I´ve Got to Get Myself Together...

So today I am a bit miffed. Lets back up to Wednesday. Wednesday is the day that I went to get my map, if you recall from the last post (if you are keeping up, as I am sure you are). Here is what happended on Wednesday:

7:30am my counterpart texts me from someone´s phone, not her phone, to ask if I got home okay. She cannot text me from her phone because she does not have saldo. Saldo is credit on your cell phone to call and text people, like how people in the States say "minutes" on the phone. She has not had saldo on her phone since I got here two weeks ago on Labor Day. Even before that I am pretty sure, I dont think she had saldo when I was texting her from Quito before I came to Guayaquil, because she never responded to my messages. Anyhow, I thought it was weird that she was texting me on Wednesday AM, because if she was worried about me getting home, why not text me on Tuesday night? (we had a meeting in one of the barrios on Tuesday, and I took a taxi to get back home) And if youre gonna wait until the next morning, why not just talk to me in the office? (we meet at the office Monday-Friday at 10am, per her instruction) So, I text her back that I got home fine, and ask her if she is going to the office (thinking maybe shes not going to work that day, and thats why shes texting me). She says that she will be at the office at 10am. I text her back and say fine, see you there.

9:30am I text her again (to her phone this time, because I dont know who´s phone she was using earlier, so I dont know if she is still with that person) to tell her that I am going to the Municipio to get my map before I come to the office. She does not respond.

10:20am I text her again to say that I will have to wait for 30 more minutes to get my map copy. She does not respond.

10:55am(ish) I get to the office. I am told that she has yet to come in that day, no one has heard from her. I assume she is on her way, since the last I heard from her she was coming in at 10am.

lunchime She still is not there.

1:30pm(ish) I get back from lunch, shes still not there. So I blog. And dick around on the free internet.

3pm(ish) Blogging done, shes still not there, no one has heard from her. I tell the org president that I am leaving because she has not come in and I do not have any work to be doing in the office, but I have other things to be doing at home (like fixing my phone, because it does not tell me what number is calling me when I receieve or miss a call. Nor does it have voicemail. Neither of these things is explained in the user manual that came with the phone, so I will have to call customer service to figure it out. Awesome, because they speak only in Spanish. This will be important later). The org president frowns at me, as if I am doing something wrong by leaving the office when I had previously been doing nothing at all outside of blogging and blogstalking. PS, Just because I am looking at the computer does not mean I am working. He says to wait, he is going to call her and see where she is. He calls, she does not answer. I tell him again that I am leaving. He asks if I am coming back later? I respond, uhh...I guess if there is a reason for me to come back later? Tell her to call me.

Sometime while I am on my way home, my phone rings. I dont hear it. Probably because I am on the Metrovia trying to concentrate on not missing my stop again and decifering what brand of deoderant the person next to me uses, might as well since we are stuffed in so close that my nose is in his armpit.

4pm (ish) I get home, see that I missed a call. Then I swear at my phone and ask it why it does not register numbers that call me. The phone does not respond (maybe I hurt its feelings by swearing?). I start my 2 hour trek towards fixing the problem with my phone. Note to self: I will never again get mad at a customer service person who is in some basement office in India trying to help me fix my American cell phone or computer while speaking in broken English. I would have killed for some customer service in broken English. Instead, I got Spanish. But at least they were pacient with me, it cant be easy trying to fix the phone of some stupid gringo who can barely explain what the problem is in English, let alone Spanish.

6:15 (ish) She calls me and in an accusatory voice says "Where are you?!?"

I say "I am at home. Where are you??"

"In the office. Why arent you here??" still in an accusatory voice. Now I am getting irritated.

"Umm, I waited for you all day. I was at the office until at least 3, and you never came. So I left." My voice is getting louder...

"You told me you were going to get you map, so I was waiting for you to call me when you got to the office." Whoa, yelling is not necessary, it warps the sound on my crappy cell phone, and it is not helping my headache from this customer service marathon.

Oh sweet Jesus if only my Spanish was better. What part of "I will be in the office in 30 minutes" would cause her to think that I would call her when I got there? And when did she ask me to call?? And what happened to her coming to the office at 10??? Instead I say, "No, I got to the office around 11, you never came!" Okay, I will admit, it probably was not necessary for me to yell, but come on!

She yells something about me not yelling at her, and hangs up. Very mature, great.

So I call the number back (of course, shes not calling from her own phone, because she still has no saldo). I speak calmly with her. She says there is no need for me to come back into the office, but that we have a movie program the next morning. I ask her if it starts at 8am? (thats the time that I hearing it was to begin) She says yes, 8am, at the theater, do I know where the theater is? I tell her I know how to get there and will meet her there.

Thursday, 8am I arrive at the theater. I am told by the guard that no one is there yet. So I call my counterpart, she says it doesnt start till 9:30. "Arrrrrrghhhhh! SOOO glad that I woke up early for nothing!" I think, but calmly respond that its fine, I can hang out and wait.

Thursday and Friday: Thursday PM we confirm that I will take the bus from downtown out to her barrio to meet her at 8am for a charla in a school in her barrio. The charla is to start at 8am, and we should be on time so as to respect the schedule of the school, she tells me. Fine by me. So I wake up early, dont have time to drink my coffee so I drink street coffee instead, and I get to the meeting point in her barrio at 5 minutes to 8. She is not there. I text her, she walks up from her house to meet me. We proceed to wait in her house for at least 30 minutes as she finnishes getting ready to go, i.e. we get to the school late.

Let me also interject here that on Tuesday, she got all crabby about this other guy that we work with for not showing up for a meeting between her, him, and some kids in his barrio. She was (understandably) annoyed because she does not know the kids in his barrio, so with out him, the meeting cannot happen. Thursday she got all crabby with this other girl that we work with for holding up a bus that was taking a bunch of people in the barrios out to a program in the suburbs. Overall, she gets crabby when people hold up her schedule.

Then yesterday, Friday, evening before leaving the office, I tell her that I would like to go to the workshop in one of the barrios on Saturday AM. I ask her if I should meet her in her barrio, since the kids from her barrio are going and I know what bus to take to get to her barrio, but not to the barrio where the workshop is. No, she says, to meet her at the office at 8:30, and we will go together. Before I leave her at her bus stop to go home, I confirm 8:30am again with her, and she says Yes. Friday night, I get barely any sleep because my neighbors appearantly do not have to work the next day, so they are enjoying themselves with a reaggaeton dance party.

Saturday AM (today) I wake up with my left eye twitching. My eye twitches when I am stressed out and need a break. I contemplate bailing on the workshop, but dont want to because the group of jovenes that I really want to work with is going to be there, and I want to spend time with them. I drag myself out of bed, get dressed, get on the bus, and get the the office just shy of 8:30. Guess what?? SHES NOT THERE! So I call her, "I am on my way, wait for me there," she says. So I wait. Until 9:20. Someone else in the office asks me what I am doing, I explain that I was told to be there at 8:30 to go to the barrios. They remind me that the workshop started at 9am, and say that it is not reasonable for me to have to wait for her to come in. I agree, and I´m crabby now, so I leave. As I am walking down the street, guess who I see? Yep, my counterpart. I make and angry looking-at-my-watch gesture (not actually wearing a watch, but point gets across nonetheless).

"Oh, Tere! I am so sorry!"

"What time is it?"

"I know, I know. But listen before you get mad. I had to go to the pharmacy to get something for my mom..." she starts to say. Whatever, sick mom excuse is so not going to fly with me.

"You could have called."

"I know, but I dont have any saldo on my phone!"

"Yeah, I know. But thats not fair and its not a reason." Damnit limited Spanish vocabulary!

"Well lets just go and get out to the workshop."

"Um, no. I am going home."

So I leave. Feeling pissed that I will not get to see the jovenes, but glad that I am not going, cause this is getting out of hand. I go home and I work on a schedule (something I have been told we would sit down and do "Hoy, ya mismo") of how I want to be spending my days. I have got to take control of my life here. I am depending way too much on her when I really do not need to be. If I want to go to the barrio, I should just call the person from the barrio, get on the bus and have them meet me out there. Forget all this waiting around in the office for my PC experience to start. I am over it. Then I call another group here in Guayaquil (who wanted a PCV, but didnt get one assigned to them) and let them know that I would like to get together with them. I have got to come back to myself, I think. In the States, I was never the kind of girl who waited around for someone to direct me. If I wanted to get something done, I went out there and did it. Here, I feel so much more timid because of the language barrier, but whenever I take that step on my own, I always end up having a much better time than when I am holding onto someone else´s hand to guide me.

Deep breathes, loud humming to self. Then I smile and feel good for getting my own ass in gear. Later, I will call my counterpart and tell her that we need to get together to talk. Then I will professionally give her a piece of my mind in as extensive of a Spanish vocabulary as I am able to conjure up.

So this is it folks, this is me. Getting it together.