kelly's hOMMMe

500 Pesos en Tarjetas Telefónicas

I thought, after a night out at a fun Brazilian bar, that I would have a nice morning sleeping in and then a little self-led yoga…because I have NO CLASS on Thursdays. I was definitely not expecting the wakeup call that I actually received. My host mom, Beatriz came frantically knocking on my door around 9 a.m. and when she heard my voice she went down the hall to my roommates´ doors…same frantic tone, same hurried demeanor.

She was talking on the phone with someone and her son, Raúl had a very worried look on his face. Turns out the person on the phone was telling Beatriz that someone in our house was “sequestrado.” I know what that word means in Spanish, but I couldn´t believe that this was really happening. The only person missing was my roommate Patrick, who had left for school around 8ish. Had he really been kidnapped???

Beatriz became too upset to continue talking on the phone so Raúl took over as the person on the other line (I still don´t know who it was- police or otherwise) began to ask for money. Here´s what was weird about the whole situation- they wanted to be paid 500 pesos in phone cards!! ¡Muy raro! Raúl rushed out to the locutorio to buy the cards, but the girl behind the counter told him to proceed with caution. She suggested that we check the school to see if Patrick was really missing before we started handing over dinero or phone cards.

With tear-stained cheeks and a pounding heart, I hopped in a cab and went with Raúl to my school so that we could look for Patrick…we knew that he had two classes today and that his first one was over. I had no idea where to start looking and Raúl had never even been to UTDT. What a search party!! I looked in the window of every single classroom…no Patrick. He was not sipping a café in the smoky cafeteria nor was he playing ping pong (as he loves to do) in the student lounge. Finally, gracias a Dios, we found him in the basement checking his email. Needless to say the whole house was overjoyed when he walked through the door…we had been scammed big style.

My day only got better (how could it not?!) because I finally had lunch with a new Porteña friend that I met randomly a few weeks ago. Then I checked out two local gímnasios because it´s finally time to join! The girl behind the counter at one of the gyms even told me I speak with a good accent. Tonight we are having a happy hour hosted by the school…this is definitely going to be a memorable semester :)

posted by Kelly @ 3:47 PM