Monday Monday

What a day.  We're glad it's time to head to bed for the night.  Not that anything particularly tragic happened today, it was just one annoyance after another.  It started this morning when Michael went out to feed the dogs and found our German Shepherd was not in the back yard.  Baloo is 2 years old, weighs about 125 pounds, and has a head the size of a medicine ball.  Daddy Brian is the only one that can hold him on a leash and so instead of stepping into his shower he got to go on a dog hunt, safely returning Baloo to the back yard about 10 minutes later. 

Then there was the discrepancy in saldo on Brian's cell phone.  Almost everyone here, including us, prepays for cell phone service.  It's incredibly inexpensive, one of the few things cheaper here than in the states.  Tigo, our cell company, offers triple seconds every Sunday, so we always recharge then.  The 100 lempiras we put on Brian's phone should have gotten him about 5600 seconds...but the text message he received indicated only single time.  So after chasing down the dog he headed to the mall to try and straighten things out with the Tigo rep, who assured him that no matter what his text message said he had received triple time.  The only thing to do now is wait until his saldo runs out, add up the time of his calls, and then head back to the Tigo office.  But is it worth it?  100 lempiras is equal to about $5.25, and that's probably what they're counting on. 

I get the gringa price on tortillas, maybe Brian gets the gringo price on saldo.

After finally arriving at Micah Brian discovered that one of his tools he had brought with us only 2 1/2 weeks ago was ruined.  A 3" steel shaft on his grinder was bent and, naturally, no one had any idea how it happened.  When I talked to him he was pretty steaming mad, wondering how he had managed to have that tool for almost 2 years and never once have anything happen to it, and now it's at Micah for 2 weeks and it's ruined.  Finally, tail between his legs, Juan Carlos fessed up to using it and bending the shaft.  What the heck?  Don't use tools you don't know how to use.  Does he have the $200 and a connection in the States to get another one from Mac Tools?  Not hardly.  That's really making Brian think twice about just who, if anyone, will have access to his tools when they get shipped.  For Pete's sake.

On the home front, I spent my day playing the part of the Screaming Shrew trying to get the kids to do their school work.  Those mom's that home school and do it well, my hat is off to you.  This has been a horrible experience, I have to say.  We all hate it and decided to just grit our teeth and get through this year.  I can't even tell you how many times I have wanted to throttle my boys when I say "can you tell me why you've only managed to get 1 page done in the last 2 hours?"  and I am met with a blank stare and "I don't know."  Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  Today was award winning.  Michael has to spend a total of 4 hours on school work.  He started at 10:00 this morning, and finished at 8:00 tonight.  Just how many times did he hit the pause button on his timer and get up to do something?  He's lost just about everything that means anything to him at this point, and I've just about lost my mind.  I can not wait for August 23rd when they go back to a real school.  God bless teachers!

About 2:00 this afternoon my housekeeper (Daisy) informed me that we had no water.  Sure enough, the faucets were dry .  I called Brian, who was in the middle of teaching class, to see if he had checked the tube going into the cistern to see if it was clear of dirt and debris.  He hadn't, so I put on his work boots, his green plaid flannel shirt, and trekked up the hill, through the mud, then down the steep slope, with the 4 foot high weeds, all the while looking for snakes, carefully making my way to the cistern.  I got the ant covered lid off and sure enough, no water.  I unscrewed the tube and found it clear.  Then Daisy says "Baloo!" and I looked up to see him escaping the yard, once again, coming up the hill to greet us, only he took off to the highway.  I scrambled my way back up from the cistern and we chased Baloo who was now having cars screeching and swerving as he made his way back to us.  That in itself was a small miracle as typically cars don't slow down or move for dogs here.  Must have been because we were actually in sight. 

Great.  How in the world were we going to get Baloo back into the yard?  Daisy is about 5 feet tall and tiny, and I certainly can't control Baloo.  So I took off the green plaid shirt (don't worry, I had another shirt on underneath!) and lassoed Baloo with it, tying the arms of the shirt around his neck.  We each took an arm and started to make our way back down the hill with the dog.  Now came Tito and Padme.  They are 2 dogs that live on the property here, free range dogs and I'm sure you can guess what happened next.  Baloo tore off after the other 2, the 3 dogs started fighting, and there was nothing we could do but stand there watching, waiting for it to get over.  Finally one of the workers on the property came over and lassoed Baloo again with the shirt and walked him into the back yard.

Back to the water situation.  I looked up the ration schedule and we were supposed to get water today, 5 am - 5 pm.  It kind of amazes me they are still rationing with the 2 resevoirs at 100% and flooding going on, but hey, what do I know?  Anyway, Daisy called Sanaa and finds out that yes, we were to get water today, but there was a problem with the main water station at the Picacho.  They were doing repairs but have no idea when we'll actually get water, could be 3-4 days, maybe more.

Fabulous. 

Things kind of slowed down until after dinner.  The kids were ordered to bed early by dad for being so flaky on their school work and as I began to do our nightly reading ritual Brian James says "what's that?"  Without my glasses on I could only see something somewhat large and dark crawling across the wall.  "Michael, what is it?"  A cockroach.  About 3 inches long.  Gross.  I told Brian to keep his eye on it while I ran to the other end of the house for the broom.  By the time I got back it had made it completely to the other side of the room.  I jumped on the bed, aimed and swung only to have it fly a bit and reland.  I take aim again, this time smacking it and we watched as it literally exploded into pieces on the bed.  Okay, even more gross.  I swept the dead carcass from the bed, only to lose half of it.  Okay, now even more gross as I tried to figure out where half of a dead cockroach is in my kids bedroom.  Brian James finally spied it on top of his radio - both are black so they camaflouged well - and when dad came home he got to do DAD duty and pick it up and toss it out the window.

Brian James is asleep, Michael is tossing and turning, I'm sure with visions of cockroaches dancing in his head.  I would like to doze off myself,but am feeling a tad bit itchy. 

Sweet dreams.