mañana means mañana

"How is it out?"
"They're dropping like flies out there."
"Who are?"
"The bluebottles.  Everywhere.  Spinning in a death buzz and just dying".

We're having a heatwave.  A tropical heatwave.  It's hardly surprising.  the temperature's rising.  She certainly can can-can.

"Forty degrees.  Again."

I've been meaning to fix the two slow punctures we've got.  They can wait. Mañana.

apparently play is important in these situations.  I didn't actually get around to buying the game.....

The early mornings are beautiful and tranquil.  Birds flit from tree to tree. The sun is warm but the morning air remains fresh and cool.  By 9 o'clock it's warmed up and the sun is too hot to sit in comfortably.  By mid-afternoon our little concrete casita is getting hot.  Thank goodness for air-conditioning.  We try and get our chores done in the mornings.  When I say 'chores' I am essentially thinking of anything that does not involve lying down.  My only afternoon chore is cooking dinner - this is often the highlight of my day, if not Gayle's.

finally got round to using up the flour we bought

On a Wednesday evening I hear a stone drop onto my plate.  At least that is the sound. We're eating dhal so at first I assume it's a stone that got mixed up in the lentils.  But then a cursory check around my mouth with my tongue reveals a gaping hole in my largest molar.  The filling has dropped out.  The tooth had already cracked about three years ago.  But what a time to let me down.  The remaining shell feels loose.  I probe it again and again with my tongue.  There's no pain - I'd had root canal work done on this tooth in Iran in 2014.  Maybe....

"Gayle, have you got any strong sewing thread?" 
"No, why?"
"Oh nothing. Just thinking........"

imagine the size of the hole

After a couple of days the tooth has got looser and the hole is bothering me.  What if it gets infected?  I find my pliers wrench from the toolkit and thrust them at Gayle.
"What do you want me to do?" she looks alarmed.
"Do you want to try pulling it?"
"No I don't!!"

Gayle texts our friend Tuly to ask if she knows of any dentist that might be open.  We think it's unlikely during the 'emergency' but Tuly replies almost immediately to say she will ask a friend who has a dental clinic.  Things move rapidly with a bit of back and forth, questions and answers, ending with an appointment that afternoon at 2.  The dentist had asked for a photo of the damaged tooth.

The clinic looks shut and the front door is locked, but a masked man opens it for me.  He asks me if I understand Spanish and I say yes.  He says something else and I don't respond.  What did he ask me? We are both wearing masks. The man switches to English and introduces himself as Lester.  He will be extracting my tooth.  He takes me into the surgery which is set up and ready for me.  I notice the table of instruments looks rather crowded.  The metalwork is covered modestly with a cloth.  Lester has a full face visor as well as gloves and a face mask.  He looks nervous which I put down to the anxiety caused by the corona virus.  I have already answered all the health-check questions with 'no'.  No cough, no fever, no recent illness or fatigue.  But who's to know?  And what about Lester?  I don't ask him how he's been feeling lately.  He is after all about to do me a favour.

Lester begins by giving me some numbing anaesthetic.  When I can no longer feel my tongue tip he gives my damaged tooth a good old poke to see if I can feel anything.  No, nada, I tell him.  And then he reaches for the tools.  Oh, and what tools.  Something that looks like a metal punch but which screws into the broken tooth.  Then after a few of those, something that looks like it could remove wheel nuts from a carwheel.  Occasionally I espy a bloodied chip in his hand as he lays it on a paper towel.  My tooth is coming out in bits.  Lester explains it is fractured and he can see no sign of infection.  Then he goes to a cupboard behind me and rummages around.  He can't find what he's looking for and he appears to be sweating profusely now.  Up to this point I am fairly relaxed.  But in between bouts of jabbing and poking, Lester keeps going back to rummage in the cupboard.  I begin to fret.  Finally he finds a colleague who can supply him with the tool he needs.  "A twenty-three" he says, handing Lester something that looks like you could jack a car up with.  It does the trick - Lester finally extracts the two roots.  He holds the last one up proudly.  I almost faint.  Do I want the tooth bits?  All I can see is a gory mess on a paper towel.  No!

Painkillers and ice.  Five days' rest.  Do nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  And I had so much planned..............

"You can still cook the dinner, can't you?"  Gayle asks when I get home.
"Yes, no problem, but the laundry and the cleaning will have to wait." I say as I lie down.  I can't see Gayle but I hear her laugh.

now then, where was I?

time management

"What day is it again?"

It's the start of our fourth week in the casita.   We thought our little house would be the perfect place to quarantine.  Gayle would finish uploading her photos and sew a quilt.  John would blog. (This may sound unimpressive to you but it would appear I have a whole year's worth of journey to record in sharp, witty and interesting prose.  And if that isn't demanding enough I have to cope with a severely failing memory, amongst other defects) We have lots to read and plenty of films to watch.  It would be the perfect interlude in our journey.

contemplating all the productive things I could be getting on with

In weeks two and three we found ourselves Skyping, Zooming, Whatsapping almost incessantly.  Well, at least every day.  That seems incessant to a couple of travellers who like to switch off their mobile phone after breakfast.  We have chatted to family and friends in the UK   We have chatted with other cyclists and other friends all over the world.  We even had a call with Miss Hien, one of our favourite colleagues when we were in Viet Nam.  Everyone we have spoken to is experiencing some variant on the quarantine.   Tom, the Belgian cyclist we met last September, is in the north of Guatemala.  He seems remarkably chipper - every day he is meditating, swimming, writing.  I don't know how he fits it all in.  

Week four and the rot has set in.  We are slow to rise in the mornings.  We spend far too long looking at Lockdown memes.  I am still reading too much of the news and not enough of my book.  Gayle is finding out about other cyclists whose blogs we follow.  The sewing has stopped.  Now she is watching old episodes on Youtube of the Great British Sewing Bee.  I still haven't started the blog.  It's become 'an issue'.  We are on series three of Downton Abbey and we really really can't miss an episode.

waiting outside the supermarket

To avoid total insanity we still go for a walk each day and, once a week, a bike ride to the large supermarket on the edge of town.  We watch exercise workouts on Youtube.  We have a gin and tonic when we cook the evening meal.  There is mention in the local paper of a Dry Law being enforced.  I hurriedly nip out for another bottle of gin.  It turns out it's just a rumour.  The Corona brewery has shutdown.  This is true.

There's plenty to do but for some reason or another we're struggling to do much of anything........

kind of blue

Marie and Juan ask us if we've heard the news. The British prime minister is in intensive care.  We'd caught the headline the previous evening so we'd got over our initial shock, moved onto indignation and then settled down in despair. Our European friends note that Boris had been visiting a hospital with Covid-19 patients and walked around shaking hands - exactly the kind of thing that you're not supposed to do.  Hardly a great example.  Meanwhile English friends in the US comment on how well Boris seems to be doing.  But they're comparing him to Trump.  Everyone looks good next to Trump.

morale-boosting french crepes for breakfast thanks to Marie

We experience sudden mood swings.  Sometimes, sitting with a good book in the yard in the sunshine, a woodpecker tap-tapping in a palm tree the only noise, I feel very happy.  And then guilty.  Then restless.  Then happy again.  It's not bad this quarantine business.  

Gayle is harvesting a huge wild tomato plant at the end of the driveway

Listening to the BBC news is sometimes exasperating.  The government press conferences seem patronising to me.  Something in the tone of the ministers' speeches.  It must be the repetition of the slogans and the reminder that "as always, we are guided by the advice of the scientists".  The weasels.  After a change in policy they're trying to catch up.  Promises are made, but can they be met?  Why make promises?  Why not just explain what the problems are and how they're being addressed.  

still thinking about updating the blog

On many evenings I experience feelings of melancholy, amusement, anger, depression, anxiety, relief.  These usually leave me with an undefinable (but I'll give it a go anyway) empty hollowness.  Things improve radically when we stop watching Downton Abbey.

lockdown or quarantine?

the street art makes up for the concrete architecture

Our daily walk or ride takes us past a supermarket.  There's one that discounts fruit and veg, there's one that sells real tomato puree, one that sells gin and another that sells tonic.  So each day we can go somewhere different and still feel like we're not trapped in.  The Mexican government finally announced a national 'quarantine' for a month at the beginning of April with a principal message of "Quedate" - Stay In.  It has slowly taken effect.  At first many of the regular shops stay open.  Now most are closed up completely, after prompting from the local government.

Spot The Difference:  our street before quarantine

our street during quarantine

The language used by authorities and in the media is interesting.  In the UK there is a Lock-down.  It sounds like a form of imprisonment.  Is this a phrase the behavioural scientists have suggested?  There is also talk of waging a war, fighting the virus, battling the spread of the disease.  The NHS staff are at the frontline.  If that is true then it appears the UK government is sending our troops to battle without helmets or boots.

I'm critical of the Mexican government, in particular of the president, for the mixed messages he has been giving out.  He does have a serious problem here.  Any prolonged quarantine of the nation will have a serious impact on the majority of the poorer people - everyone who works in the informal economy.  We can see it with the little taco stands that dot the street corners here in La Paz.  Some are staying open, some are closed.  Some restaurants are serving take away only.  Most work has stopped.  People are staying at home.  The mayor has shut the malecon, the seafront promenade, because too many people were going there to exercise and take the air.  It's a real shame because this is the best public space in the city.

I'm also critical of the UK government.  I read from the editor of the UK's most respected medical journal (The Lancet) that the group of scientists giving advice to the government did not include an epidemiologist or anyone who worked in Public Health.  It seems that the UK government has made some poor decisions at critical points.  These have determined how the disease and the government response to the virus have developed.  I am furious.  But at times of war, should you be critical of the government or unite behind it, unquestioning, unjudging?  

What to do now that we really are isolating self-isolating?  Gayle is already at work on her 'quarantine' quilt, having bought fabric in the market before the shops all closed.  We should have bought that Mona Lisa jigsaw when we saw it - it wasn't there when we went back for it.  Happily we have plenty of books on our Kindles and Gayle is keen that I get our blog up to date.  There's also the BBC radio to listen to.  And the news.  No, not the news again.  We have to stop looking at the news.  That's not healthy.  What we are doing is having lots more Skype and WhatsApp and Zoom calls with family and friends.  This is keeping us busy enough.  Which is just as well - we might be here for some time.........

keeping busy swatting flies oh, and thinking about updating the blog