Technical Difficulties

For the past week Ibrahim has been moving back and forth in his loping space cadet way between my computer and the internet office trying to fix the BROKEN! connection.

A call to Jakarta here, a new SIM card there and still no luck. My patience is wearing very thin and there's nothing I can do.

I want to blame someone but who?

Blaming Ibrahim is like killing the messenger. I'd like to go and yell at the internet people but I don't think that would fix the inefficiency and unreliability that is part of being a small fry in this part of the world.

So I'm just seething silently, sending Ibrahim irritated text messages, which he's stopped responding to, and hoping for the best.

Trying to calm myself down from time to time and call on the reserves of patience that I must have stored up somewhere. . .but where?

These are the things one has to be on guard about. For a Westerner saying in the "non-West" there is always the danger that the IRRATIONAL BEAST will rear it's gnarley head.

One must be very careful not to get so strung out and uptight about all the little things one cannot get done in a timely manner, along with the perpetual feeling of being dumbed down, outside of it all, cordoned off, and ripped off that a small incident sends one flying into an irrational rage.

It happens all the time - any bar street in Asia is a testament.

Happened to me once with a security guard in Nairobi. I stormed past his machine gun yelling something about being American and not to touch me or check me or blah blah blah. You can imagine.

Also happened, unexpectedly, at a border post in Victoria Canada, a situation that has gone down in our family annals as the "by blood incident." I had recently returned from China (my irrational beast in tow) and wasn't in the mood to deal with some Canadian border guard's static.

So far it hasn't happened here. Hopefully it won't. I'm older, wiser, and more composed. . .I think. . .I hope. . .for Ibrahim's sake.

Day-dreaming about upcoming mini-expedition to Singapore seems to help! Two weeks and counting! I hope they have gorillas at the zoo!

There goes Ibrahim off to the internet store again. . .
xo
k