The Saga of the Lost Kindle
I have spent more time than I probably should have trying to track down a Kindle e-reader my parents forgot on an airplane when they visited Oaxaca last October. They came for Day of the Dead – a trip that was planned, unfortunately, before we decided do come here this year. My parents lost the Kindle on the flight home. A representative for Aero Mexico told them the Kindle was found, but that it was in Mexico City. They were given a case number and an e-mail address and phone number to use for making arrangements to get the Kindle back. But then they hit a wall. Nobody answered the phone when they called, and nobody responded to their e-mails.
Before we left, my father gave me the information about the Kindle in case we had time at the Mexico City airport to follow up. We knew it was a long shot, but why not try? In Mexico City, we waited 20 minutes for one lost and found office to open, but they sent us to a different office that did not open until after our flight left. So last week I found the Aero Mexico office in downtown Oaxaca and asked if they could help. I thought it would be easy to track the item, even if we could not recover it, because it had a case number. But the man who helped me did not know what the case number referred to. He spent twenty minutes reviewing an online list of items lost on Aero Mexico flights over the last three months, but he could not find a Kindle. One of the problems is that we did not know how it would be listed. Computer? Electronic reader? Book? Personal Organizer? He said he would keep looking. I left my number and asked him to call if he found it.
Yesterday I met one of my colleagues and his partner for breakfast. They are frequent visitors to Oaxaca, and they had given Natalie and me some good tips when we came here in June on a scouting trip. They needed to go to the Aero Mexico office, so I went with them. The man who had helped me before was busy. I decided to start over with a different person. I just could not believe the case number was good for nothing. In fact, using the case number the woman who helped me the second time actually found the Kindle in the system. She tried calling the lost and found facility in Mexico City, but nobody answered. So she sent them an e-mail asking them to send the Kindle to Oaxaca and told me to check back with her later in the day.
That was yesterday morning. I stopped by the office again today and still there was no response. As of this afternoon, still nothing. So, what do you think? Will we see the Kindle again? I have an irrational sense of optimism that we will. Once it was logged into the system and given a case number, nobody would take it. Or would they? Stay tuned.
I have been instructed to include at least one photo with each blog entry. I do not have a good picture to go with the Kindle story. If we get it back, I promise to take a picture worthy of the celebratory blog entry that will follow. For now, here is a completely unrelated picture of Helen lining up with her class. She’s the third kid from the front of the line. We had the pleasure of seeing the picture as part of a presentation the teachers did for the parents to tell us what our kids will be doing this semester. I asked if they could e-mail the presentation to me. I said it was so I could look up some of the Spanish words, but really I just wanted a copy of this picture. -- Harrison
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