Monday 27th of September, 2004
Sera interesante.
I wake up at 6:00 when the alarm on the watch goes off. And, for that matter, at five minute intervals after that, as I've not worked out how to turn the snooze off yet. I do manage it, but don't know how. I shower, pack and go down and eat breakfast (coffee, medialunas and dulce de leche, so not the healthy option). Vinka comes down and joins me, then she goes of to get bits and pieces and I go to the internet cafe next door to post an email to a client, to point out that I'll be the tiniest bit incommunicado for the next couple of weeks. "Ah," I think, "I'll just post this before he gets in." Then I realise that it's almost lunchtime in London.
I check out and pay for the room, then we wait for the bus to pick us up (with Alberto at the wheel) and take us to Lunlunta.
This house is huge. Relatively luxurious bedrooms (pairs of twin rooms, each pair sharing a bathroom). We gather and have a first meeting outside in the sunshine, then I go with Ignacio and we clean pans and mop the floor. They have an interesting, though not ideal, system of mopping here that involves a very wet mop, a squeegee and a drain in the floor. Hmm.
I look around the site and take a few first photos. On transfering them to the computer I discover that there's a bit of something on the lens (although conferring with V, I discover that it is in fact on the sensor, which is worse). Now all I can see of yesterday's photos and todays is this black blob. Chiz. Then some reading.
I am in a room with Jorge, who speaks as much English as I speak Spanish. Sera interesante.
I miss the beginning of lunch. The table-setters-out have gone for monolithic, which appears to be a popular configuration on the first day. No doubt tomorrow we'll go for horse-shoe. Perhaps not.
After lunch (pasta with carrots and carrot salad) I do more reading and find myself falling asleep a lot. Tremendous torpor.
The sound of twenty or so people getting their chops in order fills the air.
I almost miss tea altogether - there's not really a schedule for meals today, so I can only tell they're happening by the lack of the sound of people moving around and playing guitar.
With Martin's help I log on to the internet: there is a telephone line. Hurrah!
At 20:00 I move tables with Ignacio, and at 20:30 there's dinner - pizza and salad. Again there's some uncertainty as to the timing, but this time I'm in at the beginning.
After dinner, V books my ticket on the return bus and gives me a briefing on the Future Perfect tense in Spanish, then I take some long exposure photographs in the dark. Something potentially profound, though not at all original, about time and duration and photography enters my head.
I assist Alain in his connection to post the diary, then write this, now I'm posting it and soon I'll be in bed.