Mission Incomplete

A few years ago, I stopped making resolutions. I never actually followed through with them, and it seemed really silly to keep at something that I wasn't going to take seriously at all. We also stopped celebrating New Year's Eve more than just spending the night as a family and doing something special together.

Call me cynical, but the idea that only one day could signify the beginning seems... off. I mean, the earth goes around the sun in a circle, so the New Year could really be any day. January 1 seems arbitrary.

It's actually not as negative as it sounds. It's just that I was tired of pretending (to myself) that on January 1, I could start all of this new stuff and be a new and better person - solely because it was January 1.

I've spent the past few years making goals and renewing them throughout the year. Sometimes the making of those goals coincides with the New Year, but most of the time they don't. A lot of times the new goals match up with the beginning of the school year, or the start of a new semester.

In August, I spent a bunch of money on this really awesome new study Bible. I made a goal to read it every day. I haven't.

In December, I wrote out a long list of mini projects and household chores I needed to get done. I only made it through about half. The list is still hanging in my kitchen waiting for me to get things done.

I've felt like I'm lacking. I've felt like I haven't gotten things done and possibly have disappointed people who are waiting for me to produce and present. I didn't feel any joy about my tasks.

This past week, I've been really sick. Not the flu, but all of its nasty symptoms. I was literally knocked down and was out for four days. It was the first time in my adult life that I felt like the adult-thing to do was rest. To not think of my to-do lists, to not worry about that list of projects or the goals I had for the month.

I am still feeling congestion, my ears hurt, and I'm coughing like a smoker - but I feel rested. I feel refreshed, even. I feel like by leaving my lists and goals on hold for the past few days, I'm actually ready to tackle some of those tasks that have been waiting for me to get around to them for weeks.

Tomorrow can be a new year, a new start. Set goals, work on them throughout the year - but by no means only make goals at one point during the year.... and if things are overwhelming and weighing you down - take a break.  I waited until an illness knocked me down, but I'll have to take my rest more seriously in the future. What's that saying, don't sweat the small stuff? Yeah. That.

lockin'up

i've never had more than 2 keys at a time. now, the new house has about 8 doors that need locks and that doesn't even count the inside doors, the cistern or the shed out back. while it's not a dangerous neighborhood, it's never good to tempt fate, so each gate has a huge padlock and the doors all have deadbolts.

 

and now you probably think this post is about my housekeys. but it's not. when we moved, we also invested in a car (i know, 'we're really moving up in the world). the car came with one key. who does that? and because we're procrastinators by nature, we didn't get a spare made.

 

you can imagine what comes next.

 

on our way to work one saturday afternoon, we go to grab the key from it's place. it's not there. we look all over.amalio leaves for work in a public car and i take a nap. we had looked everywhere and nothing. i yelled at the kids. samil cried about how a thief came and stole it from the house and how scary that was. amalio sent a friend to help. i sat on the couch. i don't know why but i checked in the toy room and sure enough, the key was stuck in a toy truck.

 

you'd probably think that we went and got a key made.

nope.

 

just one week later, i noticed the car outside as i walked up the hill from work. then i noticed that it was on. so, when i reached the house, i tried to open the door to turn the car off. ha! it was locked. amalio had run in the house and was planning to just run back out. unfortunately it was lunch time and the locksmith/car electrician wouldn't come until he had finished eating.

 

and still.

no key.

 

a few weeks ago i headed to the hardware store to pick up a few other things and by chance remembered to get a key made. i know! it should have been on my list.

it might be because i knew that this would be a huge long process. it took the kid about 15 minutes to even find the right key. after he messed up one, i left him alone to try again in peace.

he never got it. when i got back another guy was working the machine and this guy was nowhere in sight. luckily the key worked and hopefully we won't have any more problems!

Hello, Chicken

people ask me fairly frequently what we eat in our house. it's more than common curiosity - it's the opportunity to confirm that the american diet consists of nothing more than pizza, mcdonalds and coca-cola. 

when i tell them we eat rice and beans almost every day, it's like i've killed their childhood dream. i assure them, however, that just because we don't eat pizza every night and my kids don't have every single happy meal toy ever made, doesn't mean that i actually cook.

during the week, i can't cook. the heaviest meal of the day here is the mid-day meal and i'm not in the house to prepare that. our babysitter takes care of it. she cooks much better than i do.

and by the weekend, i'm not in any kind of mood to cook. and when i teach on saturday mornings, forget about it. 

i refuse to frequent the american chains, but that doesn't mean i'm immune to some "fast food." our favorite place is ola pollo - walking distance from our house and super cheap. not really that fast, but quicker than me cooking.

they specialize in rotisserie chicken - you can get a whole bird with fried plantains and a bottle of soda for less than 10 dollars. 

on saturdays they pump these chickens out like nobodies business. and for good reason - DELICIOUS.

i'm always kind of reluctant to smash "nueva york dreams" - (your kids can go to college for free, free-housing is a dream, dominicans are treated with much more pride and dignity than haitian immigrants here, etc...) and even this one kind of kills me. i see their faces drop when i say no, i don't know the last time we ate mcdonalds. 

but at least i can cheer people up with out constant consumption of fast food .

lists.

both jewel and i have been making lists of all the things that we need to blog about. for her, it's a completely new environment, new job, new language. and for me, it's just the good stuff that never really gets old - like the boys trying to install jewel's new ceiling fan with a machete yesterday.

thing is, most of these posts require pictures, and i'd love to have the skills to enrapture you with words - prose so vivid you imagine you're here - i'm not there. at that level.

so for now, a quick wrap-up.

this past weekend i spent sick. really sick.
then i went to work and felt better, but had to call out of the uni because i was so sick again.
tuesday i felt better, but slept a lot. (and then watched the boys hack the ceiling apart)
and today, i'm feeling alive.

pictures soon. promise!

the thigns that have happened.

on august 20th, we opened our doors to 85 bright and eager students in cienfuegos. a few days later, our "love" school opened for the first time - offering education to 85 haitian children who had never ever studied before. big things have been happening in our neck of the woods.

i knew we'd have some run-ins but i never thought it would be these. 

- a five year old who is well down the road to being expelled. his dad has already been called in twice, and his mother was called to pick him up early today. he's thrown stones and kicked and punched. on tuesday he used a pretty big rock to hit another kid and today dragged a kid through the gravel. sadly, the parents don't seem interested at all in fixing the situation - and when i called his school from last year, the principal told me that they had all kinds of problems, too.

- a three year old who is so aggressive the other kids automatically put up their fists when he comes around.

- parents who are extremely concerned that we're not allowing their kids to take notebooks home. but when we sent them, at least four of those concerned parents didn't bother to make sure they came back. exactly why they aren't allowed to take them home!

- a four year old who was mistaken for a girl for 4 days - his parents have his hair in a ponytail and send him with a pink backpack. it wasn't until the teacher walked in on him in the boys bathroom that we knew for sure he was a boy! when i told his mom she needed to cut his hair, she says she can't, because the father "made a promise" on the boys hair. (more on this ridiculousness in another post).

- a second grade girl slapped across the face by her mother and scratched with her nails. poor girl was then bullied because of it.

back to the grind.

i've got a ton of pictures on my memory stick that i need to upload on here, but this past week has been a juggle just to get out of the door. and mostly missing more important things than my memory-reader. you know, like my cell phone or my wallet or class lists and teacher contracts.

it's been that kind of week.

school started on august 20th and we've  been full steam ahead since then. the summer, which was unkindly short and way too hot, seems so long ago - like a mirage in the rearview mirror. we've since filled out life with visitors, birthday parties, new animals, and school.

oh, school. and everything that implies.

i've ventured into the city far too many times for my liking to pick up undershirts and socks, gym pants and ridiculous class-list items (seriously, a six pack of toilet paper? are my kids equipping the bathrooms of the national police?). i've gone in stores i never knew existed and stores that i love. spent way too much money and still feel like i haven't finished.

and then i go to school and get slapped with families who can't afford one notebook for their kids. who can't go to regular school because they are not documented. who sometimes don't eat on the weekends. and i feel like a brat for complaining about how much my kids need.

because we can get them all they need.

it's been a funny transitional time for me. that leap from richy-richy university professor to director of a school on the side of a landfill. and knowing what is reality for some people is not reality for others.

i plan to keep up with the blog starting next week. i've missed writing here, but i've got so much swimming around in my head that it might be pretty shallow around here for awhile. sorry. hopefully i'll get some sort of equilibrium soon and we'll make the best out of this place!

and it's over.

it seems like just yesterday the kids were done school, and i was winding down summer semester at the uni.

our vacation was way too short. but life is back and busy and i'm on too little sleep and too much coffee.

once we get into the swing of things, it'll be easier.

i do, however, have internet access on a more regular basis now, and so will be back!

finally.

missing.

i´ve got a dead laptop and a break from the university.

i´ll be back soon enough.

promise.



to those who have left comments on here, i´m so sorry i haven´t been able to respond! email me, melanie512@gmail.com i can get to those on the phone, but i can´t seem to respond well to comments on the blog!

what's more fun than a box?

i got a new stove for mother's day. it's a beautiful new range-top/oven combination - with six burners! six burners, people. do you know how much food we can make on that? and the oven, the beautiful, large space that my cookie sheets will fit in and in which i can cook more than one thing at a time. love.

of course, though, the oven came in a huge box. and i think, considering the intense heat on the island this time of year and therefore lack of baking/cooking in general, we've had way more fun with this box than with the actual oven.

it lasted for three weeks as a house. we cut some holes, painted the walls, make-shifted a roof.

we took it down a few days ago - and are making postcards and picture frames with our little neighbor friends out of the recycled cardboard.

as parents we're trying really hard to make sure our kids understand that we need to appreciate and care for the resources we have  - we live on an island where electricity and water are unstable, where even when we have water, it's not drinkable. beyond that, there are children who don't have paper or books or pencils to write with. we don't often get a chance to do so many things with something as simple as a box.

but i'm sure the kids will long remember this box (samil's already asked if we can get another one to make a kitchen from!) and probably not (care to) remember the food we make on the new stove.

preparation

it's hard for me to have a strong-willed child. amely is nothing if not stubborn. if you ask her to do something that she's not interested in, she'll tell you. no. maybe no chaaaank you. but, no. amely hits her brother and then cries when he looks at her. she draws on the wall, and then gets a rag to clean it off. she knows what she's doing is against the rules, but she does it anyway. she scrambles from bed to bed at night, looking for the cool air when it's hot and the warm bodies when it's chilly. and she pretends to sleep - even standing up - when you catch her at her game.

she is my child.
i admit it.

but she is also loving and kind and loves kisses and hugs and sings songs and dances. oh, this child twirls. she has some "princess" skirts and she would live in them if we let her. she has tap shoes (three sizes too big) and she click-clicks through the house. and thank god that this side outweighs the bullheaded side. 

after a long day of butting heads, she'll say "hug me mommy" and it makes the rest of the day go away.

samil is not like amely. he is calm and collected and helpful. you could ask samil to wipe the cow's heiny and he'd do it. because he's just that kid.

but this post is not really about my kids. it's about that kid in school this morning and how thankful i am for preparation.

i'm the principal. it's been announced and the kids know that i'm the boss. most of them take that pretty seriously. not all of them. and at enrollment last week i met a treasure of a child - the youngest of five, the only girl in the family. she's been with us all year, but since i was not really present enough to know the students, we'd never crossed paths. 

today, for some odd reason, they decided i should be the disciplinarian. this child would not do what any body told her to. she wanted to brush a little girl's hair - little girl was not having it. then she killed a lizard and showed it to all her little friends. 

all of the things that amely would do.

i enter with my big-bad-principal persona and put her in "time-out" - she's 4, how bad can this be? she sat for three seconds, then came back in the class. i stood her up, she sat down. i sat her down, she stood up. 

when i finally got her standing and in a safe place she screamed. for five minutes. blood-curdling howls. and while everyone else ran and hid, i sat calmly doing some paperwork.

after all, i had already been prepared. 

we don't always get what we want, but usually we get what we need.

political opinion.

i'm not one to get too involved in the political mess that happens in this country every four years, but sometimes i get stuck in conversation about it. it's always important to be prepared for those inevitable moments, right?

the political situation here is... blatantly corrupt. í know that corruption is prevalent in many places in the world, but here, it's just so... transparent.

the mayor of santiago was voted in two years ago, based on a campaign that promised to rid santiago of trash. at the time, the former mayor had been slacking in the trash-removal department (and apparently many other departments as well). two years later, santiago is inundated with garbage because new mayor isn't paying the trash-collectors.

it's all a cycle. and it's common. and in order to avoid the headache of worrying about something that is not really my problem, i ignore it.

now, i pass by this wall every day, and occasionally things get spray painted that catch my attention.

 this one is my favorite - it says "the bitches to power, the sons are already there" - a cute play on how many people feel like those in power here are just sunofabitches. the phrase translates literally to the sons-of-whores.

if the politicians weren't so damaging, they'd make us laugh.

so true.

there was also some poster wall-art stuck around the city that said "nuestros suenos no caben en sus urnas" - our dreams don't fit in your ballot boxes - and how true is that?

what's been going on?

 i feel like i keep writing "i'll be back soon" - seriously. annoying, right?

it's just that we haven't had an internet connection and, more importantly, i hate making blog posts with no real pictures. and my camera is on the blitz - and by camera i mean my cell phone with flash camera (so if you've called and i haven't answered... forgive me please - it's going to the shop soon enough).

the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. i was on semester break at the university and i think i tried to fit every thing i possibly could into those blissful, work-free weeks. i took the kids to the campo to visit their grandpop and cousins the first weekend.

i love the campo for so many reasons - it's close to the beach (we didn't go), it's cooler than the city (it wasn't) and i don't really have to watch my kids (amely just about busted open her forehead), so the following weekend we went back - this time with friends, and a car (well, two). we hit one of my favorite beaches - a river/beach with just-right waves and spent time taking care of cows and reading and playing dominoes.

samil had a presentation at school - it was cute, but the whole process set my blood boiling a few times. the thing was delayed three times and in the end it started an hour later than stated. i know i should be used to this by now, and thankfully i was on vacation (or would have missed out on three days of work since not only was the activity postponed, but they didn't bother to inform until the actual days of the event). samil was a tree. and if you judge only by this picture, not a happy tree. but he took part in the english portion of the activity as well and told everyone his favorite "aminal" is a zebra, and neighed like a horse. too cute.

on the last weeked of my vacation, i turned 30. that's right, people the big 3-0. instead of dreading it, i celebrated (and am still celebrating!) we used my new grill (with a few hitches - it went out in the middle and we had to relight it) and had a barbecue (american style) complete with bachata and merengue dancing (dominican style). we, as a family, have been so blessed with good friends who share in the good and the bad with us - and we're all just as mixed and matched as any UN meeting :) (i do love diversity).

now, i'm back to work - working on some new projects and trying to get everything done and still enjoy it. i've been walking in the mornings again - and after a long time without any real exercise, i feel good. i don't know why i stopped, but it's back in the routine now and i'm feeling refreshed.

so, i've taken over the "leadership" of a school - working in collaboration with two amazing people i've known for so long (and am learning that i never really knew) to bring quality education in a faith-based environment to one of the most marginalized communities in santiago. i'm working with a friend to create job opportunities for impoverished women (more on that to come) and i've just finished a quickie (4 class) course on pregnancy and childbirth in our community. i'll be offering a more extensive course for pregnant teenagers starting june 9. i was blessed by a wonderful woman, tracy, with all the books i needed to get started, i've been blessed.

more is happening, but i just hope to get back on here on a more regular basis. i hope all you faithful (5) readers are content and healthy!

shoe fetish.

my shoe closet consists of one pair of blue flats, one pair of black flats, a pair of blue, peep-toe sandals, black work shoes, black pumps, 8 million flip flops and a pair of sneakers.

i am no shoe fashionista. or any kind of fashionista for that manner. i leave that job for amely.

i like shoes. to look at them, admire them. but the thought of stilettos sends me directly to the emergency room with a broken neck. and anything that isn't comfortable to look at is off the list of shoes for me.

i'm even a little judgmental about shoes. mostly because here shoes are a big deal. women wear high-heels all.of.the.time. platform shoes, chunky heels, kitten heels - you name it, it's worn here every.single.day. recently stilettos have become popular - not just any stiletto, but stilettos pair with platforms, also known as stripper shoes.

i think they're great. really. if you're going dancing or on a sexy date. or if you're just getting paid for sex on a date. lovely, these shoes are. but what i can't wrap my mind around is why in the world you'd put on these shoes to go traipsing around the city. to the supermarket, to the park with your kids, to take class in the university.

i just don't get it.

i've been on the look out lately, and luckily (lucky for my judgmental self), i've noticed that they're not really that common in the grand scheme of things. when i go to the fancy supermarkets, there might be one or two ladies in the entire store sporting plastic platforms on her feet, but the supermarkets that cater to a lower socio-economic class have a higher average of spike-heels.

seriously, who goes out in these things? do you? why? let me know.

celebrate.



if you've read this blog for any length of time, you've probably caught glimpses of my ups and downs in the making of friends. i'm not a terribly social person, but i'm not really a loner, either. most of our friends (as a family) are dominicans - we do, afterall, live and work in the community with dominican people.





when i first moved here, i was isolated from other foreigners - i worked a lot and lived in a not-foreign-friendly area. had it not been for that experience, i'm sure i would still be stumbling along in spanish and culturally offending more often than i do now.


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Deborah, Stephanie and Ada y Ilvania



then i got married and moved to an apartment complex full of americans. but not the kind anyone wants to be friends with - old men looking for love from 20 something women, paying their pension checks to support three kids who aren't theirs and the sex that comes with it.



i made friends with the people around me and for the most part have been content with that.




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dirty martini - that was more like toilet water... complete
with a chunk of ice to keep it cold. nasty.



but in the past year, some of us middle-of-the-line ex-pats have become friends - our kids play together, we hang out and get along really well. i finally feel happy to have met some people i feel okay letting my kids play with, who speak english and are down for anything.



 friday we started my birthday celebration. it was fun. there aren't many pictures. the restaurant service was horrible. the food was good. and we laughed and laughed.

a bunch of us girls are missing. (martine scooted out of every picture!) but don't worry, i've got a whole month left of birthday to celebrate!

wherein i rant about students.

today is my last day of class. in fact, i'm already finished class. today was the last day of class. tomorrow, final exams begin. my students have exams tomorrow, and next monday. (i teach two different courses).

i thought the drama was over last week - all students who needed to drop classes did that weeks ago, and those who didn't were well aware of their status. what i didn't expect was crying over nothing. tears. real, live tears from 20 year old boys and girls.

one student comes late to class everyday. every. single. day. he's 20. and blames everything on his parents. "my mom drives me to school and she won't leave earlier." well, friend, than your mom is getting you an F. he missed a signup for final presentations and was irked when i told him there was no time for him to present on the last day. if he wasn't prepared, so be it. fail. i pointed out every single lateness and absence, all of his missed homework and still. he needs a miracle on his final exam to pass.

then, on thursday, half of my class missed. they had already given their final presentations, and the university-issued attendance policy was no longer in place, so why not just bail on their classmates? i told the class that those who missed would lose points, especially because most who were missing had proven themselves irresponsible throughout the semester. after class, a student calls me, "i just don't want you to think that i missed because i'm irresponsible." shut the front door, lady! i dismissed her and hung up, only to get another call the following morning. "i really need to talk to you." fine. after i pointed out all of her instances of irresponsibility she cried and told me she didn't think english class was "so serious" and "ohmygod i don't want anyone to think i'm a baby."

there are so many up-sides to working at this university. but there are many days i want to pull my hair out - i can't handle that 21 year old kids can't make decisions or take responsibility for themselves. my first semester here, i had a final-year student tell me that she needed "to call mami" because she didn't know how to get home from school that day since the chauffer was sick. and another who wanted to miss two weeks of class to take a vacation with her family in the middle of the semester - and not fail her classes, because "my parents are making me do it." i even had a mom call me this semester to tell me her daughter had a cold and couldn't make it to class, and because i was "so strict" (i'm not) she felt like it was necessary to explain to me that i shouldn't mark her absent because she really is "sick."

after my four week vacation (starting now) i'll be refreshed and ready for another round of crazy. but for today, i'm glad to be out of here!

sunnies.

since my schedule finally lightened up toward the end of this semester, i've been home on tuesday and thursday mornings with amely. mostly we've did hilarious exercise (three year olds doing zumba is hilarious, admit it!) and made lunch - i don't know where the morning goes. but, we do try to get to the corner store most of the time.

lately, amely's been into accesorizing - but, she's three. this is what happens to sunglasses on a twenty minute walk.

boobies.

i had a woman approach me once about private english classes. she had met her "boyfriend" over the internet and he wanted to "invest" money in her english language progress. i could barely take her seriously though - i'm an internet-love skeptic, especially when it comes to dominicanas and... well, i couldn't look at her because her breasts were so large i thought she might fall over.

no, seriously.
they were fake, and they must have been a size K. or bigger. and on her medium frame, it was just ridiculous.

a lot of women get boob jobs here - and not just the social elite - i've heard stories about how women go into bankruptcy to get the procedure done. and when it comes down to it, they've done it to ensure a better life with a more wealthy partner (read: north american or european).

i could never wrap my head around it. i have big boobs. and they hurt. my back hurts. my bras are not attractive. a college roommate had an even larger chest, and she had some parlor tricks with her boobs that were funny to us - but might have sent more sane ladies running for the hills.

for a long time i wondered just how women even got the idea that the extreme makeover would get them a man. and then, where do they buy shirts to cover those ta-tas?
 
well, have no fear. this picture should answer both questions for you.

not only are her breasts of non-human barbie-proportion, but it must be a little bit cold in the store front that she's posed in.

and how about this gem of a mannequin? her face is classic party-girl - because, it's not blondes who have more fun, it's big-boobied girls (apparently.)

santiago b-ball tournament (and some b-boys, too)

who even knew there was a professional ball league in santiago?

not me.

so when amalio called a few nights ago and asked if the kids wanted to go to the santiago tournament, i quick-changed them and headed out the door. we arrived just in time to storm the door with 75 of amalio's students. excited to see what it was all about, i was pretty disappointed that the entire arena was empty.

seriously there were maybe 100 people in the place, and 75 of them were... us.

the game started out slow, but by the end it was super-exciting and the place had filled up. apparently the game we had come to see was just the first of three games that night - and between the two bottom ranking teams. no wonder the place was empty.

i wasn't impressed with the game - even these kids playing on the street corner near our house played better - at least more enthusiastically. samil was so impressed that he fell asleep in his chair, and while amely was a little whiny, she found our friend rovinson and took off with him once the music started.

and that's what impressed me (and amely). not the music, but the dancers who came out between games.

a local rapper was performing - horribly - and his back up break dancers were disorganized and uncoreographed. even still, their moves were captivating and impressive. in a country where dance classes are expensive and overrated, and gymnastics classes for boys are unheard of,  i'm always excited to see kids who have honed their skills and show dedication to their art.

celebrating the green in DR.

one of the aspects of my job in the university that i really love is the cultural awareness that can be built into my classes. i think that as an american, i tend to forget that most societies are fairly homogeneous (at least compared to the united states). i catch myself getting frustrated when my students don't know about others. they own their own people but forget about understanding anyone else. which is fine in most cases - but the world is shrinking, and i am a firm believer that we need to understand our neighbors - and our neighbors are no longer just dominicans.

i probably don't take advantage of the situation as much as i should - or could. but it's nice to work in themes that can impact students more than, say.... "what i like to eat for lunch" or "space tourism" (no joke, it's in our books). we can pull them through immigration debates, poverty, the effects of technology, humility, war.

but, like i said. i probably don't do as much as i could. however, i love holidays so i always try to pawn my favorites off on my students as well. on friday we celebrated saint patricks day but wearing the green and sending the students on a hunt to find a pot of gold. childish? maybe. but it was good fun, and a nice break in the day-in-day-out of the school life.

because you speak english.

we got our tv fixed. (i wrote finally here three times before i decided that one week without a tv does not warrant a finally. it's not like we were completely tv free - we still have another tv - a 15 inch, 15 year old, no control, no volume control tv but it works)

a technician came to fix the cable this afternoon. i was doing laundry in the bathtub (remember the broken washer?), samil was in his underwear and amely was dancing like a ballelina to sexy and i know it (she is, and she does. and tells us frequently."mami, sexy and i know IT")

i was a little embarassed, a little flustered - i didn't expect the technician to arrive at all, let alone so quickly - we just reported the problem yesterday. that is an unheard of turn around in this country. he comes in, looks at the tv table in the living room and the empty cable hanging out, not plugged into anything.

"um, i came to fix the cable."
"yah, come on in. sorry for the uh, craziness"
"well, i'm here to fix the cable, but i don't think the cable is the problem, miss"
"oh no, really, it's not been working. we can't see any channels at all."

he looks again at the tv stand. i, completely oblivious to his confusion, explain away - the neighbors cut our wire so thin stealing borrowing our cable and when we fixed it, we obviously didn't do it right.

"miss, um, you know i uh, i'm not sure if the cable is the problem."
"well, what else would the problem be?"
"well, you don't have a tv."

ha!
i needed that today.
once i explained the broken tv (burned out lamps or something - a problem with the inconsistency of the electricity in the country) and that it was in the shop, and that yes, there is another that he can use to check the problem, he got down to work. he was a bit wary to drink my juice and kept looking at samil's ironman underoos. obviously, our whole interaction took place in spanish (i  speak really good spanish), but when he left he  says,

"uh, miss, i'm sorry that i couldn't communicate with you because you speak english. so if you have any problems, call customer service, they have an english line." what?

some days are just funny, i guess.

(on the tv front, for those of you living in similar electrical  situations - apparently the rise and fall of the voltage here is hard on LCD tvs - i mean obviously it's not healthy for any appliance but lcds really dislike it - and even if your tv is just in standby the difference can cause problems. so, the backlight on the tv burned out. after some research online i was discouraged because the best advice they had was "get a new tv" becuase the repair costs about $400 USD. welcome to  the dominican republic, $40 USD later we have a fixed tv and the wise words to unplug the thing at night to avoid further problems)