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Just roll with it...

Posted on Monday, March 19, 2018

It’s been quite the month. I feel like all my blogs open this way. Well, it’s true. No two months are the same, and so far they have all held their own unique challenges and excitements. This month, it’s been utilities.

I’ve had three weeks now to settle into my apartment and start learning the language.

My apartment has all the necessities, except water in my kitchen. I did have water, until the downstairs neighbor asked me to stop using it because it has been leaking on their side. On Tuesday my landlord came by and explained, through his grandson who speaks English, that it is the main water line for the building that is the problem, and it happens to be leaking behind my kitchen wall. My water will remain off until they can get the carpenter and the plumber out here to take out my oven, stove top, and cabinets so they can drill into the wall and fix the pipe. In the meantime I’ll be doing dishes in the shower. The picture isn’t totally accurate. I’ve been taking my plates and cutlery upstairs to my teammate’s dishwasher.

It’s been rather amusing on the whole, and it could be worse. I could be the apartment that had the water leaking into it. Right now, I’m very thankful that I have teammates nearby and a landlord who cares enough to come out and make the necessary phone calls, and organize the workmen.

While he was here, my landlord also gave me my water and trash bills. The way things work here is that bills get delivered in a stack to the building, you find yours based on apartment number and then hunt down a “pay box”, enter your subscriber number, and feed the machine your money. Pretty easy, actually. That’s also how you pay your cell phone and internet bills. If you have a bank account (and that bank account has money in it) you can also set up online payments.

While I’m regaling you with tales of utilities, here’s another “we’re not in Kansas anymore” moment. Last week, I went out to a neighboring city where I am helping a partner business with their bookkeeping. Me and another woman were just getting started when the power went out. No power, no internet, no QuickBooks. First, we thought it was just the one building, but when we went back to her apartment we realized it was all over town. It came back on around 3pm, and we did accomplish most of our task.

While we were at her place she told me about her own water woes. The city water is only on a couple of hours in the morning and then a couple more hours in the evening. And you learn to live with it. You collect water when it’s on, and schedule times to do dishes. You plan your showers and laundry around it, and just roll with it.

The way I see it, you don’t really have a choice. Complaining, grumbling, or refusing to bend won’t turn the water back on. So, I’ll just keep doing dishes in the shower, and empty my kitchen cabinets before the workmen arrive and tare them out.

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