Pluses and Minuses

Plus: Last night I finished drawing the rim sherds for the deep pit that we dug. That's 20 levels of ceramics, done. Now I just have to tally the bone, shell, and lithic artifacts, and then I can move on to the trench units.


Minus: My husband is still sick with swollen tonsils (12 days and counting).


Plus: We've scheduled a going-away party for the village. I'll talk about archaeology and then we'll all eat cake (May 2, 4pm).


Minus: Last night the motor on the pump that gives us running water in the house died. That means no running water for dishes, for showers, for flushing the toilet. Someone has been called to try and fix the motor, but how quickly that will happen....no one knows. Apparently we can still get water from somewhere (need to clarify that we're not being told to get water from the river....ewwww), so it looks like we're going to be hauling buckets full of water up to the house. Couldn't this have waited another three weeks?!?!?! Oh, yeah, and wasn't this one of the things that our landlord said he was going to do maintenance on, but hasn't? Such is life here.

So, two to two, but I'm feeling like the scale's a little weighted right now.

And Thoughts Turn to Home...

So I know this is still three months off (OMG, only three months left, excuse me while I have a panic attack) and I still have TONS of stuff to get done here, including essentially all the artifact analysis, but with the New Year, and my parent’s visit I’ve been thinking more and more about when we get home – where we’re going to live, what we’re going to need to get life up and running, the horrible crushing experience of moving all of our stuff from storage into an apartment yet again. It also hasn’t helped that life here has been somewhat complicated – we had nearly a month with no garbage pick-up, it’s gotten quite hot and sunny so we’re worried about frying every time we leave the house, daycare was shut down for a month so getting work done was impossible, and our roof is leaking horribly every time it rains. I know that this too shall pass, but any “stay focused and finish your work” vibes that you guys can send my way would be much appreciated!

Beyond Frustruating!

So let me start by saying that we are on week five without a fridge. That basically sums up where everything comes from. This has gone from annoying and inconvenient to dangerous to my daughter's health. She's lost a kilo (for you non-metric people out there, about 2 pounds) since we came here, and I attribute it directly to not being able to store any food in the house because we don't have a fridge. No milk, yogurt, or cheese. No fruits or vegetables that you can't eat in a day or two because if you don't the flys or ants will get at it. No making food and keeping the left overs, lots of waste, etc. And to this date our landlord has only made a half hearted attempt to get it fixed despite my constant nagging, but then was surprised when he asked me for the rent today and I asked him for the fridge. And now he's gone and left for Puerto Rico for a month, which leaves us where exactly?

Then comes along Porta (the telecommunications company) and their lousy website and even lousier customer service. We got a pre-pay internet thing for the house, which costs dearly, but we decided that for our research and our sanity, we need it. Well, the website messes up and ends up eating $17 of our dollars, but the online Porta people refuse to acknowledge any fault or refund our money, and our only recourse is to travel 2 hours each way to the nearest customer service center to file a complaint and try to get our money back, which seems like it wouldn't happen anyway. Thanks so much!

Also, the supposed caretakers of this house when the landlord is gone (the same ones that were ripping me off to cook for us) stole my telephone and also the landlord's camera and cash. There's no proof, but they're the only ones who had access. And so the question remains, why the hell is he allowing them to keep living in the house (for free) on his property instead of kicking them and their six bark-all-night dogs to the curb?

I'm so ready to go postal on people that it's not even funny.