Saturday, November 15, 2008


Alberto's been in the hospital down in Medellin.  70+ years of breathing - and too much of it through a Marlboro filter.  His lungs can't cope with the mountain air.  He fell to pneumonia.  His sisters now have taken him home, but Monica and her sisters are mobilizing to get the medical bills paid and get their father out and back to the US or Costa Rica where his health insurance can cover these things up front.  (Eventually the US insurance pays, but meanwhile cash has to be gathered and spent.)  As the hospital bills' echo, however briefly, through the extended family's bank accounts, the migratory man may be losing the Colombian option in his itinerary.

We'd invite him here, but he's probably right that nothing would kill him more quickly than the New England winter.  He'll be bound for Southern California.

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