Life on Friday

Friday was not turning out as I had planned.  Most people here have Friday off so that they can attend mosque and visit family.  John and I also observe Fridays as a day of rest so we had planned to begin with a nutritious breakfast, watch a podcast of our home church and then who knows?  The world was our oyster.

Then we realized we had no electricity.  This in of itself is not an unusual happening.  So we proceeded with our day and thankfully own a gas stove.  Woot!  I prepared the food thinking that at any moment that wonderful little zap of warning would happen and then the lights would return.  No go.  

That meant that we had no internet which meant we had no podcast.  Sigh.  We found an episode of "House" on my computer and began watching it.  The battery lasted until the final 20 minutes.  Now we’ll never know if that poor woman with the weird disease was cured.

I decided the only rational thing to do was pour myself a Diet Coke, go out onto the patio and read my new book which I had just downloaded.  (Yes, I love technology, but not as much as you, you see…Wedding song from “Napoleon Dynamite”). I had my feet propped up and my chair pointed toward the Nile when I realized that my new book was lost somewhere in the CLOUD.  I won’t go into my rant about the CLOUD, but suffice it to say it has been the bane of my existence since those darling geniuses at Apple began confiscating all my media and keeping it “safe” by restricting my access to it.  I had no internet so I couldn’t retrieve it which meant I couldn’t read my book with my newly poured beverage which took my mind off the missing electricity….deep breaths, Pam.

This is a very big dam that was built with little electrical
thing-ies on it so that people could...
you know...have electricity!

I know.  First world problems in a third world country.  

Ever the optimist, I remained hopeful and knew that at any minute order would be restored.  I tried to text our neighbors to see if they had power, but now my phone wouldn’t work.  Coincidence?  Not sure.

I changed out of my indoor clothes (capris and t-shirt) and put on my outdoor clothes (baggy pants and tunic) and made the little jaunt to our friends’ apartment.  They kindly welcomed me in and offered their electrical outlets as encouragement.  I accepted and returned with computers, cords and John.

They let us borrow their phone to call our landlord to see if he knew what the problem was.  We were going on 7 hours now and that was unusual even for here.  He hadn’t known about the problem because he had spent the night at a relative’s home.  He with his wife, children and parents live in the same building as we do.  His mother and father were there so he called them to ask them to call the electric company.  (I'm wondering why they hadn't already done this, but hey...)

Ah, progress!

We stayed a bit longer at our friends, thanked them for being awesome and returned to our flat.  There we discovered that our lights were on!  Woot!

Let the celebration begin!  Frozen chicken will be safe! John can pour himself a glass of iced tea! Pam can wash underwear!

I again tried to text our friends to tell them the good news, but our phones wouldn’t work at all…no texting, no calls.  We could receive calls, but nothing outgoing.  Oh, well.  It was our day off.

Map O' the Area

Just as we settled in, John received a call from a local man in the village that I affectionately call “Dictionary Guy.”  He had met John a few weeks back and asked him if he could come over sometime to discuss the dictionary.  I laughed.  Discuss the dictionary?!  How does that work?

It seems he is an English teacher and loves to bring words to John for correct pronunciation.  He also asks about words like “rough,” “though,” and “through.”  Sorry, guy, I can’t explain that to myself.

I poured them some water and bid them well as I retreated to our bedroom.  I knew that John would be busy for a while.  After about 2 hours, the call to prayer was announced from the 3 mosques surrounding us and our friend took his leave to go pray.

I asked John how it went.  He said, “I’m not sure.  Good I think.”  Our friend wants to return to discuss further topics.  John agreed.  I joked and said, “Hey, you’ve barely made a dent in the dictionary.”

But as they talked the man revealed some about himself, his life, his challenges…He’s just like any of us reading this.  He wants to be successful in his work, care for his family and please God.  So he and John compare ideas, perspectives and beliefs.  All from a study of the dictionary!

John’s social battery was on its last bar so he put on his Minion t-shirt, pajama pants and pulled out the computer.  As he clicked on the “House” episode he said, “Now let’s see if we can get that woman cured!” 

Thankfully, she had managed to hang on in the 12 hours that had happened in between (no electricity, visits to friends, visits by friends) and received her eventual life-saving diagnosis. Whew!

As Dr. House always holds out hope, so did I in thinking that our phones would be restored in the same day as well.  Alas, we found out that the government has suspended the use of our phones until we turn in copies of our passports to the phone company for their file.  We have already done that, but it seems they’d like a second copy.  I’d call to tell them that it’s ridiculous, but therein lies the irony.

So…yeah…life on Friday.  Let 'er roll!