Two weeks ago, I got home at 3am and walked into the bathroom without turning on the light, so as not to wake my beloved sleeping boyfriend. I gasped and totally lost the sense of where I was and what I was doing when I put my foot down in water.
After I got my bearings, I turned on the light and found the master bathroom floor covered in water, water that was seeping into the bedroom.
I pushed some of it toward the drain (which is not any lower than the rest of the floor, by the way) and went to bed.
So began the (ongoing) process of getting someone over here to fix it. The man who built the house came by the next day, determined the cause of the leak, and said he'd be back on Monday. Which he wasn't. And it kind of went like that from there, always "tomorrow" and us always waiting around to see if someone would come.
The truth of it is, it doesn't bother me so much. Would I do things differently? Yes. Do I have an expectation that things are done in a more timely manner, that promptness is "correct", based on the society in which I was raised? Of course. Is it frustrating as hell when you wait around all day, canceling meetings and even work-related activity so that you can be here just in case the guys show up like they said they would? OHMYGOSH YES.
But that's the way it is here. Panama was Panama long before we arrived, and our presence here doesn't change the fact that there's just no big rush on certain things, even things like water covering a bathroom floor.
The water is gone now, replaced by a big hole and a toilet that's not where it belongs. Today they came by to fix it once and for all -- but it turns out that the tile they've been waiting to get in for a week is the wrong tile: not only too white (our current tile is an off-white shade) but also too small.
The good news? The correct tile is in Chorrera, and they're going to go get it. Tomorrow.
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