In the Twilight Zone

Wednesday December 10

Since we were going to Matt’s house and had to be there at 5.30pm, I told Gonzales to work until 3.00pm. We plan to stay overnight at Matt’s house, so I told Gonzales to come to work tomorrow at 10am.

We left about 3.15pm so we would have time to go on the Internet before we went to Matt’s house. Jayne had brought with her a picture she made to give to Amparo and Matt.

At 7.15pm we left the house to go to the meeting. When we got there Matt recognized my neighbor (who lives next door) in the room. There were only about 7 people there. Then we went to the entrance of the complex, which is outside, and talked. There was about 4 or 5 other people there listening to Matt and my neighbor talk.

I asked Matt to say why a contact person, in which to pay, is not put on the notice board? One man responded (who does not live next door). He said, “Because everybody knows everyone.”

Matt repeated his question and he got the same answer. He said “he” meaning me, doesn’t know everyone and this guy repeated “Everyone knows everyone.” At this time I said, “I felt like was in the Twilight Zone!”

Matt said, “Where?” and he had to repeat this couple of times when he got the same stupid answer back.

These people just can’t be taught basic logic, even though they are adults!

I passed the suggestion on to be translated that a person’s name, flat number and phone number should be on there. How can you expect people to pay if they don’t know who to pay?

This guy, who speaks some English said, “Why weren’t you here?” And Matt said, “Why should he have to live here?” He repeated, “Why don’t you live here?” And this went question back and forth a couple of times.

Matt tried to explain to this thick headed person that I lived in Cyprus and you don’t have to live in a place that you own.

To make the situation more strange is that two other woman were agreeing with this guy on:
Everyone knows everyone
I should have been here

I must have said two more times that “This must be the Twilight Zone!” I didn’t want to say how stupid they are where they can understand me so that is why I said “Twilight Zone,” which is like being in the old TV series about the “Twilight Zone.” (For foreign readers this means “unreal, strange, and weird.”

My neighbor, who doesn’t speak English, said that he understood that the person and place to pay should be posted.

Ah, at least someone understood!

We asked about what these $15 charges are. And we were told that that when there is a meeting and someone doesn’t show up they are charged $15.

$15 for not going to a meeting – how crazy!

I said, “I’m not going to pay that. I wasn’t even in the country. And why should I pay that – what do it get for it? I’m not getting any service or repairs.

The suggestion was made by me to put a bill under each door for the water or maintenance for the past month. This they couldn’t comprehend. I said, “How do you expect people to pay unless they are given a notice.

I wasn’t prepared to pay as Jayne suggested that we should get a bill with the breakdown. However, I did bring about $140. When we went to pay, Mathieu suggest let’s pay everything now so I (me) won’t have to go back. I told him I don’t have enough money, so he reached into his pocket and he just had enough money to pay the total.

I was going to keep some money out so I could treat all of us to a restaurant. But now I had only coins left. When I left the table I asked Jayne how much money she had and she said $10. This will be just enough to take a taxi home tomorrow.

The man who actually collects the money was the one I paid my bill to. We talked as he spoke English. He gave me his name phone number and flat number. The other guy who made all the stupid remarks and speaks some English gave me his name and phone number.

Why this couldn’t be done and posted on the bulletin board since ‘day one’ I’ll never know!

Some of the things I said were, “If they are that lazy they could print out a bill and put it on the shelf (where they have the electric bills). People can pick it up and pay. Also, there would be a minimum fee that would be for maintenance. Any emergencies there would be a bill of what would have to be done and everyone would have paid equally.

How they figured up the water cost – since there are no individual meters – was that it’s based on how many people live in each flat and an average is taken for everyone. For me I was told I was figured at 1 person. If there is three people in a flat, the cost would be higher. Of course, this is still not fair as most of the time no one lives in my flat, but it was the only thing they could do with not being able to meter each flat. What would be fair is that everyone has a meter.

This probably started as they don’t have the technology to put separate meters or they just use the cheaper method – and there is no law that says you can’t do it.

Mathieu told us that there is one flat that he manages for an American that there was never a charge for maintenance fee or water for four years! He doesn’t know who to pay and no one is charged. But he will look into this now and he said if a bill comes due the owner will be shocked.

Then we walked back to Matt’s home. We had wine, which I bought over, a banana cake that Amparo made and cheese. Jayne had three pieces of cake and Matt and I had two!

We talked a couple of hours, some of which what happened earlier. Then we went to bed about 11pm.