The work that Landlord Jumz did on the water system seems, so far, to have been a complete waste... or actually made things worse: The water still slowly drains out of the rooftop cistern through some unknown leak. The difference now is that instead of it being just the upstairs bathroom that has no water, it is the entire house that has no water.
God, I find the Filipino tendency to occasion repairs that consist entirely of half steps and duct tape to be hugely annoying. What is surprising here is that I thought that such tendency existed primarily in the bamboo hut segment of the population, but it seems that my eminently more-intelligent landlord suffers from the same Filipino affliction of "do as little as possible for as low a cost as possible" and then fool oneself into thinking everything is just like new.
And it's me who's paying the price.
I had a small company of welders come to the house today to watch a video on YouTube about how to build a smoker. It was a fantastically detailed 70-minute long video with the guy pointing out everything in detail, holding up a tape measure to show all the measurements... even if you didn't speak English, you could figure it out.
The welders, after watching it, first asked me to draw them a plan, apparently because they still couldn't figure out — after looking at 70 minutes of detailed video — what they were looking at. Then they asked ME to go out and buy all the necessary parts to do the build and they would weld the thing together. Then they asked ME to at least put together a list of every part necessary to build the smoker as if I were the welding and fabrication guru.
Again: As little as possible.
It was payday today, so I sent Epril off to CDO to get cash and pay bills. (We still don't have an ATM in Jasaan — this place's one true drawback.) Hopefully the Parasat Cable installation will be tomorrow. Epril came back with some McDonald's chicken sandwiches for my dinner. (Very happy.) I watched Wimbledon on television.
Oh. Epril bought me new sandals today. I started wearing them, but then Epril told me, "No Jil, those are your good sandals. You aren't allowed to wear those every day. You only wear those when we go in to town. For around the house, you have to wear your old sandals." She then brought me my old sandals and took my new sandals away.
God bless a wife who will treat me like a 6 year old from time to time. Not because I need it; because it's emotionally fun and endearing, and a little mothering is like a warm blanket no matter how old we get.
At 10:00, I (joined by sister-in-law Susan) went over to Steve Wallis' house to watch World Cup. It was my team, Brazil, against the Netherlands. The play started off so well for Brazil, and the first half was everything I expect from my brasilieros. Then, the second half came along and it seemed as if all of the spirits from the Brazilian players excorporated and settled in the Dutch players, while the Brazilian players became zombies. They wound up losing 2–1.
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