Sunday, March 17th, 2013

It was the worst of times!  Malo! Malo! Malo!

We’ve had some problems with the toilets here for many days.  We bought a small plunger which helps but it is a constant struggle to keep both of them working properly.  Yesterday morning Dylan filled a large bucket with hot water and poured it in the toilet in the guest bathroom to clear it.  

I went to bed early last night – 8pm.  Just before midnight I got up and went to the bathroom to pee.  As I’m sitting there I’m thinking with what I’m smelling I’ll bet someone went #2 in this toilet and didn’t flush it.  When I turned on the light I saw I was wrong.  I flushed the toilet, it went down but not strongly, and I turned out the light and went back to bed.  

As I’m lying there I smell the distinct odor of S**T.  I can’t tell if it’s coming from the bathroom, from (excuse me for saying this) Reina sleeping next to me, or from outside.  Finally, I get up and check the guest bathroom and I see a T**D floating in it.  By then Reina was just behind me and I show it too her.  Of course, I don’t know what she’s saying to me so I start with the plunger and it goes down, but then it starts coming up all of the drains.  What an awful smell that was.

I immediately sent the following email to the owner of the building:

“I woke up about midnight to an awful smell.  I checked the guest bathroom and found S**T floating in it.  I used the plunger and it went down BUT IT CAME UP THE BATHROOM DRAIN NEXT TO IT AND THE DRAIN IN THE OTHER BATHROOM.  WE CAN’T SLEEP FROM THE SMELL.  WE ARE GAGGING HERE AND OBVIOUSLY WE CAN’T USE THE TOILETS.  I UNDERSTAND THEY FINISHED THE APARTMENTS UPSTAIRS.  ARE WE GETTING SOMETHING FROM THE TOILETS UPSTAIRS?  IF I HADN’T HAD TO PAY 6 MONTHS RENT IN ADVANCE WE WOULD BE STAYING IN A HOTEL TONIGHT!!!  THIS HAS TO BE HANDLED IMMEDIATELY!!!”

And Reina started calling the landlord.  She didn’t have any luck so we got dressed and walked down to the closest pay phone which is across the street from Viva! Mall.  Again we had no answer.

So, now we had to decide where we were going to sleep tonight because we certainly couldn’t sleep in the master bedroom.  Reina moved Dylan into the guest bedroom and he slept on his old mattress and we slept in Dylan’s much larger bed with the fan on.

I woke up about 7am and peed in the dirty toilet (you got to go somewhere) without flushing it.

There were 2 women here most of the day yesterday cleaning the apartments upstairs and the rest of the building.  I wonder if they put something down the toilets or a drain that they shouldn’t have.  That’s the only thing I can think of that changed in one day. 

The 3 of us went out for breakfast this morning at the Golden Palermo Hotel for 10mil each.  They have a nice bathroom so I was able to take a little sponge bath.

I finished reading Rocket Men.  It is a very good book about the Apollo 11 mission and the events leading up to it.

About 11am Jesus arrived to finish staining the bed.

11:30 and we still haven’t heard from Margarita Montes and we haven’t been able to reach Martha.  Maybe we’ll go to Martha’s little store and confront her with this problem.  Reina just told me she called the store and there is no answer.  Maybe they aren’t open on Sunday?

The cleaning ladies from yesterday just arrived.

At 12:45 we finally heard from the owner:

“Good afternoon mr Terry:

I had been calling martha or my father and i couldn't reach them, i think they are in the building now to see the 3rd floor apartments, i understand the horrible situation . I spoke with the contractor men and he told me that today is difficult to fix the problem but tomorrow morning they will be there. In the meantime no problem about the hotel until the fix the situation.
I need a favor if you see Martha please let her know about this and that i am trying to call her and nobody answered me. :-(
Anything else please let me know and sorry for this inconvenience.

Regards,
Margarita

Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android”

We went upstairs but only the cleaning ladies were there.  I sent Margarita a reply to please call us and she called back in about 5 minutes.

About 1pm, Margarita said she would pay for our hotel if the problem cannot be fixed today.  But she needs to talk to Martha to find out how to pay the hotel.  She thinks Martha should be here in about an hour.  Reina and I took a walk to Viva! so I could use their toilet.  Jesus finished the bed and walked with us to catch a bus.  If we don’t see Martha by 2:30 I promised to go back and buy us lunch.

Margarita did commit to fixing the problem no later than tomorrow morning and then she would have cleaning ladies come in and clean up the mess.

Just after 2pm the landlords Marta & Hymie (I finally was able to ask him his name) showed up and we gave them a tour of our mess.  I think they agree we can’t sleep here tonight.  I gave Marta a business card from the hotel.  She called Margarita but she wouldn’t agree to spend that much.  She said she would pay for our food.  We are going to stay at Reina’s mother’s house tonight and be back in time to let the workers in at 9am to fix our plumbing problem.

Reina and I then went to Laureles Mall for a late lunch.  (While there we ran into Marcella, her boyfriend and their baby.)  I had the ribs for 10mil and she had fish for 20mil.  What’s nice is they serve everything on ceramic plates with real silverware, nothing plastic except the gloves to eat my ribs.  We brought back a couple of burgers for Dylan and Laura to eat in the 3^rd bedroom.

About 7pm we went to her mother’s house.  Reina and I slept in her little double bed and Dylan slept in the bed next to us separated by a curtain.  Attached to this room is a little bathroom with a sink, toilet, and Suicide Shower.