Today was not a good day

Up and at them.  Overall today was not a good day.

We went shopping this morning.  I got a lot of staples for the house.  I felt like going off to college, or when I first moved in with Lidia.  It's amazing the cost of the little things that add up that you need to function in a new place...

Nihta said that I don't have to be there to pick up all my cards and stuff.  She'll take care of that for me, and get them to later.  No worries, but I do feel weird not having my passport available while in a foreign country.  I have a copy though, so that's ok.  We also bought a USB connector modem for my internet access.  Woo Hoo.  I am happy about this.  Lost in translation though....or lack of communication...when Imelda and I went the previous day, I had asked her how much it would cost, and she told me not to worry about it...that it is their responsibility to pay.  No such luck today.  Oh well.  It's a very small price to pay to stay sane while I'm over here, and to be able to talk to friends in the morning and at night (12 or 13 hour difference here depending on the time of year....now it's 13 ahead).

Back to the hotel, a quick note to John (an expat in Tomohon) giving him my indo number, check out, and away we went!

Up up and up into the hills/mountains surrounding Manado.  The views were beautiful.  Then it started to pour, which was still beautiful.  Dangerous driving, but I trust Nihta's brother.  Motorcycles are all pulled over to the sides of the road under palm trees for cover, and sitting in roadside stands.  If these places sell stuff, them must be happy when it rains, and hundreds of people stop wherever they are along the road.

We stopped for lunch.  Rice cooked in banana leaves...satay, ginger pork (really, can you tell I'm in a Christian area?) red bean soup, a kind of bbq chicken, pickled pepper slaw, and a yellow curry.  Everything was great...except for the bowl of pieces of fat (which I thought was chunks of beef...that's what it looked like).  Now, I'm all for trying new things, but what exactly is the point of eating just fat.  Jelly type fat....crispy fat on bacon is of course a totally different story. :)  Nothing was fried though, and that made me really happy.  I delicately hid my uneaten chunks of fat in my empty banana leaf.

We get to the University, where I meet the Head of the International Department.  I wish now that I had taken either French, Japanese or German, because I would be able to speak with a lot more people.  Oh well.  It was just a quick visit to say hi.

On to the house just outside the back gate of the university property, and the beginnings of my nervous breakdown.

So, they are building me a cottage on the property of the summer home of the Dean of the University.  Sounds pretty cool, huh?  I thought so too.  The cottage is above on the left, Dean's house on the right.  It is, however, nowhere near being completed.  There are 4 walls and a concrete floor, and a absolutely beautiful wooden inlaid ceiling.  

And there's a pipe in the middle of the floor of a tiny room off that, which will be my toilet I'm sure.  It is small, which is ok, but I don't know where anything would go at this point.  Maybe a studio type apartment?  Nihta said there will be a wall to divide for the bedroom.  OK.... Shower? (as I look back into the super tiny side room with the pipe sticking out of it) Of course is the answer.  Ok.  Deep breath Megan.  

I will stay in the Dean's home until the cottage is done.  2 weeks to a month.  It's been hard to find workers, I'm told.  I politely say , "Oh, I see."  But inside I'm a wreck,  "Why did you tell Dian the house was almost finished?"  I got the distinct impression this was gonna be a couple of days only.  I'm pretty sure I got this impression because that was the impression that Dian had.  Ok, so on to the house...it's 15 feet away.  Literally.  My front door will face the side of the Dean's house.  Then there's a huge gazebo about 6 from the back side of my house.  Used for school parties evidently.  Then also there's another house on the property, where the family lives that takes care of the house while the Dean's not there.

There will be no such thing as privacy, I'm guessing.  Here's a pict of Tanta Yeti and Om Deni's house from the back of the Dean's place.  The black dirt to the left is just the back edge of my cottage, and the gazebo is just behind that.  the wooden structure behind Tanta Yeti's house is an open style storage shed.

Ok, again...on to the house.  I'm told I'll have access to it whenever I want.  I say OK, but I don't really know what this means.  Maybe my house will really be only a room, and I'm supposed to use the kitchen at the main house?  Not happy not happy...hold it together...

So, into the Dean's house we go.  I'm still doing ok at this point.  It is hot and musty.  Very musty.  The pictures they sent me were beautiful, but in them you couldn't see the layer of grime that was covering everything.  Everything.  Sweeping and cobweb cleaning ensued.  This entailed just knocking them out of corners.  My bedroom was opened, to air it out.  It needed it.  Think about what it is....a summer home, that I guess was being opened for the season, after 9 months of disuse.  I'm still doing ok....trying to hold it together...I don't want to lose it in front of Nihta and Imelda.  I just don't want to touch anything because it's dirty.  Everywhere.  Their response to this, was to wipe with a paper towel or with stick brooms to get rid of crumbs and dead insects (and live ones too).  This is not cleaning.  All the glass surfaces are covered in grit.  Still holding it together.....I will not cry...I will not cry....It is hot and smells.  I can't even imagine what the bed will smell like.  Ok...airing it out...airing it out....deep breaths, Megan  deep breaths.

We walk to the kitchen.  There's a big table covered in plates and cutlery and the not so occasional bug, and curtains that are littered with dead bugs.  There's a tiny little college size fridge which is covered in a sticky looking (wait yup, it is sticky) substance, and inside are more dead bugs, a cantaloupe, and a can of strawberry Fanta.  Wait a minute.  Where is the stove?  No stove.  Um, where's the stove?  Don't I have a stove?  Oh, the woman will cook for me.  What?  This isn't supposed to be...I mean sure, Julianne's neighbor brought over breakfast sometimes, and she got a cook a couple of days a week, and I thought this would be a great idea too...but no access to cooking at all? Nothing?  No late night snacks (well that's probably a good thing), but I can't even boil water...I'm totally dependent on strangers I can't talk to?...starting to lose it....hold it together Megan....

Imelda leans over to turn on the sink (hopefully to help me to start cleaning)...and nothing happens.  No sputtering, no nothing.  No water.  That's it.  I officially cannot hold it together anymore.  I lost it.  No water?  I start bawling in the middle of the "kitchen".  I feel like a guilty MORON though.  Who am I to complain?  We're supposed to be FAT ELF's.  Flexible, Adaptable, and Tolerant.  I don't feel like I'm being very adaptable.  Imelda and Nihta kinda look at me and go with the slightly condescending idea that I am just tired and miss home.  I want to yell at them that it's not that at all....it's that I'm in a dirty smelly house with tons of bugs, no stove, and no running water.  I don't know.  I try to smile, and tell them I am sorry for crying.

Text messages go out to other ELF's.  Sympathy comes in, along with Julianne's saying I should immediately let Dian know.  This is not right she tells me.  I feel better, but I want to wait...first of all, I don't want to call with my counterparts there.  Secondly, I have now kinda stopped crying, and I don't want to start again. 

The caretakers come in there's a flurry of activity.  More sweeping out of bugs, more killing of the cocoons peppering the walls in my room.  They just kinda knock them onto the floor and my bed though, which isn't exactly making me happier.  Joy of joys, a pump was unplugged.  Instant water.  Presto.  Yay.  It's mentioned that they'll be buying me a stove.  They bring me in a water cooler that has a hot tap setting.  Ok.  Things are looking up a little.  More text messages go out...including one to Dian.  "Yay, I have water.  There's still no stove, but I have water!"  I ask about the shower.  There's a bucket in the bathroom, plus a garden hose type sprayer that is attacher only a couple of feet off the ground on the wall.  It's in our contract that we're supposed to have a stand up shower.  I hope they understand for the new cottage that "stand up" means that I get to stand UNDER the water, not stand while spraying myself with a hose.  Um, there's just a turn handle, just like an outside hose.  Um, hot water?  Warm water?  Anything other than cold?  Nihta looks at me with this totally incredulous surprised look on her face and askes, "You need hot water?"  Um...yes?  You shower with cold?  Of course is her response.  It's hot here.  I cry a little more.  More feeling like an idiot...

Then we head back to the bedroom... I throw back the covers of the bed that has been cleaned for me before I got there, and find a plethora of both live and dead bugs.  That's it.  I lose it again.  More bawling ensues.  How the hell am I EVER going to sleep.  I hate bugs at home.  At home where my beautiful bed smells like downy, and I am religious about looking for creepy crawlies on the ceiling before I go to sleep.  Seriously, my hair brushing against my face because of the fan in my bedroom will occasionally give me a heart attack.  All spiders irrationally terrify me.  This was just too much to bear.  Tanta Yeti (the helper woman) comes in a wipes them off.  Nope.  I am still crying.  I'm not a Peace Corps volunteer.  I'm supposed to have running water, and a bed without things crawling over me.  This is not my version of clean.  There is no amount of Febreeze on the planet that will fix this now.

Dian responds that she is very upset.  She will call immediately and get things straightened out.  I beg her not to.  They are still with me.  I'm totally sure my "complaints" will not go over well.  Plus, they don't seem to think anything is wrong.  I don't want to start out on the wrong foot.  However, I now feel like I already have.  I'm walking back and forth in the house, texting away on my phone, and periodically wiping tears away from my face.   I seriously do not handle confrontation well.  What I wanted to do say calmly say that there were things that were agreed to in the contract, and that the house was breaking some of those things, and how could we fix this?  Instead I was standing there crying like an idiot.  Anyone else who is "a crier" will agree with me.  I 100% did not want to be standing there crying.  I just couldn't do anything about it.  If the tears want to come, they just come, and dwelling on the fact that crying made me look like a stupid ungrateful American, just made me want to cry more.

Ok.  I'm doing better now.  There's a hot spring somewhere underneath the property, and they have connected it to my water tank.  I now only have hot water.  I have absolutely no problem with that.  Sheets are changed, and the mattress underneath looks pretty new.  I now have clean pillowcases, and a fitted sheet.  Then there is a absolutely gross looking twin size Whinny the Pooh comforter that has stains on it.  I'm going to go with the fact that they are coffee stains.  Just give me that, will you?  I have never been happier in my life that I brought a full size sheet with me and my own pillow case from home.  Plus, I have my airplane travel blanket.  I will not have that pink thing touch my skin.  Hold it together.....

We're going to go shopping for some more things (like industrial strength cleaning supplies and air fresheners - not to mention the strongest bug killer I can find).  I buy some more groceries.  I forgot rice before.  I get some spices and salt and pepper.  I head to the upper level, and try to find some tupperware.  Kinda found some stuff.  It's so humid, I think crackers and such will need them, as well as airtight containers for sugar.  There's enough ants in my kitchen already.  :)  I buy a fan.  It makes noise.  I am happy.  Nihta buys me a tiny hand towel for the bathroom, which is more the size of a washcloth, 2 kitchen towels, a hot plate electric stove with one burner, a small pot with a lid, a tiny wok style pan, and 2 metal spatula/spoon type things.  She doesn't seem to happy with me.  I find out later that maybe this is because Dian has already texted her that she's kinda pissed about the whole situation.  I spend over 100 dollars again.

We head across the street.  Internet connection ensues.  We practice in the store, because I want to make sure it will really work when I get home, and surprise, Nicola video Skypes me from Ireland.  I can see and hear her great.  Everyone cheers and we head home.

Some more cleaning, and spraying of bug killer, and then Nihta offers to have Imelda keep me company by sleeping upstairs.  I decline.  I just want to be alone, so I can go back to crying and get it out of my system.  Plus, it's now nighttime, so I might catch some people at home in the US.  I Skype Nicola and she sympathizes with me.  I e-mail my dad that I've had a horrible day, but that I'm not ready to talk about it.  I watch some TV (yes, there's a TV, and I watch a Jet-Li movie...the one with Bridget Fonda).  Then I go into my bedroom...spray some more, and climb into bed praying that nothing will bite me during the night, and that when my head is actually resting on it, that it doesn't smell too awful.  It doesn't.

I pass out.

My home for who knows how long.  So pretty from the outside.  :)