Of course we deserved to be spared from an awful burglary; if we didn’t deserve clemency, then we wouldn’t have gotten it. We must have accumulated more good karma than I thought. Ordinarily, this situation would have been a slam-dunk for local thieves, even without keys. But we must fix this “old key” mistake and replace those flimsy balcony doors ASAP; how often does one get a second chance? You can tempt fate too much and get slapped down. I remember someone asking Maharishi if it’s OK to fly a hang-glider. His response was that, “It wasn’t prudent to place ones life in the hands of so few laws of nature”. There’s that “free will” thing again. We walked over to Tavo’s place to check out his story, but he wasn’t there; one of his older sons told us he was out working. So we took off up Calle Central to get an ice chest, ice and some food to put in it.
On the way we met Domingo sitting on the steps at his usual spot near our building. He told us of what was reported to him early this morning: the night-watchman told him that someone was hanging around outside of our building trying to look inside. How a story grows! Tavo was sitting on the curb, waiting for us when we returned to the apartment. We thanked him for calling Nadja about the incident. He had no explanation for the difference in his story and that of Domingo. Sudarshani thinks that Tavo wanted us to return and continue working on the apartment so he could make some more money.
We did get back to work the very next morning. I resumed replacing the ceiling and Tavo did some more wiring and shopping for odds and ends that we needed for repairs. It felt good to get my hands dirty and build something. The cheap Chinese electric drill broke down the first hour that I used it. That’s the last time that I buy bargains recommended by Tavo. I managed to fool around with the switch all day in order to get something done, but it was slow and frustrating. Using a drill with only one speed—fast, is not the way to install drywall screws. I ruined two Phillips bits doing it.
The next day Nadja picked us up in her brand new KIA 4×4 diesel mini-SUV. It’s a beauty all right; the old one looked just fine to me. She was going to sell us the 10 year old KIA but she wanted way too much for it and we were re-thinking the whole vehicle option by then anyway. We drove around town looking for new doors for the balcony. I had already settled on the door and modification that I wanted to use but we had to check out the options. Since the door size is non-standard, everyone wanted $340-$460 each, to make custom doors. Forget that! My idea was to get solid wood exterior doors for $35 each and cut them down to size. Then buy a couple pieces of sheet metal cut to fit and then screw and glue one to the inside of each door. That way, the outside looks natural and at the same time, it could not be kicked in.
There were other errands to do on the phone, such as: call the water utility to get our water supply fixed; call the electric utility to turn on our power. We wanted to find someone to change the chip in our old cell-phones so they could operate with a local service. I hate to throw away $100 phones, especially since they are the dual transmission style: they are both digital and analog and so are more useful for when you leave the city and travel or live in the mountains. I don’t even know if “duals” are made any more.
Down here you waste a lot of time trying to get anything done and the lack of progress was frustrating. I was glad to get back to work on the ceiling the next day, at least I can see the results and know I am one day closer to finishing the job. Nadja lent us a drill and electric saw so I don’t have to buy new. The toilet and shower drains are very slow and need to be “snaked”, or at least chemically cleaned out (if the blockages are dissolvable). Of course, Tavo said that he could do it but I feel that I have to do some of these things myself or they won’t get done properly. He doesn’t even have a snake so I have no idea how he would attempt to clean the pipes. I am less inclined to follow his ideas because I think that he is creating work for himself that he cannot do correctly. For instance, he had said that he could fix the street valve; instead, he messed up the pipe sleeve and it leaks worse now than before. The utility should be concerned because the loss is on their side of the meter.
Tavo didn’t show up for work today because he is busy at court trying to keep his 18 year old daughter out of jail. She had beaten up a neighbor lady and was thrown in jail. Her two minor sisters were taken in as well because the mother (of the young ones) was not at home. Tavo was able to retrieve the two minors but could not take the 18 year-old home, so he tapped us for $20 in an advance in order to pay her bail. We thought that she should sit in jail to learn her lesson, but Tavo couldn’t let his “precious child” suffer. He did stop by later on to ask for more money for a lawyer but we declined on principal. He had never mentioned two other teenaged daughters before; maybe he has three families. I still have work for him to do and he has 18 hours to work off, so I had better see him soon.
Nadja said that she has a snake that she will lend to us. What doesn’t she have? We were inquiring around about the whereabouts of a laundromat because our few clothes are used up. Again, Nadja took them and will return them washed and dried tomorrow. She sure has been good to us but we don’t want to become dependent on her, so we will lay low after one last trip to get doors and foam panels. If the toilet drain cleans out OK, then we may not need to buy a new toilet, as recommended by Tavo. On top of all this, I have to get working on my resident visa; the visitor visa may have run out and that would complicate things.
We did not want to inconvenience Tavo again, so yesterday we walked over to the internet café and youth hostel to ask if we could buy some shower time. Juan, the manager of the hostel let us use their shower for free. Their water pressure was not much better than ours, and our shower stall was a lot cleaner; so that is why we decided to use our own the next day. In fact, we may try to clean up a shower downstairs, where the water pressure is better, and use that one if its drain is not plugged up. We had mentioned that we were looking for a small two-burner LP gas stove and sure enough, Nadja had one that we could borrow because they only use it for camping and that is a rare occasion. I went to a local Chinese market around the corner (I have four to choose from on that block alone) and purchased a five gallon bottle filled with LP gas for $24 ($4 for the gas—only from now on). Now we can cook, and with the ice chest we can preserve perishables; I’m ready for a better diet.
As slow as the water is, both Sudarshani and I took our first showers today. I first had to use some wire to bust out a little opening in the drain; just enough to handle what little water the shower head put out.
