January 30, 2000

 …from the streets of San Salvador. Today I witnessed an armed robbery in front of the house where I am staying. I was tapping away on the computer in an upstairs bedroom overlooking the street when I heard some commotion outside.
 

I ignored it for a moment. The intensity escalated and drew me to the window to see a man in a black ski mask and military garb jamming a machine gun in the face of a man in a car. The man and his wife had just come from the bank carrying over $5000 in cash. The bad guys had followed them and stopped their car directly under my window.

There were at least three robbers in a black car with black tinted windows. The two I saw, similarly dressed and armed, carried out their operation with military precision. Wham,Bam, Thank You Ma’am! No amateurs here. Zoom, and they were gone! No one was hurt and no shots were fired. Curiously, there was an armed security guard less than a half a block away who could easily see the whole incident. He was actually helpless in the face of the heavily armed bandits and his intervention would have certainly made matters much worse for all those concerned.

Prior to this incident, I had written a draft of an entry concerning all of the armed security guards and the barbed wire that abound in San Salvador. Most businesses, including all gas stations and convience stores have their own guard armed with a weapon that is a cross between a pistol and a sawed-off shotgun, with enough ammo for another civil war! My hosts had been constantly discouraging me from driving anywhere in town by myself. “Relax!”, I tried to tell them, “I’m a big boy! This is not my first time in a big city!” They were insistent. Now I appreciate why. Thank you.

January 28, 2000

In my quest to solve some computer difficulties and to archive my digital photos, I was introduced to Karla. I had been told that she was a crazy girl who spent her days at work on a computer and her nights at home online. A GeekChick. A Techie! But she certainly didn’t look the part! In person she was very attractive and vivacious and talked a mile a minute. An unbelievably fast, nonstop cadence to her speech. “Stop and take a deep breath!” I would tell her so that I could understand more than one out of every seventeen words. It was no use though, she’d be back up to full speed within 15 seconds. 
 
I told her about the programmers and tech people I knew at home and that they stayed up all night surviving on coffee, pepsi, and pizza. She nodded quickly with her eyes wide open to acknowledge that I was describing her lifestyle exactly.

I think that computers have an effect on the human nervous system. No matter what my posture is I get a sharp pain between my shoulder blades after a certain amount of time online. I think the nervous system gets amped on some level by the electronic interaction, hence the “wired” lifestyle of a lot of the technical types. Back to Krazy-Karla. At a coffee shop (wouldn’t ya know?) she described her numerous online liasons and program called ‘ICQ’. (Get it? ‘I seek you’-I didn’t!) It’s a sophisicated chat program that is very popular in El Salvador. Forgive me if this is old hat and I’m just a little behind the curve, but I was amazed at the functionality of the program and by the fact that the company says it has received requests for, and downloaded the program 80 million times! Obviously a little more widespread than just El Salvador. Again, back to KK and her international online lovers…Matus was the codename of her Honduran friend she knew only through her computer screen. They spent months getting to know each other online. Hours together every evening, then eventually at work, ICQ allowed them to be in touch ALL DAY LONG with an omni-present little dialogue box in the corner of her screen! Regardless of what she was doing or working on! A fairly intense relationship, electronic or not. After months of this, Matus finally decides that he must meet her in person and tells her he is coming to San Salvador for that purpose. She panics! She tells him that her real name is Ricky and that she’s actually a guy!! No response for two minutes-finally back across the sceen comes, “I LOVE YOU!” This real life story continues, but gets too complicated and convoluted for me to begin to describe. The happy ending (or beginning?) is that they actually did meet and they have been seeing each other regularly ever since. In person! And yes, my computer is up and running, and my photos are nicely stored on CD!

My last few days in Cuba were spent in the ghetto of Old Havana. I had a wonderful time at the home of my friend and his family in spite of the relative poverty in which they lived. Upon my arriving back in San Salvador
I was invited to the vacation beach house of a former patient and friend from San Francisco. It was a palace by comparison, complete with live-in servants to attend to my needs!! “Yin and Yang.” My friend Oscar replied as I described the amazing contrast to him. “Life is that way. But there is always a little Yin with the Yang and some Yang with the Yin.” Yoda couldn’t have said it any better.