(Our "Cabin" in the "Compound")
From the angle that this photo is taken, to the left about 15 feet you would find the second cabin which belongs to a local family comprised of a German dude, his Guatemalan wife and their son which I am clocking in at about 4-5 years old gauged solely by the sound of his voice since I am yet to actually see the rugrat.
A little backstory: Upon first moving in, my friend and roommate was sure to give me the lowdown on the neighbor as he had recently had a couple run-ins with him already. The background I was given was that the German was rather ornery and quick to complain about the noise coming from our house. As every story has two sides, and as I was still getting to know my roommate, I listened to the stories thinking that perhaps my roommate was exaggerating a bit and that this neighbor couldn't be so bad. The picture he painted was of a crotchety, old man whose lederhosen was hiked up too high and I had a hard time believing that this guy could be so unreasonable - or at least I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Well unfortunately, I learned yesterday that this guy was just as unreasonable as my friend had described. The altercation is summarized below (please keep in mind this is the first time I have met/spoken to this man):
- Me and 3 friends were sitting in our peaceful garden chatting as the 6 o'clock hour neared. The neighbor comes into the main door walking past us on his way to his house and we all silently agree to ignore him since we've all heard the horror stories of his temper.
- The neighbor stops and stares at my friend and I as if he has something to say. He says nothing, so after an awkward 10 seconds of him burning holes through us with his evil stare we give a head nod/hand wave and I say "Buenas Tardes."
- The neighbor immediately corrects me and tells me it's "Good night, not good afternoon!" Rather than argue over the finer points of what differentiates the afternoon from the night, I kindly ask how he is doing.
- At this point the neighbor delves into his rant, which appears to have been rehearsed numerous times previously. He immediately raised his voice with his broken Spanish telling all of us that we have drug & alcohol abuse problems and that I am a "big American from the ghetto" who has "no order" in my life. He wags his finger in our faces and ignores anything we try to say. I can make out that his concern is that we are constantly too loud and have too many parties, but he is so worked up and barely speaks Spanish, so I can't be entirely sure what's spewing out of his mouth.
- His concerns are only partially valid. Yes, we have friends over and "party," however we are well aware of our sensitive neighbor, so we keep our noise down and leave the house by 9:30 pm. Either way, the point is that if he has a problem there are much more civilized ways to address the issues, especially for a 50 year old man.
(What I wish my neighbor looked like)
- After a couple of attempts to tell him I'd be pleased to talk about his concerns as long as he calms down and refrains from yelling at me and being so disrespectful, he reminds me that I know nothing about respect. Once again, this is a grown man yelling at me as if I am his son or as if he knows me. I have never met this man before in my life.
(More accurate representation: Childish, angry, unrelenting)
- I consider reacting in a way that would give some truth to his misconception that I am from the "ghettos" of the US, but cooler heads prevail and we simply tell the man to leave us in peace and begin to ignore him.
I've decided to avoid the neighbor for the remainder of my time here, however, with such close quarters I am sure there will be another run-in not too far away. Stay tuned for more updates on the angry neighbor.
ahaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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