21 Jul 2013
Rae
and I were talking about the topic for this week’s blog entry. I go through the
week with the blog in the back of mind. Usually something presents itself (in
fact there IS a topic that presented itself, which you will see later).
However, as I was cogitating, reflecting back on the past week, one image
pressed itself onto my mind with great clarity: Rae sleeping.
Now,
please understand. I in no way begrudge Rae her sleep. She has been burning the
candle at both ends and the middle. She undoubtedly has a sleep deficit she
needs to make up. You add to that the change in time zone, which is about as
significant a shift as you can ask a body to make, and it is not surprising
that she has fallen asleep so often and so quickly. Added to both of those
things (and probably related to both factors as well) Rae has gotten sick: a
little Delhi belly and a cold. In any case, when we go to bed at night, she is
asleep before her head hits the pillow. When I call during the day, Rae
frequently has been asleep. When she sits down, her head starts to nod. I am
sure she will get caught up at some point. I have to say, when I see how
depleted she is, I feel terrible that I left so much on her plate. She really
is a tremendous person. And with that, I will turn the blog over to her so she
can tell you about her adventures with repairmen.
Rae
here, (I’ll try not to nod off while typing this, but no guaranties). This week has been filled with repair men and
that does sound like progress is being made, but don’t jump to
conclusions. Phil was having trouble
with the toilet in our bathroom before I got here. They sent repairmen 3 times to try to get the
toilet to flush properly and still the problem persisted after my arrival. A couple of days into my arrival I had a
repairman from Phil’s work show up to deal with some electrical issues, look at
the toilet, and a few other random things.
Turns out that while I thought most people here spoke at least some English,
that is not the case with most service people. When the man from Phil’s work
arrived he spoke a few words of English and we muddled thru and got a couple of
outlets fixed. The next day he arrived
back here with the plumber, who spoke no English, and watched him work on the
toilet for quite a long time only to decide that the toilet needed a new part.
Here’s
the problem, labor is really cheap here and people would rather have a dozen
repairmen come out to try to fix a problem rather than spent a couple of
dollars for the new part. After the
repairman left I could hear some heated discussion going on outside and it
turns out that they were refusing to pay the repairman because they felt his
rates were too high and so wanted another repairman to come. So, a non functioning toilet and a couple of
days later my bell rang and it was another plumber who spoke no English, but
when I gave him his choice of plumber or air conditioner he said plumber. I took him to the toilet and was surprised to
see that he had no tools or new parts. I
sat on the bed and watched him flush the toilet multiple times, scratch his
head multiple times and then flush the toilet multiple times again.
By
then, I’m feeling pretty frustrated because I thought they were finally going
to actually put in a new part and finally fix the problem. After some time of him trying to communicate
with me and me not understanding much I figured out that he was asking for a
bucket. I don’t have a bucket here. I got him a large bowl from the kitchen and
he shook his head. Finally he pointed to
the waste basket so I pulled the bag out of it and handed it to him. He then
went to the shower and filled the bucket and poured the water into the toilet
bowl. By then I’m thinking, what the
heck. I’m feeling quite frustrated and
thinking I just want to send him away and yell at someone to stop wasting my
time and to not send someone out again until they are serious about really
fixing something.
Just
about then Christina, our helper arrived, and I was so glad to see her. She has been wonderful to communicate with
all these people when I’m not able to. She took over the battle and told the
guy that they were supposed to replace the part and we went thru things
again. She is very patient and clearly
more accustom to the Indian way of doing things. The plumber finally said the water level in
the tank needed to be raised and then it would be good. “Fine; whatever; just leave!”is what I was
thinking. That’s not the end
though. He wanted us to pay him and
Christina explained that we weren’t the ones to pay but whoever sent him would
pay him. He said he didn’t know who sent
him and his office didn’t know who placed the order. All I can say is it’s a good thing Christina
was here or I think I would have been yelling at him to GET OUT, GET OUT! I think I tend to be a pretty calm and
rational person, but in my mind this was getting beyond ridiculous. Please don’t send me anymore repairmen when
Christina isn’t here.
We
have been trying to get them to replace our oven since before Phil arrived. They had said they would do that when we first
looked at the place. It is a similar story, they have sent repairmen who say it
can’t be fixed, and needs to be replaced, but they still keep talking about
trying to fix it, before they replace it. JUST REPLACE IT ALREADY!
We have 2 AC units in our downstairs that aren’t
functioning, and they asked me if I was going to use the downstairs and really
needed the AC. I told them yes, it was
going to be my work area for art and such, plus there is an exercise room down
there which I promise I will never use if there is no AC. I don’t promise to use it after it’s fixed,
but that’s beside the point.
After
all this ranting, I assume you are seeing a pattern here, LABOR IS CHEAP and so
try that as many times as you possibly can before you actually fix
something. In my mind at some point the
cost of labor will actually equal the cost of just fixing it in the first
place.
Okay,
I must say that just writing this and rethinking it has made me exhausted, I
may need to go to bed.
Namaste
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