Friday, April 3, 2009

One Day

Ever since I got here, I've been helped by my company to get important paperwork done.
This include immigration documents, registering for social security, registering with the medical system and hospitals etc. When I mean helped by my company, I really mean that a person from from the HR dept. was assigned to help me with all these onerous and challenging tasks, specially since I'm as handicapped as they come, when it comes to the local language.

More specifically, the person who was attached to me was a young girl of 23 years, of Catalan origin. Let us call her S. So when we would make these trips to all the government offices, S would come along, make sure I have the right documents, head towards the right counter, help me when I would get lost, and most importantly give me good company when the wait was long (sometime 3-4 hours). We would talk about random topics.

Most of the time she would answer all irritating questions I had about Spanish and Catalan culture with infinite patience. She very rarely revealed much about herself, except when she wanted to tell me that she wants to do a lot of things and one day, she would get around doing them. One day, I want to go to New York City. One day, when I have money, I want to go shopping in that place. One day, I want to establish an advertising agency that would revolutionize the Spanish ad business. One day, I'll visit India and I'll come to your home.
I can't come to your party this week, but one day, sure I'll come.

I was supposed to go with her to get my resident permit. She didn't show up, instead it was someone else. I politely asked this person where S was, as she was handling all my affairs. I was told she won't be coming anymore. I pressed for more information. I was later told she had killed herself 10 days ago.

I loaned her my copy of H2G2 last time we met. One day, S, you'll give it back to me. One day.