good always seems to follow, no matter how small the good. I came home and finally started working on my paper, and then Constanza, the 6 year old, came into my room and started talking to me. The kids are staying here for the week while their mom is on vacation... The dad also comes over for lunch and dinner and before bed, so that he can say goodnight to the kids and eat the food that my host mom cooks. It's like, when a mom leaves, another mom has to come and take care of the family, because the dad obviously can't cook or take care of the children like a mom can. Anyways, Constanza is SUPER outgoing and energetic, and honestly I feel much more comfortable talking to her than to an adult.
"I have to do homework!" I say, exasperated. In spanish of course.
"Me too! I have 20 math problems and I've only done 1!" She replies, throwing her arms in the air.
"Oh no! That sucks!"
"Yeahhhh!!"
"I have to write a 5 page paper!"
"OOOH NOOOO!!!!"
And so she sits there and watches me write my paper, and I ask her, "Bloquear? Es una palabra, si?" (Thats a word, right?)
"SIIII!!!"
"Y saliera?"
"Pues... SII!! ES UNA PALABRA!" And so on.

Also, we finally succeeded in booking a hotel for Spring Break, at a beach town that's a 6 hour bus ride away, Puerto Escondido. Its right on the beach, has 4 beds so we all get our own, and I looked at the pictures and it's absolutely BEAUTIFUL. We are SO excited to get a week off just to lay around on the beach, eat whatever we want, go to bars, go swimming, go adventuring... My host brother-in-law reccommended the place to me yesterday; when he heard that we were going to Puerto Escondid, he wipped out his cell phone and called a friend for a recommendation of a good hotel. Then when he got one, we looked it up online and he actually CALLED the place and got prices for us, which I thought was just extremely nice and generous of him! So tonight when he came over I told him that that was the hotel we wanted, and he again got out his cell phone and called the place and made the reservations for us, which was amazing because I was going to have pay for the call either to my host mom, because it's expensive to call long distance, or buy a calling card to use on a public phone. I would also have had to talk to the people in spanish, which I'm always a little nervous about over the phone because it's just more difficult than in person. So despite the fact that I still haven't finished that paper, the day had a weird mix of horrible and exciting... adventures don't really have rules.