For whom the San Tomé bell tolls.

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Monday 1st October 2007 is a day I will never forget, and I bet neither will Katie or Stephanie, my two amigas in Toledo.
The day started off well. I had a brilliant night’s sleep on Katie’s very broken couch, got to School on time, and thoroughly enjoyed my first day at work at Juan de Padilla secondary school.
After school I helped Stephanie collect her things and take them to Toledo, where we took a Taxi to our new flat in San Tomé. Then we transported my pathetically small worldly possessions from Katie’s to the new flat. We were so touched when the landlady had made the beds up for us and put up some curtains, and we were excited to be going shopping for cereal, milk, bread, and some pasta for dinner. We joked all the way there and back.
Although it was dark by the time we returned, we soon began to see the flat in a better light. I laughed my arse off when Stephanie pulled the curtain rail off its bracket when trying to shut the curtains. Neither Stephanie nor I laughed as hard when the curtains in my room also broke. Neither did we laugh when the landlady told us that the oven didn’t work, ‘she just used it for storage’. We laughed even less when she told us that if we wanted to have a hot shower in the morning, we would have to light the boiler, wait 15 minutes, and remember to turn it off afterwards. Apparently she didn’t need hot water for showers, washing up, or anything. That meant no heating either, and the flat was cold on the 1st of October!
The laughter returned however, we giggled in awkward yet polite desperation when she demonstrated HOW to turn the boiler on. As this lady leaned across the hob to the boiler, we suddenly realised the gas pipe for the boiler run straight across an electrical cable that ran between the hob and a socket which wasn’t even trying to sit in the wall. She turned the dial on the boiler, lights a lighter and reached it and her whole hand inside the boiler. It sparked violently. She turned the dial for the temperature. “Like that. Ok?” No lady, not like that. People get their hands and houses blown up like that!!!
I looked at Stephanie to check that she was as horrified as me. We said nothing. Like well educated British girls, we excused ourselves for the evening, saying that our friend was expecting us for diner. Stephanie must have been just as shocked as me, because on the way to Katie’s house, we didn’t mention what we had just seen, nor did we acknowledge the sense of dread and ‘god what have we let ourselves in for’ that we now know we both felt!
As soon as Katie opened the door to two very pale faced British girls offering to cook supper, she asked if everything was ok, and it all came spilling out...
“Katie we are living in a 3rd world flat with a crazy Columbian lady”
“what do you mean”
“ I mean that our landlady expects us to collect firewood, make a campfire in the front lounge, a heat the water for our showers over a campfire screaming Yabba dabba doo!”

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