Tuesday, August 28, 2007

So Far, So Good

The school year has started off well, with a minimum of drama. I did have a student who had not completed his summer reading assignment and who gave as his excuse that he had inadvertently burned the assignment while he was burning all of the remains of his sixth grade year. So we'll be keeping the matches away from that one. (I had plenty of students who didn't do their summer reading, but most of the excuses were more mundane, such as "I didn't feel like doing my summer reading." Refreshingly honest, anyway.)

One of the two air conditioners in my classroom is working, and I have fans here and there (though one of my ceiling fans has no blades on it - presumably the result of my request for said fan to be repaired over the summer), so the room is very comfortable - well, once the kids leave it actually gets rather cold. My room still looks great even after two days of students in it.

The schedule is almost all ironed out, which in my experience is amazing after only two days. Pretty much everyone is behaving - though that could just be because they are figuring things out and laying plans for mayhem.

While things are going smoothly at school, at home is a different story. Our electricity problems are back. City power is out once again, after working for two weeks. (By the way, explain to me, if you can, why our electricity bill was so much larger than usual last month when our connection has been non-functional for five or six out of the last eight weeks?) Just to add to our enjoyment, our generator stopped working this week, as well. That is now repaired, and we have been able to enjoy such luxuries as running water once again. (Yes, I know, I know, it IS a luxury, compared to most of the world.) Right now, the house across the street, whose owners have sensibly invested in their own transformer, has city power, but we don't on this side of the street. Our neighbors to the right and left are running their generators. Normally, I would be rushing about, calling all the numbers I have for the power company (at least five, I think), begging them to come fix the problem. But I guess I am becoming more accustomed to the culture of Tecwil, which calls for enjoying the moment and being glad that there's some charge in the inverter batteries and the fan and internet connection are working. I'll worry about the rest of the problems tomorrow!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know how the billing works there (or here, for that matter :^), but is it possible someone has 'stolen' your power? (run a line to their house that's getting billed to yours)

When we were working on the Habitat project in Costa Rica, they ran wires from a nearby house to our work project. By "nearby" I mean the length of 4 or 5 lots away, across a street, up a hill, etc. They were also getting water (for the cement) from there. When they needed more water, someone would walk halfway to the house and whistle. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like in "Tecwil", since CR is pretty 'advanced' w.r.t. development!

Ruth said...

Hi Tricia,

It's certainly possible but I don't know how to even start finding out. If you can't see the wire on your pole, which we can't, then is it possible they have done it anyway?