Short Month, Long Stories

The weekend after Lane visited, I got invited to a girls night out to celebrate one of the new teachers' birthday.  I didn't know exactly what I was getting myself into. We started out with happy hour followed by dinner at Antigua, the place we've been trying to go to for a while. I ordered a pizza "sin queso" and had to ensure the waiter that is what I actually wanted and he wasn't misunderstanding my poor spanish.

Gorgeous Gringas

After dinner, we went to Positano Urban Bar for a theatrical performance, Solo Para Ellas (Only for Girls). It turned out to be a version of Magic Mike in real life! There actually was a play with a story line and everything but I couldn't understand anything. But I did enjoy the breaks in the play where they did the dancing! We obviously wanted to get a seat in the front so we could push our birthday girl onto the stage, but when we got there before dinner it was too early to get a line number and when we arrived after dinner it was too late to get a good seat. But I think she still enjoyed herself and everyone had a good time. It was funny to see one of the Venezuelans with us trying to quiet down the gringas. I think it was the first time I've ever seen a Venezuelan embarrassed, especially about being too loud.

Trying to sneak in early before dinner

Pre Show

Post Show

The following Sunday, I woke up to loud crashing noises and I thought we were being bombed. It was a horrible way to wake up. After the longest minute of my life, the noise stopped and I realized we weren't being bombed and I rallied the courage to get out of bed to investigate. My kitchen cabinets had completed fallen off the wall and most of my dishes that were inside had broken. It was a bit stressful, but at least I had not been in the kitchen or I could have been seriously hurt.

Thankfully one wine glass and coffee mug survived!

I did not know that my apartment had been treated for termites before, but the wood that had been holding the cabinets in place was like a cracker. I do not know how it had stayed up for so long.

Cracker wood

Luckily I called a couple of friends over and they were able to help me move the cabinet into the hallway (where it still sits) so I could clean up the mess. Two weeks have passed and no progress has been make to fix the issue. At first the owner of my apartment was telling the school that he needed them to pay him rent in advance so he would have the money to fix it. Now I am told that next week a fumigation company will come inspect, then the new cabinets will be built (in approximately two weeks), and then the apartment will be fumigated and everything should be back to normal. We'll see how long it actually takes. Until then, it's really not enjoyable to cook in the kitchen because there are new termite trails being formed.

Yuck!

After cleaning all the mess and bleaching the kitchen I just left the salvaged items on the floor because I didn't know where I could put them. Shout out to Martha (my maid) who cleaned everything and found a way to organize my bottom cabinets so everything is put away now.

Just trying to think about the bright side

The week carried on like normal…Busy with school work... Finally made it to the bank so I could get a pin number to activate online banking…On Wednesday I went to the grocery store only to immediately return home because the line was around the side of the building (There was toilet paper)... On Thursday I went to the grocery store only to immediately return home because the line was around the side of the building (There was milk)…Much of the usual shenanigans.

So after unsuccessfully grocery shopping on Thursday I was preparing my lesson plans for Friday. It sounded like people were setting off fireworks outside, which is pretty normal here at any time of any day so I didn't think much about it. However, it went on for quite a while and I started smelling the smoke inside my apartment. So I went to the window to see what was going on and I saw kids running around the grassy area outside my apartment building and just figured they were the ones doing it. Darn kids. But then I saw my neighbor in her window on the phone calling the (I assume) police. Yet her face was not an annoyed with kids setting off fireworks, but a frantic there is an emergency face. So I looked further out the window and realized that the smoke was coming from my apartment building! And there was a lot! I immediately grabbed my phone and my keys and ran out to the pool area. I started calling all of the expats in my complex so they could get out.

It was very scary how fast the flames were spreading. Eventually everyone from the complex was standing outside watching. It took the fire department a while to arrive due to Caracas traffic.  
Then once they got here, it took them at least half an hour to get into the apartment. Because our building is so secure and the owners of the apartment weren't home, they had to take jaws of life to open the steel double doors. Then it took them another fifteen minutes to get water to the apartment because no one knew where the water hook up was located.

They didn't have any masks, just wet rags over their faces

By the time the fire was extinguished, the whole apartment had been burnt to a crisp. It was so sad and so scary. There was not a single alarm. Then the apartment owners showed up and it was like a movie seeing them run towards the apartment and the fire fighters holding them back and them crippling to the ground crying. It was awful. To be honest, I was very shook up from the event. Luckily our building is made out of concrete so the fire did not spread to other apartments, though the surrounding apartments were damaged some. And luckily no one was hurt, but some pets were lost :(



Sadly, while the fire was going people were talking bad about the owner of the apartment. They were not being very sympathetic. I was supposed to have my spanish lesson so my tutor was stuck with us and she was explaining this to me. All I could think about was how the family was losing everything.

The next day, there was a complex meeting to make a plan of action for future emergencies. I did not attend because it would have been useless with my limited spanish, but I did get the meeting notes that were emailed out afterwards. The horrible thing is the people were not focusing on the important things like cause of the fire, fire alarms, or emergency response time; but they were placing blame on the family who lost everything. The fire fighters had said they found remains of 13 pets. The owner is a veterinarian. But according to the meeting minutes, there is "speculation" that there were 74 dogs (with muzzles on) in the apartment and 81 animals in total and that the family has been staying in the burnt apartment and supposedly carrying out remains overnight. So the email focused on shaming and suing the family for animal cruelty. It has been a lot of drama and I just feel sorry for the family.

The event started some conversations at school with some of the locals. Apparently homeowners insurance is not that common in Venezuela. It exists but not many people have it even though it's relatively cheap. Yet everyone has car insurance even though it's expensive. I suppose cars are more in demand and have a higher risk of breaking compared to homes. House fires aren't very common here. I was expressing my concern about how the fire started and they said we probably won't ever know because often here the fire fighters will be paid off to report the cause was unknown so that owners don't have to take responsibility or to cover up corruption. So my spanish tutor has been in contact with the family because she is very caring and has been helping them out. They told her that all of the veterinarian tool boxes were safe from the fire but there was nothing left inside of them, they think the fire fighters must have robbed them. It's all just a mess.

So my friend Tracey has been planning this joint birthday party for her boyfriend and a friend that was supposed to take place the day after the fire. It's not a secret that some people in our building do not like us expats (because we are "just" teachers, we aren't rich enough for them) and so convieninetly a new rule was created that every time a party is held in a common space the whole complex will be notified, not only by email, but also by posted notices in the elevators… So even though everyone knew we were having a party, the location was changed to the school so that they couldn't say we were being disrespectful of the events that had occurred. So to end this post on a happier note, the party was fun even though it was held at my place of employment. There is this Venezuelan tradition where the birthday person is to take the first bite out of the cake without using hands and of course someone else will try to push their whole face into it. Ivon, Tracey's boyfriend successfully got a first bite, but Catherine, was not so lucky and ended up with hair full of icing.