Etcetera continued

They Never Tell You Everything...

Do they deliberately withhold information or are they just inefficient, or do they assume I know?  I can't even guess.  Here are a few examples:

FedEx should have told me what to expect in the way of extra duty and taxes.  The woman at the beginning of the chain of people I had to deal with clearly knew. When I went in to tell her, she only confirmed it all.

We have several old rusty stoves and metal chairs in the yard that I have been after Solid Waste to come and take away.  For weeks the  Solid Waste office would only say that they would let me know when the truck was coming, or they couldn't pick up the stuff at all.  Finally, someone told me to go to the Town Council, that that was the correct place. I went.  the woman at the desk took the information.  No one ever came.  I went to the Town Council several times and was always told that they had the information.  On my visit to the office 2 weeks ago she said, "But you never paid".  I kicked myself.  Of course! I should have known that there was a fee. When I looked at her and asked but why didn't you tell me weeks ago, she only looked puzzled and didn't answer.  I was happy to pay for it and was promised that the truck would come the following week.  Fool that I am, I believed her.  No truck.  McD saw the truck driver last week and he assured McD that he would come on Wednesday.  No truck.  There is no point in going back to the Town Council with the receipt.   The truck will come in its own time and the stuff will be taken away.  That is life in Dominica.  

I went to the Georgetown Health Center again today to get the results of the giardia test and get my permit.  They couldn't find the report.  Same as last week.  This time I went back and forth from the receptionist to the nurse to the environmental health officer.  Luckily they are all in the same building.  The nurse called the lab,  They hadn't sent the report in the last batch but they did tell her it was negative and to go ahead and process me.  Phew.  No giardia.  But no card either! Environmental Health didn't bring any! Why?  Wednesday is their day at the health center for the food handlers.  I have to go back next Wednesday to pick it up.  Wednesday is the baby clinic and is very crowded with mothers, infants and children up to 4 years old.  I wait my turn in line with them all.

Everything is in its own time.

On  Sunday we caught Smiley, a street person, dumping someone's garbage on our beach.  Smiley is the same guy who was sleeping on our veranda.  McD, EBoy, and I went after him shouting and yelling.  He dumped the garbage and ran, shouting invective back at us

Yesterday the police came to the Bar because they had information that Jeff, whom they had been looking for for a while, was there.  Someone else in the Bar warned Jeff who took off, jumped over our sea fence ran along the seawall, and disappeared

I don't think we'll be seeing Smiley or Jeff for a while!