Raining in the dining room

Well it’s “raining” again in our dining area. The 2nd floor bathroom of the apartment next door is once again dripping into our place. We are optimistically hoping it is clean water. Most of the previous occasions have been. It somehow gets into the wall and ALWAYS drips down into our place instead of theirs. It would be so much easier if it leaked into their own place – then they would believe that there’s a problem. Sigh!

The handyman came by yesterday and tore out a piece of our ceiling. Ew, what a smell! It’s extremely mildewed and moldy with a hint of something worse. Obviously some slow leaking has been going on a long time to get that much mildew up there. But of course the worker was not able to see what the problem was. He could see where it’s running out of the concrete wall but of course since the pipes are in the wall in the next apartment he can’t see anything from our place. We told him that, after all we have been through this many times over the years but each new handyman wants to rip apart OUR ceiling and see for himself. I’m going to take pictures this time and hopefully save the next guy the trouble!

The worker was uneasy about disturbing the neighbor, after all it’s not dripping into THEIR dining area. He suggested things like cutting a hole in our upstairs floor. Can’t imagine what good that would do, if he can’t see through the hole he already made in the ceiling he won’t see anything additional through a hole in the floor! The water pipes are embedded in the concrete wall – and the waste pipes are above the neighbor’s ceiling.. (I can just see somebody staggering out of bed and falling through a hole in the floor upstairs!) His other suggestion was to chip through the concrete wall from our side to try to get at the neighbor’s pipes.. (Just what we need, a window into the neighbor’s bathroom.)

Sometimes the best thing to do is to just go in your office, shut the door and play a computer game.

Distortion of reality

It’s been a wild week or two around here in the third of my worlds. Two weeeks ago I noticed an eye problem. At first I thought it was due to fancy graphics on a website I was reading but then noticed ALL the windows on the computer were like that. Even the clock across the room looked dented in on one side. Being still a bit jet-lagged it took me awhile to figure out what to do. To make a long story short, I finally got in to see an eye doctor the following week and the next day had some tests. To see a doctor you find out his or her clinic hours and then show up early to get your name on the list. First come first serve. Even coming early doesn’t guarantee you won’t be waiting 3-4 hours on a hard, crowded bench in a tiny hot waiting room.

Having diagnostic tests is always an interesting experience. But even finding this place was an experience. I just kept asking security guards all along the way. You had to wend your way through the hospital and find the back door, go down a dirt alley out to a paved alley and kitty-corner across to what looked like a parking ramp. People I asked insisted the eye place was in there and after wending my way thru rows of cars in the semi-dark saw that there were indeed signs of a building back there. I guess they didn’t want to waste space and so built a parking ramp right at the front entrance. The eye place was cheerfully painted and lighted inside and was well air conditioned. The waiting room was much bigger than clinics around here usually are so I didn’t even need to worry about my knees blocking anyone’s way.

One test involved using a dye. Before the test they wanted to make sure I wasn’t allergic to the dye so they injected a small amount of the dye into the skin of my arm – like a TB test. The guy said it would sting a bit – yikes! He wasn’t kidding! I was NOT prepared for the excruciating pain~ all I could do was try to breathe like they teach women in labor to do. It left a fluorescent green welt on my arm the rest of the day.

Anyway the tests went fairly well once I figured out that when the technician told me to look right or left she usually meant HER right or left not mine. They had been saying I needed a companion to go home (maybe because people come out of there disoriented not knowing which direction was really right and which was left?? Ha, ha!). But since I felt fine I just got a taxi and went home. They gave me the results on two CDs so naturally I copied them and had fun looking at them on my computer.

So far treatment is anti-inflammatory eyedrops that give me a headache. It isn't doing any noticeable good but at least it's not invasive! I still haven’t heard what the doctor thinks is causing the bleeding. Sigh! I sure hope it improves in another week or so and no further treatment is needed. Meanwhile I’m chowing down the green leafies and antioxidents.

Choices, TV, Noisy houses and snow removal

Sometimes people ask what my impressions are of the first of my worlds after having been away for awhile. There are many but here are a few:

People seem to value lots of choices, unending choices in fact, at least over trivia. Coffee shops added another choice since my last visit: dark, medium or light roast. Even sandwich shops- you think you ordered a number 2 and solved all the choice issues? Oh no, you are still asked what kind of bread (6 choices) what kind of cheese? (4 choices) what do you want on it? (10 items to choose from, onions, olives, pickles, tomatoes, etc) What sauces? Mustard? What kind (3 choices of mustard). But not done yet, do you want it heated? Here or to go? Yikes!

Go down the cereal aisle in the grocery store or the soft drink aisle. Guess that says a lot about people's diets, huh? (Here it would be the powdered milk aisle or the junk food aisles.) It's not just food, there are endless cable TV channels, books, movies, magazines.

Some things, however, offer few choices such as the color of cars or the color of siding on new homes. Curiously clothing also offered few choices in style or even color. Example, women's winter tops were long sleeved but way too low in the neck. What's with that? This isn't Florida! And there were only certain colors available, didn't matter what store.

Yet other things offer no choices, such as political parties. The only thing different is the rhetoric. Actions and outcomes are the same.

Television? Unbelievable. Does anybody really watch it anymore??? News-tainment about the fallen hero of the day. And scaring people about the flu. Commercials? Lots of prescription drug ads, all of which have long lists of horrendous side effects including death and suicide.

Noisy houses. Furnaces, water heaters, sump pumps, blowers, beepers, buzzers, dingers, etc. My first nights back here– as I wake up at 2 and 3 am – by contrast were pretty quiet. The house was totally quiet other than my fan and out my open window all I could hear was the Swiss neighbor's cuckoo clock, a distant dog barking, a few leaves rustling in the breeze. That's it.

Snow removal is amazing. After the Christmas storm I saw thick ice on the highways mysteriously GONE overnight! I saw snowbanks being loaded up in trucks and carted away, and other snowbanks literally shoved back from the edge of the roads.

Nothing new in the public bathroom scene. It seems that everything that could be automated already has been. I did notice that in my home state 9/10 bathroom stalls had the TP very low down making it difficult for tall people to reach. Not so in other states. Maybe the state legislature was bored last summer???

"Suicide" drugs

What is with all these suicidal drugs???!!

I am amazed at the countless TV commercials for various prescription drugs. The commercials spend maybe 5 seconds telling what the drug is for and then 25 seconds hurriedly reading a long list of horrendous side effects such as liver failure, edema, coma, death, mood swings, elevated blood pressure, weight gain, and suicide. And suicide is what they all have in common! There are various drugs- antidepressants, drugs for arthritis, bipolar disorder, anti-smoking and more. And suicide is a possible side effect of all. One's distinct impression is that the side effects far outweigh the benefits. Are they really hoping to boost their sales??? Or is there some other purpose for these “ads”??? Creepy!!

Is your laptop overloaded?

According to an article I read recently:

The wealth of media in modern life means the average person is bombarded with enough information every day to overload a laptop computer, a study has found.

Yes, I am feeling that bombardment! Being in my home country for a short visit I am playing catch up with a lot of people. When you don’t see people very often you have a lot to catch up on. And so you are taking in all the latest on what people are up to, their kids, their jobs, spouses, health, hobbies, etc.

Plus there is a lot going on right now politically that even Congress seems unable to keep up with (and it is their full time job!)

Advertising in this country bombards from all directions. Even people like me that try to avoid TV still find our mailboxes loaded with ads. Everything you buy from groceries to electronics comes complete with more coupons and ads trying to get you to buy even more.

As I near the end of my time here I am starting to think about the details of packing and departure. With email and cell phones you are only a text away from issues and events on the other side of the globe. A recent email regarding future visa options has sent me scrambling to collect and “authenticate” some documents.

And I did notice that it is Christmas season which adds a certain amount of time constraint to finish certain things before the holidays.

So I do feel somewhat fragmented and distracted as I think about details of packing and shipping, work plans for the next few months, national and international trends and crises, visa stuff, and whether I should even bother trying to do Christmas cards or just make it New Years’ cards, and Christmas preparations. All of that interspersed with thoughts of the people I wanted to see, books I had wanted to read, events back in the second and third of my worlds, etc.

My “laptop” does sometimes feel like it’s overloaded!

Shooting trouble

In this the first of my worlds, government and business procedures and processes are usually clearly spelled out. You are given an exact list of requirements, documentation, etc and told that the processing takes 5 working days or 10 working days or 6 weeks or whatever. And mostly it does. But in my other two worlds things are much more fuzzy. I have had to develop a technique of on-the-fly problem-solving and trouble-shooting where I don’t wait around for complete understanding because things are only completely understood in hindsight if even then. Just muddle your way through it and figure it out as you go and have no expectations as to time constraints.

Imagine my surprise when I suddenly am in such a situation here! I am supposed to switch to a different kind of visa. The consulate requires “document authentication” of things like transcripts, diplomas, birth certificates, etc. The first step is to get the documents notarized. Sounds simple. Weeeeeeeeell, not according to the 4 notary publics I talked to yesterday! Somehow the list of requirements given by the consulate does not communicate enough to me or to the 4 notaries I have talked to so far, nor to some colleagues who are also spending their Christmas season gathering documents to authenticate. I spent a couple of hours on the internet trying to get some clues plus a couple of hours on the phone and emailing colleagues to see if anybody else has come up with ideas. So far it seems that I am out in front trouble shooting on my own.

But I am not too stressed out. Annoyed, yes, but not stressed. After all, I am used to this. I just have to resign myself to spending a fair amount of time on the phone and internet and running around and just hope most of it is done before Christmas! Who knows, the answer might be just around the next corner or in the next phone call!

And if it doesn’t get finished by the time I leave? Then I guess I keep working on it from a distance!

Matchless Matches

One of the things that hasn't ceased to amaze me is the matches you can get here. They are small, even wooden matches and actually have very little material in the match head. But they light first time EVERY time! This box is nearly empty and the strikable sides of the box are still in pristine shape.

In the second of my worlds, there are several brands of matches but the best is Rainbow matches. Even so, they don't all light. Sometimes the head breaks off and goes sizzling off in some crazy direction. (My face or arms have been burned more than once by flying match heads.) And usually the sides of the box wear out from repeated striking long before the matches are all gone.

But then there is Brand X. In the village market, there are always a couple of guys going around selling three boxes of Brand X matches for 15 cents. They are very agressive, they shove the matches in your basket and hold out their hand hoping to intimidate you into paying for the worst matches on earth. These matches are a royal pain to have to use. I have more than once used over half a box to light one candle. They break, the stuff they are coated with is uneven and seems to be very fire resistant. A single match usually needs to be struck multiple times before it finally lights. In the process of striking, matches frequently break, and the rough stuff in the side of the box gets shiny (and useless) from use. Many matches never do light no matter what you do. Some do light but don't stay lit long enough to get a candle burning. I avoid Brand X like the plague. The only thing they are good for is tinder for a fire - if you light the fire with something else.

Torticollis and cell phones

It appears that in this state there aren’t any laws about cell phones and driving because I certainly have noticed a lot of drivers do use them. One needs to be more on the alert for inattentive drivers than ever before. I have followed cars which were having a hard time staying in their lane and then suddenly were driving fine. The driver must have ended his/her call. Several time I have seen cars in the far left lane suddenly zoom across multiple lanes of traffic to exit on the right by drivers yakking on cell phones. When you see drivers whose mouths are moving they may not be singing or talking to themselves – most likely they are talking on a cell phone - and that’s a sign to watch out! Another sign is torticollis: abnormal postures and movements of the head. If you see a driver with their head bent to their shoulder, look out!

Yesterday while I was walking, a poodle puppy came bounding out to greet me. His owner was a woman with a crooked head who walked a bit like Lurch as she tried to call the puppy back. I thought she had torticollis or maybe left-sided weakness from a stroke or something as she seemed unable to reach for the pup with both hands and her head was oddly bent to the left resting on her shoulder. Every time I started walking again the puppy ran back towards me so I finally stopped to wait for the woman to capture her pet. It took me a few minutes to realize she was talking on a cell phone gripped between her head and shoulder. She didn’t have torticollis after all!

My sister commented in a public restroom about the need for cell phone etiquette and soon we were in a lively conversation with several other ladies on the topic. They complained of interrupted conversations as people grab for their phones, phones ringing in meetings, in church, people shouting into phones in stores, elevators, startling you, intruding in your space and forcing you to hear their one-sided conversations. Or people start talking and you think they are talking to you but aren’t.

At least people around here don’t seem to text as much. People talk as they walk but I haven't yet seen anybody out crossing streets while texting!

Dusty haired people

(Oct 2009)

Now I am back in the first of my worlds for a visit. It’s often interesting what stands out. This time it was all the dusty-haired people. There are a lot of graying people to be sure. But it’s more than that. Maybe it’s partly because I am used to seeing black heads in Asia and here there are a lot of blonds and light brown haired people. Or maybe it’s because people’s hair is dry from climate, too much washing/drying/perming/dyeing, or from chlorine/fluoride in the water. I am not sure, but the visual impression I get is of a sea of dusty-haired people!

August-September notes

August 2009

Well it’s another hot one. Maybe there really is an El Ninyo forming. Last week the sky was brilliantly clear but this week it has that hazy, dusty tinge it gets when the fires on the next island are burning (the annual "smokey" season - see entries from Oct-Nov 2006, July 2007). It has been raining a little but just enough to increase the humidity, not great gully-washing, roof-pounding rains that would actually cool things down.

I am teaching English in the heat of the day, from 11:00-2pm this week and next. That means I have to dress professionally (read: hot). I’m commuting from the village which means wearing a jacket too for sun protection. The commuting is actually not too bad. It is the month of fasting so traffic from the rural areas at least is really light at the times I travel, tho if I spend too long doing errands and come back after 4pm it can be rather heavy as people come out to do shopping, etc. The light traffic makes for a more pleasant commute. Traffic picks up significantly at the city limits, but since I only have to go to as far as the school, it’s not so crazy as it gets further into town.

The temporary wooden-coconut log bridge is showing signs of age and breaking at the edges but still seems safe enough for a motorbike. It’s definitely cooler in the village – not that it is cool but it is not as hot as the city. There have continued to be lots of power outages. It’s a lot more bearable out here without power than in a hot, closed up city house without power! This morning I’m actually still feeling slightly chilled with a fan at 6:15 am. According to my alarm clock it is 81 degrees. Hmmmm.

(Temporary coconut log bridge collapsed a few days before I left. Luckily not with me on it!)

Something in my lower back/waist got pulled on the trip, either from sitting so long in weird seats or possibly hoisting luggage. Domestic airlines use new contoured-for-Asian-sized seats where the "pillow" part usually hits me between the shoulder blades. The seats are also closer together so that more passengers can be crammed into the plane. If my knees aren't jammed into the seat ahead, they have to be sideways. Makes for cramped sitting. Anyhow, something got strained. Over the course of the day my back gets more and more cramped and stiff and after standing teaching for 3 hours it is downright uncomfortable. Two days ago I started sleeping on the floor. It does seem to help. Even tho the mattress on the new bed is hard, it has springs or something and maybe that little amount of shaking and movement keeps things off balance in the spine department. I also broke down and took mefanamic acid (Ponstan) last night. This morning it still feels slightly cramped/spasmed in the area but not exactly painful so that’s good. Maybe today will be better.

This country is admittedly not good for my back. Even my motorbike is a tad too short and I can’t quite sit up straight and still reach the handlebars. Mirrors if any are too low, even the new ATMs I have to bend way down to even see the keypad! Tables and seats tend to be short and I have to make a concerted effort to sit up and not hunch over. I think I have developed the habit of hunching down to fit the furniture...

September 2009

I am in the village. Friday I finished the last English class. After class I bought a new printer for one of the teams and brought it home pinched between my knees on the motorbike. Yesterday (Saturday) I set it up and printed one sheet and then it started complaining of a paper jam. (And there is no paper jam.) Nothing I do changes it and so it won't print anything, just keeps wanting somebody to clear the nonexistant paper jam. So I will have to haul the thing back to town and see if they can fix it. Sigh!

While sitting on the floor intently focusing on the printer, a kitten playing on the bed next to me decided the flashing light on my glasses was cool so he swatted at it and got a claw in my eye. Ow! Fortunately I have a tube of not-yet-expired terramycin eye ointment. Half my eye is bloody but it's not very painful and I can still see ok. So picture me tomorrow riding my motorbike squinting thru one eye with a printer in a box balanced on my knees or squeezed between my knees or something. Whoo hoo!