oasis

I'm in San Diego. I enjoy a few hours of rest, and road. It is a city I is strange, yet familiar. Somehow reminds me of my country. For example, when I asked the receptionist at my hotel where was the book store, I said "five minutes". As I walk in the direction I indicated, twenty minutes later, I realize that its estimate, like my land, are based on the use of a car. The twenty minute surprise me climbing a hill. Larga. Stealth (do not know why, because nobody looks at me), but deep down, I have her tongue out and accuse me for not calling a cab.

I see the oasis, the Barnes and Nobl and in the distance. And I rejoice. No exaggeration - my heart sank. A rollover curious and shy, because a few years ago I hated Barnes and Noble. And Border s. The arrival of either represented the extinction of the (s) library (s) of the people. Growing up girl / in Rio Piedras, spent long hours in a small bookstore, dusty, run by an elderly couple (old would? Children often blame "old age" lightly) grouchy and charming, that left me read there, many hours, without ever comprase them something in return. There I read, for example, in asthmatic outburst, "Aura" and "Old Gringo." And Asterix comics and Mafalda.

For the first time on this tour, I go through the next two pedestrians more. One is tall and thin, the other is low and thick. That of "thick" I just edited. The first word I used was "chubby". One is chubby, and both carry knife green dress, covered with a white coat. In their necks, stethoscopes.

With the B & N north, I approach a building. Is a hospital. It has a big sign announcing a special clinic for cardiac patients and one for deliveries.

And then I think, with the certainty of loggerhead revelations: He was a chubby cardiologist.

I think, kind reader (before you judge me) with tenderness. The idea is a metaphor chubby cardiologist unexpected. A cardiologist is chubby as a teacher with a son who will not or can not learn to read. A policeman kleptomaniac. A psychologist depressed. Any anthropologist ethnocentric?

Yesterday, doing ethnographic fieldwork in a university that has improved graduation rates of Latino students, I was chasing a family that I thought "America" ​​for several minutes, insistent, waiting for an opportunity to start a conversation. I soon discovered that they were not "Latinos". They spoke a language that is unknown to me, but I recognized as Pashto, maybe. Or Arabic. Ordu?? Namely. The fact is that there were Latino. That was what they call here "middle eastern".

And I'm a chubby cardiologist.

Traveling is desubicarse, rethink. I think it is no coincidence that many airports sell magazines like "Eat Well", "Prevention", "Shape" and "Vegetarian Times". Or selling calendars and diaries. Traveling is reinvented, defined. It is, in some cases recognized as privileged cross borders easily because it is certainly not a universal right.

Travelling in me and now it is also necessarily think of your own country, distant and sad. It is recalled that not long ago, some tenants malicious liars and stole the furniture and left the house without paying rent, electricity or water, leaving behind debt and disorder. And remember, too, that's not all: He recently a colleague was attacked in broad daylight to steal his backpack. And that's not all: He recently a woman, another woman, died at the hands of her partner. That a man who watched TV in the living room of her home was murdered near his family.

Let heaven, on my last visit, was as gray as the mood.

Leo a while, drink coffee, I enjoy both. Back, ponder call a cab, but decided to walk again. I stop for dinner at a restaurant. The entrance looks ordinary, but in the back, where I sit, there is a small artificial lake. I feel at peace, I take a wine, as a salad, take these notes.

I see a duck. There are two. They're cute and gray.

With "Duck", I mean the bird, of course. If you thought I meant a gay man, he was wrong. But I think it's natural. Homophobia is a horrible way of thinking, but also a dominant way of thinking, and as a friend told me once, afflicts us all. The best way to vaccinate not think ourselves immune to it but humans recognize, manipulative, prejudiced struggling with prejudice rather than without prejudice perfect and perfect.

Upon leaving the restaurant, I see a couple who just arrived. Both smile. She limps. Limp much, obviously. Not in the manner of a limp because of an accident but recovers to vertical violently and has limped and lifelong limp. It has small sequins on your blouse, loose hair, and smiles. He has glasses and mustache, and takes his hand. Not in the manner of taking the hand of an invalid, but in the manner of taking the hand of the woman he loves. And also smiling.

I look with a sadder happiness. It accelerated my steps, perhaps trying to get to the desktop and the computer before forget their smiles. I come and write: