Monday, October 3, 2011

Act of Kindness

I admit that I get irritated when Alberto asks me to make phone calls on behalf of the people he’s in jail with.  Call this guy’s sister because he needs more money in his commissary account, call this guy’s wife because the phone has calls blocked from the jail, and the reasons go on and on.  I really don’t mind helping people, what I mind is that these people end up with my phone number when I call them.  The latest call for assistance takes the cake for sure.

Alberto warned me that he had given my phone number to a woman named Nelia so that I could help her.  You see, Alberto had told his friend about how I made it so he could call Mexico and this friend wanted to do the same.  Nelia called me a scant 45 minutes later and I began to explain how to set up the accounts.  I was shocked to learn that she did not have an email address!  Since she described herself as computer illiterate, I took it upon myself to set up the system for her.  This process I discovered involves forwarding calls through Google Voice to a long distance provider called Localphone which then connects you to the number currently listed on their system.  The reason I agreed to set this up is because the phone calls between the boyfriend and Nelia were costing them a fortune as she was in the next state.  The telecom provider for the jail is one of those companies that loves to bleed people dry with fee upon fee upon fee.  I made sure all the settings matched what I had in place since the system worked for Alberto last week.  I told her what she needed to do to change the phone number the chain would link to in the end, but I have a feeling I’ll be changing the settings for her.

So Nelia gave me the full name of her boyfriend during one of our conversations, and naturally I went to look him up in the jail roster.  The roster lists the individual charges against a person in custody, and this guy sounds like he’s not someone I want Alberto associating with.  The charges aren’t just ugly, if there was any truth behind them this individual would never get within 100 yards of anyone I care for.  Look up Minnesota Statutes §609.343 and §609.2242 for idea why I feel this way since I will not post more in-depth information here.  I don’t want search engines connecting to this blog for those reasons.  Now I have another dilemma, do I tell Alberto what I’ve found?  For now it may be best to keep this to myself and hope that this friendship doesn’t continue outside of the concrete palace they are currently residing in.

Alberto is irritated at Brian just as much as I am over the whole interpreter fiasco.  I’m not holding anything back from him since there is no point.  Whenever I would get upset with Brian, I would carefully weigh the pros and cons of discussing the situation with Alberto and usually kept the information to myself.  I can’t do that anymore because I need Alberto’s support to get through the next few weeks.
 
We have two weeks until the beginning of another change in our lives.  I’m excited and terrified all at the same time which is a very uncomfortable feeling.  I could almost jump out of my skin with the slightest provocation.  God willing this will be a new beginning instead of the beginning of the end.  I have to keep telling myself that our justice system will prevail and find that my husband didn’t do anything wrong.  We have what the prosecutor said in regards to our case and how he didn’t see getting a conviction.  We have our own actions these last 3 years where we continually pushed for Alberto to be able to return and face the charges.  We have the witnesses to testify on our behalf and nothing left to lose.



“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.” 
Galileo Galilei



Ciao

2 comments:

  1. I remember those phone calls. I hated calling other people to give messages, but I could never seem to say no.

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  2. I know exactly what you mean.

    What I don't get about my new friend is this; she doesn't know what her guy did, and doesn't want to know. How do you not want to know? You can't prepare yourself if you don't know what your up against.

    I've resolved to only say that much to Alberto because they must have talked a bit to get to this point right?

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