An Uncomfortable Day
Today has just sucked and blowed at the same time.
Around lunchtime today I got word that our bank in Tamarindo was robbed. Four guys in a white car rolled up, shot the security guard and robbed the place. In broad daylight! Downtown Tamarindo! How they managed a fast get away on the most farked up pitted road in the area I do not know.
This news really shook me up. I know that guard all too well. A very helpful and kind guy Plus everyone else working in that building. We've spent many a long hour sitting in that lobby withdrawing money, buying CDs, paying bills and assorted other things.
Here in Costa Rica you go to the bank to pay your car registration, your electric, water and cable bill and everything else. I can just imagine how frightening that must have been for Junior, Diego, and and the nice lady in the loan department. All the tellers. All my friends there.
It's even more shocking because Tama is a lot like a small Southern U.S. town. Everyone here, Ticos, Americans, Europeans, all know each other. It's not the sort of spot where criminal behavior thrives, at least nothing more than being asked again and again to buy cocaine or weed when walking in certain areas here. Normally the only crime you see here is petty theft, and nothing, de nada, to do with guns. They're quite expensive to own, and the government puts you through all sorts of screening and registration. Almost everyone I know here who owns a guy is American. I have a feeling when this all shakes out they'll find that the robbers had guns taken from American homes.
Suddenly I feel most unsafe. I haven't felt that way since leaving Copey. Copey felt scary and foreign. I remember that first day I arrived, asking the landlord for a few washcloths, a hand towel and a top sheet for the bed. She shrugged and said that the top sheet wasn't necessary, she only buys bottoms, and that she didn't know what a wash cloth or a hand towel were. She was nice enough, she just didn't have a clue about the niceties I considered essentials. I got to learn anew how ridiculously privileged I really was and I didn't like it much.
It was a sense of cultural dislocation like I'd never experienced before. Having to catch the lone bus to town every day at noon if I wanted something as simple as a pack of safety pins, or an otc cold medicine. Finding out there was scanty internet, no proper towels and sheets, and the most primitive accommodations was disheartening. I was frightened and upset the entire time we were there.
Copey was incredibly beautiful and the people nice, but I cried every single day there. Eventually I found my way to the bus into Cartago and got those hand towels, wash clothes and sheets. It was better as I learned to navigate into the bigger cities to seek those things I needed.
Getting to Tamarindo, where there are plenty of wash clothes, hand towels and sheets galore available was good. More like the cultural norms I was used to. A place that didn't laugh when I wanted air conditioning or heating. Didn't act like I was nuts for wanting to wash my sheets and towels weekly instead of after weeks on end.
Before dinnertime the other awful things started happening. A friend asked me to lend them a sum of money. Since we got here we've had a laundry list of people trying to borrow money. The only time we did it was a disaster. I hated telling this person no, but I'm so done with others trying to get money out of me. Real life, online, nope I am not the bank. This money grab has ruined a few friendships and make me incredibly wary of some folks I used to call friends.
But the capper was about an hour ago. Raining, I came into the bedroom to lay down for a few minutes after checking the drainage and seeing that everything looked good. The drainage situation hasn't been completely because of the extreme rain we've been having. Some progress has been make, some of the drain has been dug with holes drilled into the bottom of the wall, but we're a long way from completed.
I got up a mere 30 minutes later to find my living room and kitchen in water yet again. quarter inch maybe, but so incredibly frustrating to see. I swung into action with the squeegee, but my husband sat at his computer, in his underwear like an unmoving lump, like Jabba the Hut or something, and DID NOTHING. I finally threw down the squeegee, muttering voodoo curses under my breath and came back into the bedroom. Fuck his lazy ass. He can clean it all up. I am done.
So angry over his dithering, and slow poke nature in getting this dealt with. Angry over his lack of concern. I'm moving into the guesthouse and he can have the water. I swear, I am so damn tempted to leave right now. I hate being taken for-granted.
Around lunchtime today I got word that our bank in Tamarindo was robbed. Four guys in a white car rolled up, shot the security guard and robbed the place. In broad daylight! Downtown Tamarindo! How they managed a fast get away on the most farked up pitted road in the area I do not know.
This news really shook me up. I know that guard all too well. A very helpful and kind guy Plus everyone else working in that building. We've spent many a long hour sitting in that lobby withdrawing money, buying CDs, paying bills and assorted other things.
Here in Costa Rica you go to the bank to pay your car registration, your electric, water and cable bill and everything else. I can just imagine how frightening that must have been for Junior, Diego, and and the nice lady in the loan department. All the tellers. All my friends there.
It's even more shocking because Tama is a lot like a small Southern U.S. town. Everyone here, Ticos, Americans, Europeans, all know each other. It's not the sort of spot where criminal behavior thrives, at least nothing more than being asked again and again to buy cocaine or weed when walking in certain areas here. Normally the only crime you see here is petty theft, and nothing, de nada, to do with guns. They're quite expensive to own, and the government puts you through all sorts of screening and registration. Almost everyone I know here who owns a guy is American. I have a feeling when this all shakes out they'll find that the robbers had guns taken from American homes.
Suddenly I feel most unsafe. I haven't felt that way since leaving Copey. Copey felt scary and foreign. I remember that first day I arrived, asking the landlord for a few washcloths, a hand towel and a top sheet for the bed. She shrugged and said that the top sheet wasn't necessary, she only buys bottoms, and that she didn't know what a wash cloth or a hand towel were. She was nice enough, she just didn't have a clue about the niceties I considered essentials. I got to learn anew how ridiculously privileged I really was and I didn't like it much.
It was a sense of cultural dislocation like I'd never experienced before. Having to catch the lone bus to town every day at noon if I wanted something as simple as a pack of safety pins, or an otc cold medicine. Finding out there was scanty internet, no proper towels and sheets, and the most primitive accommodations was disheartening. I was frightened and upset the entire time we were there.
Copey was incredibly beautiful and the people nice, but I cried every single day there. Eventually I found my way to the bus into Cartago and got those hand towels, wash clothes and sheets. It was better as I learned to navigate into the bigger cities to seek those things I needed.
Getting to Tamarindo, where there are plenty of wash clothes, hand towels and sheets galore available was good. More like the cultural norms I was used to. A place that didn't laugh when I wanted air conditioning or heating. Didn't act like I was nuts for wanting to wash my sheets and towels weekly instead of after weeks on end.
Before dinnertime the other awful things started happening. A friend asked me to lend them a sum of money. Since we got here we've had a laundry list of people trying to borrow money. The only time we did it was a disaster. I hated telling this person no, but I'm so done with others trying to get money out of me. Real life, online, nope I am not the bank. This money grab has ruined a few friendships and make me incredibly wary of some folks I used to call friends.
But the capper was about an hour ago. Raining, I came into the bedroom to lay down for a few minutes after checking the drainage and seeing that everything looked good. The drainage situation hasn't been completely because of the extreme rain we've been having. Some progress has been make, some of the drain has been dug with holes drilled into the bottom of the wall, but we're a long way from completed.
I got up a mere 30 minutes later to find my living room and kitchen in water yet again. quarter inch maybe, but so incredibly frustrating to see. I swung into action with the squeegee, but my husband sat at his computer, in his underwear like an unmoving lump, like Jabba the Hut or something, and DID NOTHING. I finally threw down the squeegee, muttering voodoo curses under my breath and came back into the bedroom. Fuck his lazy ass. He can clean it all up. I am done.
So angry over his dithering, and slow poke nature in getting this dealt with. Angry over his lack of concern. I'm moving into the guesthouse and he can have the water. I swear, I am so damn tempted to leave right now. I hate being taken for-granted.
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