Life in Chihuahua, Mexico has been real. Almost too real sometimes. And
others, not real enough! (I am currently listening to music with
headphones to drown out the sound of the fussy baby that's been driving me
BATTY not quite next door, more like in the next room that's connected by a
permanently open window...Her name's Julia too. Poor little Julia is never
quite happy and always getting scolded in Spanish. I think I was the same way
when I was small.) Oh well.
So I guess that's a good enough intro for the place I've been living for the
last month! Now, in all due fairness, Canaantzi did do his ABSOLUTE BEST to
find the nicest, most affordable apartment for him, me and Carlos, his buddy.
He searched high and wide and COMBED the city, but there's just not a lot available here and then you have the added difficulty of making sure it's in a good neighborhood so you don't get accidentally sprayed with bullets! (But that's my next entry). All things considered, he did a fabulous job. There's just a few quirks with this apartment:
1.)The fridge is on crack and adding to the drug problem here. It freezes
everything solid then proceeds to thaw and flood the kitchen floor until we give it another hit...Occassionaly we've got rivers and lakes we have to paddle through to be able to cook!
2.)The apartment that it is ajoined with literally is ADJOINED. There's a
window in our kitchen and BEDROOM to the other apartment. We can shut the one in the kitchen but the one in the bedroom is the issue, really. It's a HUGE window, from floor to ceiling, covered by a thin, white curtain with smaller windows up top, one of which is missing the glass...so it's open. Now, this window opens up into the other people's KITCHEN which is really just wonderful. Most of the time our bedroom smells like frying meat. It's really spectacular when we're in bed at 11 or 12 and someone walks into the kitchen for a late night snack or glass of water and TURNS THE LIGHTS ON because guess what...OUR BEDROOM GETS FLOODED WITH LIGHT. Randomly. Whenver. All through the night. It's great when our neighbor invites his buddies over and drinks all night...they're constantly snacking and talking in the kitchen making for GREAT sleep-background noise.
3.)This brings me to our neighbor, lovingly dubbed "The Monster Next Door."
This may not be a fair nickname because the landlady really did say he was a
nice fella...I just haven't really seen much evidence of this. When I first
heard his voice I was like "What the fu...."? He had a deep voice that
sounded like Arnold Schwartzenegger who was all stuffed up. Supposedly he
speaks in Spanish but Canaantzi and Carlos can't ever understand a word he
says (due to the windows we hear everything that is said loud and clear).
Um...CREEPY. Then I saw his face and understood why his voice sounded like
that. I don't know what's happening, if he's got cancer or something else,
but it's unfortunately very badly disfigured-both of his cheaks all the way
down to the jaw are puffed out and it looks like his nostrils are embedded in his face...Hence the muffled wierd voice. So. There's that.
4.)The shower that thinks showering JUST YOU is NOT ENOUGH and insists on showering the whole room. Really, it's a problem of the shower curtain--we need to buy a REAL one and a shower nozzel that isn't ALSO on crack. Regardless, whenever you take a shower the whole room ends up showered as well and mopping up the floor is a necessary evil. (All I can think of is those cockroaches scuttling over the floor all night...ewwww). It's really very nice.
5.)The cockroaches the size of mice. I don't think I have to say anything more on the subject except for the fact that I am CONVINCED, for better or worse, that I am, IN FACT, The Cockroach Whisperer. When I talk, they listen. It's been a mystical experience.
6.)The faulty pipe of the water tank located on the roof that occassionaly floods THE BEDROOM. Last week I woke up to the sound of rain and thought it was funny because I live in a desert. I opened my eyes and it was raining IN MY ROOM. Water was POORING down from a ceiling vent flooding the room. My big backpack just happened to be under it....Ya. It was a stellar day. Carlos was awesome. He climbed up on the roof and from what we can tell, fixed it. Mr. McGuyver, I salute you!
7.)The bathroom is located at the back of the apartment through the two bedrooms. So you have to walk through BOTH bedrooms to get to the bathroom. This can be pretty inconvenient for both or all parties when the bathroom needs to get used especially at night, which brings me to my NEXT point:
8.)The bathroom light and bedroom light are WIRED TOGETHER. That's right. At ll or 12 or 1am when you wanna go to the bathroom, guess what. Everyone get's rudely awakened by bright light (unless you want to feel around the bathroom in the dark and possibly run into some cockroaches with bare feet...no thank you.)
Now. I don't want to end this entry on a bad note. There is ONE good thing about this apartment...YOU CAN FLUSH TOILET PAPER DOWN THE TOILET! (Unlike the rest of Mexico). And while it may seem that I complained a lot...in reality I do love the apartment, most of the time, for all its little quirks. They do make life interesting and me laugh. So there you have it, a little slice of what life is like living in Mexico.
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