The Supervisor

Good Morning from David. This morning Jose, Rosalina, Alessandra, and I went to the stadium to walk at 6 am. Actually Alessandra and I ran around 4 times and walked around 3. A couple of days ago she took the Jung Typology personality test in spanish on the internet and her result was ESTJ. She´s a supervisor, which makes sense. Immediately she stepped into her leadership role on the track.
"Now, we are going to start running." she said. "Breathe in and out through your nose. If you get tired you can breathe out once through your mouth. But, not much!"
A little bit later:
"Keep a steady pace. Don´t accelerate and don´t slow down! Go at the same speed."
A little bit later:
"Now, we are going to pass Rosalina. Keep a steady pace!"
A sleek dark skinned young man was running beautifully in front of us.
"You see him? He is an athlete." Alessandra said.
"Do you know him?" I asked.
"I did once. Not now." she answered. I saw her posture straighten almost imperceptibly as we neared the young man. Her focus increased. She looked straight ahead. I made a point of running steadily beside her so as not to embarrass her.
The sun rose so quickly. It didn´t seem gradual at all. One moment it seemed dark and we could see the stars. The next moment the sky was lit orange and pink, brightening a tree full Talingos singing and chattering obnoxiously.
Today is another quiet day. Jose and Rosalina are off somewhere both doing errands. Maybe Rosalina is at school this morning. I am not sure. They are still preparing for their trip to Spain. Yesterday Rosalina received the box with things from her cousin for the trip. Some wool sweaters, a large chic purse for Rosalina, a relatively light weight elegant men´s coat for Jose made of navy Italian wool (which he insists is too heavy and the "coat" (a men´s suit jacket) he bought the other day from the thrift store will be just fine) as well as a multitude of children´s clothing and toys (hand-me-downs from Rosalina´s cousin´s little grandaughter). Several of the kid´s clothes and shoes were given to Alessandra to share with her relatives. She also took a large well worn doll with a lavender dress, tired satiny shoes, blonde yarn pigtails, and blue eyes.
"What should we do with this doll?" Rosalina had asked.
Alessandra took the doll into her lap and folded it´s face into it´s cloth legs, hugging it to her body. There was a pretty set of four embroidered napkins in the suitcase, which Rosalina gave me to take back and use in our apartment. Some of the toys will also go to the baby next door.
During my first week here in Panama this visit, I became aquainted with the baby. The room I am staying in is close enough to the house next door that I can hear the baby crying with astonishing clarity. The baby often comes by to visit Alessandra and Angela for periods of time during the day. Alessandra is always happy to see her and will immediately hug her, kiss, and chatter in baby language to her. The 67 year old man next door is from India. Once in a while he´ll come by to drop off a spicy Indian dish for Jose and Rosalina to try. He lived in the US for a while going to University there. He´s married to a young Panamanian woman now and they have a baby. He doesn´t speak spanish. I often hear them "conversing" animatedly in a sort of english. It´s not that I aim to overhear, but I cannot help it due to the location of my bedroom. Once in a while I´ll hear her refer to him as "that gringo I married!"
One day Angela was busy when the baby came to visit. I was in my room when I heard a knock a the door. Angela came bustling in with the baby in her arms asking me to please just watch her for a few minutes, because she was terribly busy and stressed with her work.
I had told her yes of course. Suddenly I found myself alone with this baby. The baby and I passed an awkward couple of minutes.
"hmmm.....What to do next.... Babies like to play I think." I arranged the baby on the bed. The air conditioning felt good. Soon I had the baby surrounded with things I thought she might find interesting. Among them, a pink ribbon, a strange wind up blue monster I found on the table in the corner, a stuffed cow, and two dogs holding paws that sing Sonny and Cher´s "I got you babe." The baby was hard to impress. I believe best of all she liked the pink ribbon. The two dogs scared her.