El convento de los mosquitos

Mondays are the days that I go to the city's downtown area of Buenos Aires, the only day when my work is in person, the rest of the work time I carry out my tasks from the comfort of my home.

Speaking of center, or microcenter, is a term that can confuse people who do not know the history of the city of Buenos Aires, like calling "center" an area located almost on the banks of the Río de la Plata, very far from the true center. geography of this enormous city. The term has been used since colonial times when it was a small, thriving, and hard-working community enclave around the port that served as an entry and exit for trade and communications with Europe mainly; At that time this area was effectively the center of the city, due to location and also due to its commercial, administrative and financial activity.

The main issue of this story is based on my love for reading, when lunchtime comes, I usually go out with my eventual book and look for some quiet place where I can forget about work chores for a while and get engrossed in reading something interesting.

Since I have practically spent my entire working life in this sector of the city, I know some places that maintain that essential characteristic that I am looking for: tranquility and some nature with benches to sit comfortably and read away from the noise and the devilish traffic of the city. big city

Without hesitation, I went to the convent of San Ramón Nonato, a place that can go unnoticed by anyone who does not know the area, its small entrance arranged in the middle of a white wall does not predict the enormous and beautiful internal park that surrounds the convent facilities.

I have known him since my beginnings as a new employee of the Central Bank, an entity that governs all the financial entities in the country and whose building and main entrance are located right in front of the convent; In this precise place we studied every afternoon after the in-person courses we took at the IBM company training school, the bank had an agreement where the classrooms were secured so that we could begin our arduous path between bytes and bits.

With modernity, the convent has also disrupted the innate seriousness of the Catholic cloisters and has allowed the installation of several restaurants that, taking advantage of the beautiful and relaxing internal landscape, have placed a large number of tables under the fresh and repaired galleries, ideal for lunch in the city's torrid summers.

I was surprised to see the small number of people sitting at the tables enjoying good cuisine and the relaxing environment, I immediately thought about the bad economic situation we were going through and justified the absence. He had not visited the place for a long time, and he remembered it being full of diners enjoying good cuisine during a break from their obligations.

I saw the tall palm trees, the gravel paths, and the almost empty seats, I sat down on the first one that I saw clean and began to read. It didn't take more than a couple of minutes to understand the reason for so much loneliness: mosquitoes.

The heat and humidity that do not deign to retreat despite the advance of the calendar that indicates the beginning of autumn and the heavy rains of recent weeks have further enhanced, if that is possible, the invasion of mosquitoes. The danger of the dengue disease, serious, by the way, is an enormous concern for the entire population that has exhausted the stocks of repellents, insecticidal coils, citronella, and all kinds of chemical elements that serve to keep these dipterans from our body. tiny size but whose bite, especially that of the Aedes aegypti variety, can cause health disorders that include fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, and whose complications can even cause death in people.

The explanation for the scarce human presence was clear and I didn't realize it until a couple of those small insects landed on my hands. They were everywhere and, alerted to the danger, I decided to close my book and quickly leave.

Defeated, I had to do what I didn't want to do, go to a coffee shop and pay what it isn't worth for a huge container with a dark brew, thinner than water, to dedicate a few minutes to reading, of course, in safety. of mosquitoes.