9am Wednesday Morning – Daily routine of checking my emails
Still pushing the sleep from my eyes, I lazily pull the blanket that covers my computer during the night from the table, then fold it and place it over the back of my borrowed plastic chair. Going through the now familiar motions, I open the screen and punch the on button, enter my startup passwords and sit down to wait.
As I wait my eyes drift around the room. There is not much to see, a bare wall with Isaac’s clothes hanging on his free-standing rack to one side, and our little kitchen bench with a concrete sink to the other. The shelves above our kitchen bench look more crowded every day, but I cannot complain too much as I have taken a chunk of shelf space for my own stuff there too.
Looking out the window I see blue sky. It has been unusual weather lately. We are supposed to be in winter still but recently the afternoons are heating up enough to cause us all to sweat. It looks to be another scorcher of a day today too. As I let my thoughts drift about the weather, they are suddenly called back to reality with the all too familiar sound of Windows logging in. The computer was almost ready.
Focused back on my work again, I reach over to my recently prepared hot coffee, lean back and enjoy the flavour as I wait for the final programs to finish loading. As soon as they do I fire up my email program and check out the latest happenings. As the mail came racing in, my eyes fixed upon an email that was a reply to a recent request. It was about my laptop.
About My Laptop
Since buying my laptop in February I have been having problems with the keyboard. At first it was three keys that were really stiff and needed excessive pressure to use. Later these keys softened up, but when typing there started to be letters always missing. It became so bad that I had to always look at the screen to be sure that what I typed was what appeared. Every word or two required corrections.
Not happy to leave things as they were, I quickly started communications with Acer regarding my options to correct this problem. They put me in contact with their warranty agents in Argentina, based in Buenos Aires. I was quickly informed that although my machine had an international warranty, I would not be covered as I had purchased the machine in one country and was looking for a warranty in another.
After countless emails, and dozens of explanations, I finally organised to have my keyboard replaced under warranty. It was a significant fight, and to have reached this point was a major milestone. It became even more significant when I was told that they had received the keyboard from Acer and were ready to replace it. Now my only problem was finding the time to get down to Buenos Aires and replace the thing. With a minimum turn around time of 2 working days and an average time of 4 days, it would take a lot of days away from the base during what was turning out to be a very busy period of time.
So when I read this email that had just appeared in my inbox, I was both excited and worried. The response said that it was possible to replace my keyboard within 24hrs. This was a complete break with their policy and something quite unexpected. It also meant that I would be able to head down and get it changed at long last. But what I read next concerned me. They said that for this to happen I would need to bring the machine in on Thursday. That was tomorrow. It was all so fast. I needed to see if this was possible.
Discussing the Possibilities
It did not take long to find David, our base leader. I discussed with him the email that I had just received and what I should do about it all. It was agreed that I needed to take advantage of this situation so there was left only two possibilities; head down there myself, or send the computer down via a courier company. I favoured going myself, but it made more sense to courier the machine down instead.
But then there was the factor of my needing a visa for Brazil as well. There was only one place to get a visa, and that was Buenos Aires. It was also possible to do this by mail, but again involved the risk of loss or damage. I decided that it would be better to go myself, and David agreed. It would be a quick trip, but well worth it. There still remained some unknown questions about my visa however. If I could not get it then I would not go, and would courier my laptop instead. To find answers to my questions however, I needed to wait until 2pm before I could make a call.
Decision Made
It was already 4pm by the time I got around to making the call. I had been deeply focused on my work and was now working alongside Oscar on a high-pressure job with a tight schedule. There was a time when I suspected that the visa requirements for Australians were removed – at least that was what somebody had told me – but that was wrong information. My call was via a computer-based Internet phone, resulting in many repetitions to get the advice I needed. The end result was that I would now be going to Buenos Aires. It was possible to get my visa while I was there.
Work with Oscar continued until 6pm and later as we moved from the design stage to wrestling with a printer. It was heading towards 7pm by the time I returned to my room to pack. Packing at this late stage turned it into a ruthless affair where the bare essentials found their way into my bag and the rest remained as an afterthought as I headed out to the bus terminal. I did manage to get the important items however.
Bus Ride
My ride to the terminal was courtesy of a friend on the base who just happened to be leaving at the same time as I was. There are only three people with cars here, so I was pretty lucky. He dropped me outside the terminal on the road, and I raced in to see if there was a spare seat waiting for me. Sometimes these buses fill up well before their scheduled departure, and I was uncertain if tonight was a busy night or not.
The seat I finally found was at the very back of the bus, underneath the air-conditioning unit and over the engine. The humming overhead and rumbling below seemed to interrupt my night of sleep as we hurdled our way over 11hrs of highway. It may have also been the narrow seats, or the flashes of headlights through the open curtains also, but by the time I arrived in Buenos Aires at 6.30am in the morning, I was feeling the wear and tear of bus travel.
And here I am now in Buenos Aires. For 2 days.
