November 21, 2011

I did my Monday torture session at boot camp today - I think it's about 88 degrees, with a million percent humidity.  Approximately.  I'm trying to use this opportunity to exercise regularly (something that was harder to do in Alaska) and make it into a whole overhaul of my physical fitness....but we'll see how it goes.  You'd think with a full-time maid, gardener, and driver - plus all three kids in school for 7 hours per day - that I'd have a lot of extra time on my hands.  Not so much.  A ridiculous amount of time is spent dealing with food - how to get it, where to get it, standing in line to get it, changing money over to pay for it, storing it, and then my favorite - preparing it in some magical manner that makes it appetizing to the family.  When you add in the time I spend trying to get the maintenance guys to come and fix the multitude of problems with the house, the hours of hunting all over the house to find where the maid has put things, and the various social activities around here.....it just doesn't seem like there's enough time for the stuff I'd really like to be doing - which is mostly sewing!

Anyway, back to the subject of time.  It feels like so much time is wasted here, and I think as a typical American, that's extra frustrating for me.  This Sunday, for example - we were supposed to spend the day on a BP boat, fishing and visiting the island.  I had heard from another BP wife that there were some engine problems with the boat earlier in the week, so I had Adam call the boat guy to find out if we should cancel our reservation.  No, the guy said it was just a clogged filter, they'd fixed it, so no worries.  We woke up early Sunday morning, and I packed all the things we'd need for the day - sunscreen, lunches, bug spray, life jackets, fishing equipment, ice cooler, etc.  We got a ride down to the dock, and got on the boat. 20 minutes into the ride.....we could tell something was wrong.  After a phone call from the captain of the boat to the main office, and a lot of gesturing from him to us - we understood that the engine wasn't working, and we'd have to go back to shore.  Awesome!  So that was a good 6 hours of our time completely wasted - and that is just typical of how things go here.  So.  Frustrating.  But at the same time, I can't help but be reminded what spoiled, fortunate people we are.  We had to drive back home past people with no roof on their houses, a woman carrying two cases of beer on her head (can you imagine how heavy that must be?), and tons of children running around garbage piles that surround their houses.

So far today,  I've been waiting 5 hours for the repair person to come and look at our leaking air conditioners.  For the 4th time.  I think the universe is sending me a message regarding patience!