I’ve spent some time reading the things I have received from the city about my impending imprisonment in my neighbourhood, and I am left with plenty of questions. I decided to send an e-mail with six questions to the contact address. Now I know that I sent this on a Saturday, so I don’t realistically have any expectation of an answer before Monday. Instead, I thought I might share those questions (and the incomprehensible contradictions) here.
The first of the questions was about the two « L’occasionnelle » transit tickets they gave me. There’s some degree of irony in giving me transit tickets while the transit authority has cancelled all the buses I usually take, but we won’t go there. Not again, or more than this anyway. ;-) I just wanted to know how long they are good for once used and if there is an expiry date for the first use.
Second, their delightful booklet says that those accessing Gaytanamo (okay, that’s my name for the ‘hood soon to be fenced in, not theirs) will not have access to the residential zone. I’m trying to figure out how that can be, unless we can look forward to having yet more fences keeping the spectators away from the inmates. And doing that, will they be blocking our views of the event, in case we get curious, or our Stockholm syndrome develops more than it seems likely to at the moment?
In case of said Stockholm syndrome, they did give us tickets for the two days of the event, but specifying a particular spectator entrance. This is not the residents’ entrance. Does this mean that if I want to use these tickets — generous standing room only places — that I will have to leave through the resident access, go back in through the spectators’ access and then repeat in reverse when I want to go back home?
Is the ticket supposed to also serve as my proof of residence? If so, what will stop the probably zealous security person hired at minimum wage to police the residents’ entrance from redirecting me to the spectators’ entrance indicated on the ticket? Do I need to carry other ID with me to prove I am a resident to get back in?
Now those tickets also say no backpacks and obligatory search. Does this mean I must have transported any groceries, drinks, etc. that I might need for the weekend before the walls close? If I try to come home with 4 litres of milk and they try to seize it or disallow it at the gate, I may just throw it on the track. Okay, I didn’t say that last part, and I probably wouldn’t do that. But I do wonder if we can expect some common sense at the access and worry that we can’t.
And my final question is about the time of the ultimate closure of the wall. I have a habit of going to see a movie on Friday night and I want to be sure that I will be able to get home as usual afterward, or will I have to plan ahead to have ID/tickets/etc. and direct myself to the access bridge?
So many questions. I hope I get answers in time!
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