I;ve probably spelled this wrong but I only have an hour of wifi. Did you hear my purse was recovered? While we were in Baracoa our landlady, herself a lawyer, had a call from the police wanting to talk to me. A few dozen back and forth llamadas later I am back in Santiago and going out to DICO (which my taxi driver tells me is Cuba;s equivalent of the CIA) to talk to my personal detective. I got my pink purse back, sin effectivo (without cash) but con tarjetas (with all my cards). Luckily, one card didn’t work here anyhow and although Frank had given me an Australian number to phone to cancel my Australian visa card, they had been closed the one time I had been able to be at a phone cubicle. The dear purse had had such an avventura and was only slightly worse for wear (one clip doesn’t clip) probably due to having been run over following its escape from my falda (skirt/lap) and between the slats of the horse cart. My detective was very interested in interviewing me (in Spanish) about the function of the various cards (why did I bring my hospital ID cards, San DIego library photocopy cash card and GO card to Cuba??). He showed me where it had been found and I remembered the bump precisely. How did he track me down? Tourists live parallel lives to Cubans. He had my photo from immigration blown up in front of him (I was VERY tired, I tried to explain), and every place we stay at registers us with our passport details. When you buy a mobile phone or internet card your passport details are also registered. I had a FILE, but I don’t think it included the things I have managed to do despite still being on a tourist visa. My detective would need to speak English and read blogs with hashtags for Cuba, if he really wanted the low down on 56 year old women who drink lemonade, learn bongo, and bring medical equipment to children’s hospitals. My detective showed me, not without some pride, that on that day there were 22,000 Canadians, 435 Dutch, and 246 Australians in Cuba. Another folder on his desktop said, “Interpol”. My detective was deservedly proud (orgullo, not orgullosa, which is arrogant, my taxi driver explained on the way home) of getting my purse and cards back to its rightful owner and of managing all those tourists with a dialup computer.
BTW DICO also look after cases that concern extranjeros, (foreigners) in case you are wondering how a lost purse got to the CIA.
PS, finder, thank you… xxx
whatsuccoursus 