Fede

Before moving to Asia someone asked me if I was scared of living in a place where I had no friends. I laughed. That did not bother me one least bit. I did not have any friends in the States when I moved there and I met the most amazing and loving people. Also, in the short time that I lived in Thailand before (In Chiang Mai, for massage school) I had a wonderful group of friends. Certainly, having friends had never been a difficult thing for me. Until this last year.

In Phuket I found it impossible to find my tribe. After a few unsuccessful attempts I stopped organizing social events. The people surrounding me were not my crowd: a lot younger people that knew way more about drinking games than organic foods. This does not mean that I did not meet great people; it is just that I did not feel I belonged anywhere. Therefore, I started isolating myself.

When I decided going back to the West I met my first paisano: El Mago. The story with him was very complex and I am not going to talk about it here. It was through him, though, that I finally met a couple of people that I can call friends.

One of them is Fede. When I first heard about Fede he was a mysterious person that El Mago would not stop talking about, which made me very jealous. Then, when El Mago was in Argentina, I wanted to visit his puppy and Fede was taking care of him. Thus I learned what an interesting conversationalist Fede was. We talked for hours and hours about life. Fede is closer to my age and we both like Dolina, whom we quoted in many of our discussions.

Fede and I in Nai Harn Beach

Fede made me play tennis again, after twenty four years of extreme contempt for it. The first time I got back into a court I thought I was going to faint. But with time I learned to like it, mostly because that was the excuse we had to hang out. He would pick me up in the evenings and I would sit on his motorcycle carefully –because he had built a sophisticated device out of bamboo sticks to carry his surfboard that was somewhat threatening to my butt. The rides were fun because Fede is very impatient in traffic and he would dodge cars and curse often. While playing we took many water breaks to endure the tropical heat. During those breaks we caught up about our lives and discussed some philosophical topics.

Fede was there in my most lonely time. When I went through the painful separation with El Mago he sympathetically listened to me and offered me comfort.

A few weeks ago I saw Fede at a traffic light. We parked and talked on the sidewalk for a long time. I lost an eyelash so we used it to cast our wishes. I got the eyelash. He said:

“That I did not get the eyelash means that my wish will not become true? In that case, this game is very contradictory, because I wished that you got what you desired”

My eyes filled with tears and so did his.

I have not seen Fede that much lately. One night, when Lujan was in town, we went dancing in Patong and a couple of weeks ago he made ravioles for the Argentine gang at Marcelo’s house. We have not played tennis in a long time and we won’t probably do it again. I am not sure I will ever see Fede once I leave Phuket. But friends like these you never forget.