We had a light breakfast at her
mother’s house and we were back at the apartment at 9am when we were supposed
to let in the workers to fix the plumbing.
Reina as yet hasn’t been able to reach Martha on the phone. We went upstairs and asked the men working on
the 2 new apartments if they had seen her.
One of the workers came down and looked at our toilet problem. He used the plunger on the bathroom drain
like you would on a toilet but I don’t think he improved the situation.
Today Martha reimbursed us for our
expenses thus far. That included:
30mil – breakfast yesterday morning
51.5mil – lunch yesterday
13mil – taxi last night
15mil – dinner last night
13mil – taxi this morning
TOTAL – 122.5mil
When I checked my emails I found the
following from Margarita Montes:
“Mr. Terry:
I just spoke with martha and she told me that Reyna wanted to go to her mothers house, that wasn't what we accorded, and i feel bad with you, all this situation is very embarrassing. I make sure with martha that if tomorrow they don't fix the problem she will take you to the hotel personally, I got very upset with them.
Also she will give you tomorrow when you meet $100,000 pesos to cover some expenses (food,taxis,etc) if is more please let me know. Also they have to clean all that mess.....
One again sorry for all the inconvenience you had.
Sincerely
Margarita Montes”
I just spoke with martha and she told me that Reyna wanted to go to her mothers house, that wasn't what we accorded, and i feel bad with you, all this situation is very embarrassing. I make sure with martha that if tomorrow they don't fix the problem she will take you to the hotel personally, I got very upset with them.
Also she will give you tomorrow when you meet $100,000 pesos to cover some expenses (food,taxis,etc) if is more please let me know. Also they have to clean all that mess.....
One again sorry for all the inconvenience you had.
Sincerely
Margarita Montes”
About
10am Martha showed up and gave us 130mil to cover our expenses thus far.
I think I forgot to mention my
brother called me yesterday and we talked for a few minutes as he wanted to try
out his new calling card. Reina informed
me she tried to call me (actually Dylan) at home yesterday and couldn’t get
through. Apparently you have to press
the “Off” button twice to actually hang up the phone so she warned me we’ll
probably have a high bill because of that.
Ah, the cost of a Colombian Education!
I agreed to Reina’s request to have
a little birthday party for her at our house the evening of Saturday, April 6th. Her birthday is actually on April 1st
but we probably won’t have any money available until April 3rd.
A worker has been here since about
10:30 with some rodding wire but I don’t think he can do anything with it
without a special machine which must be what Martha was talking about they were
waiting for. He has been basically
mopping up the area.
11:15 and one of the cleaning ladies
started working on cleaning the bathrooms.
The worker went outside and lifted one of 2 3’ x 3’ concrete slabs and
you can see down about 4-5 feet as it appears to be some type of access panel
(with at least 4 cucarachas visible). He
closes it and opens another smaller metal panel similar to what you would see
in America for a lawn sprinkler and asks Reina to turn on the water in our
utility sink. I guess he’s trying to
determine which one of 5 of those is for our apartment.
An noon Senora Martha typed in this
message on my computer: “la muchacha esta tratando de limpiar haber si se va el
olor si quieren vayan almorzar y yo me quedo aca mientras terminan hablamos con
el senor de abajo y manana a las siete de la manana nos va permitir romper por
el garaje donde esta el tubo de las aguas negras por que aeliy dice que hay un
taco porque la pesca no muestra nada. ahora cuando terminen nos vamos para el
hotel y manana por favor me colaboran aca a las siete de la manana nos venimos
en un taxi por favor el senor de abajo no podia en este momento porque tiene
una cita medica pero que manana a primera hora si tiene alguna duda llamamos a
margarita”
Which Google translated to:
“the girl is trying to clean up if you have the smell if they want to
go have lunch and I stay here while we talk
with Mr. finish below
and tomorrow at seven in the morning will allow us to break through the garage where the tube is aeliy sewage that says there is a taco
because fishing shows nothing. Now when we go to finish the hotel
and tomorrow please cooperate me here
at seven in the morning we came in a taxi
please Mr. bottom
could not at this time because he has a medical appointment but tomorrow morning if
you any questions call daisy”
You can see that you can often
understand every, or most, words but still not fully understand their
meaning. But it sounds like they will be
putting us up at a hotel for at least tonight.
The worker explained the problem to
Margerita and then she explained to me: they believe the problem is in the wall
of the garage for the downstairs apartment.
They can’t get into that apartment this afternoon because the owner has
a doctor’s appointment. They are going
to put us up in a hotel for tonight and tomorrow they will pick me up at 7am so
I can let them into the building (and my apartment?).
About 12:45 Reina and I went to
lunch at Laureles Mall. I asked her
first if we needed an umbrella and she said no.
While we were there it poured for about 20 minutes but stopped before we
left and the sun came out. I had a
hamburger, fries and coke combo for 10.5mil at Gordog’s and we ordered a burger
and drink to go for Dylan. Reina had a
lunch special at a different restaurant. My burger was very good and came in an
aluminum foil pita pocket which helped keep the contents from squirting out the
back – a nice feature. Lunch was a total
of 29.7mil which I imagine we will be reimbursed for since Martha has already
asked me how much it cost.
As we were leaving Reina asked me if
I would win a stuffed toy for her at one of those claw machines – my daughter
Jeannie’s favorite when she was younger.
I was pretty confident in my skills but was still pleasantly surprised
when I won it on the first try. It cost
me 500 pesos or about 28 cents and she was happy.
When we got back the cleaning lady
was gone and while most of the smell is gone from the guest bathroom it’s still
very noticeable in the master bathroom.
Reina informed me that Dylan will
stay with Reina’s mother until Friday so for sure we will only need 1 room. I gave him 20mil for bus/taxi fare.
About 2:30 Martha, Reina and I took
a taxi to our hotel for the night. When
we got there we found I needed my original passport (they wouldn’t accept a copy)
and Reina needed her Cedula. Martha gave
Reina 10mil and we took a taxi back to our apartment and grabbed the necessary
documents real quick.
We’re at the Hotel Belen Plaza at
Calle 30 #74-50 - about 12 blocks south and 4 blocks east of our apartment. (Since we’re in unfamiliar territory I
brought my pepper spray with me. I
probably forgot to mention that before I left the states I bought a can of pepper
spray at a police supply store. This is
the first time I’ve brought it out of the apartment.) We’re in cell 305; it isn’t that bad it’s
clean but it is very basic. We are in a
small room big enough for a bed, fan and TV lit by 1 bare light bulb. In a corner there are 3 very small basic
shelves. The top shelf is at a height of
about 8’ so it’s useless. There is a
small bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower.
I’m curious how much it costs to stay here a night. Their website says rooms start at $47. At least there is Wi-Fi which helps us keep
ourselves connected and entertained. The
good news is at the hotel desk I found an update of the map of Medellin that I
have that is 3 years old.
Now we’re sitting in the hotel lobby
and again it’s pouring outside. I asked
Reina if this is the rainy season and she replied that they get a lot of rain
during the Easter season. (I think she
means Lent.) I’m writing this blog and
she’s practicing with her new laptop looking at dog videos, flip flops for
sale, etc.
We had dinner in the hotel. It consisted of tomato or mushroom soup,
beef, French fries, rice, and salad. The
only halfway decent thing was the salad which was chopped lettuce, sliced
pineapple, and grapes, but the grapes had seeds in them. The fries and rice were cold and the meat was
tough. The soup was simple broth with potato
sticks on top. I had a coke to drink and
Reina had some type of juice but it tasted mostly like water. I guarantee we won’t be eating here
again. I hope tomorrow we can open the
doors or whatever we need to do at the apartment in the morning and then go out
for breakfast.
10pm: We turn the lights off and
realize the room won’t be dark because the hallway lights are on and the light
is coming through the “transom” at the top of the wall. I’m so tired I fall asleep immediately
anyway.
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