so i'm in the office, where i sit on the second floor. instead of the air conditioner aimed right at my face i like to open the door to the sunny balcony, and see some of the happenings on the street below. the swaying Palm trees with birds, ladies with painted faces walking by scream-singing whatever they are selling from a big basket on their head. usually pineapple. a utility truck comes and a bunch of guys in uniforms come out and start inspecting the telephone/electric pole which has a huge mess of wires at the top. the guy climbs up in his flip fops and he's perched atop, sifting through each wire like he's untangling a braid. he's almost exactly at my eye level, chilling there, and i see the beads of sweat on his temples. i go back to my emails for a bit, and i look up and he's still there sorting the cables, connecting some, and then picks one and he pulls out a big pair of clippers from his back pocket. he's still sorting, sorting, re-sorting until finally he finds the one and clip!
and out goes the power, followed by a huge grumbling throughout the building as the air conditioners choke up. his colleague now in a mini tractor thing who was digging a hole yells up something, and then he sorts again, looking for the right wire this time. Which is apparently our fiber optic internet cable and so then our people come out, and the dude on the ground gets all angry and so they switch and well, a bunch of other stuff happens but our internet is out for 3 days. and so everyone hotspots their phones and you can see all these wireless networks pop up when you search and you can see who has an iphone. i say to shoon, who sits behind me, you don't have to brag that you have a 6S dude. then he tells me he has a better provider and can stream movies while i can barely send a 6kb email. previously we had a good laugh with shoon, whom you can address by saying "co shoon" which means brother shoon. though with the belgian guy we say "cochonne" and shoon asks what it means and i say well google it with your fancy 3g 6s and a second later i hear, hey, that's a lot of porn. i thought at least a pig would be top billing on the results but it wasn't. who knew.
i went to the bathroom and shoon warned me you can't use it when the power is out. so that's how it goes here, you quickly adjust to things. like eating rice at every meal. every meal! i buy coconut sticky rice from a nice street vendor lady in the mornings for 500 kyat. so after i used up all my data plan in a few hours and the power didn't come back, i went to the fancy shanngri-la hotel for a toilet, a 5$ watermelon juice and the fastest wi-fi i've seen in weeks. you have to know where to find the few things you need to stay sane. like the kushmi green detox tea and aveda curly hair products that were the best gifts ever from mother that keep my stomach and hair in lines but are quickly running out...the cold showers every morning, i actually like them now and was able to stay in for a whole three minutes today. everyone has been warning me, that in less than two weeks the heat will be so unbearable that cold showers three times a day will be blessing. so soon it will be hot, my hair will be a mess and i'll be drinking lipton. i guess we'll wait and see.
and out goes the power, followed by a huge grumbling throughout the building as the air conditioners choke up. his colleague now in a mini tractor thing who was digging a hole yells up something, and then he sorts again, looking for the right wire this time. Which is apparently our fiber optic internet cable and so then our people come out, and the dude on the ground gets all angry and so they switch and well, a bunch of other stuff happens but our internet is out for 3 days. and so everyone hotspots their phones and you can see all these wireless networks pop up when you search and you can see who has an iphone. i say to shoon, who sits behind me, you don't have to brag that you have a 6S dude. then he tells me he has a better provider and can stream movies while i can barely send a 6kb email. previously we had a good laugh with shoon, whom you can address by saying "co shoon" which means brother shoon. though with the belgian guy we say "cochonne" and shoon asks what it means and i say well google it with your fancy 3g 6s and a second later i hear, hey, that's a lot of porn. i thought at least a pig would be top billing on the results but it wasn't. who knew.
i went to the bathroom and shoon warned me you can't use it when the power is out. so that's how it goes here, you quickly adjust to things. like eating rice at every meal. every meal! i buy coconut sticky rice from a nice street vendor lady in the mornings for 500 kyat. so after i used up all my data plan in a few hours and the power didn't come back, i went to the fancy shanngri-la hotel for a toilet, a 5$ watermelon juice and the fastest wi-fi i've seen in weeks. you have to know where to find the few things you need to stay sane. like the kushmi green detox tea and aveda curly hair products that were the best gifts ever from mother that keep my stomach and hair in lines but are quickly running out...the cold showers every morning, i actually like them now and was able to stay in for a whole three minutes today. everyone has been warning me, that in less than two weeks the heat will be so unbearable that cold showers three times a day will be blessing. so soon it will be hot, my hair will be a mess and i'll be drinking lipton. i guess we'll wait and see.
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