moved to Pernambues until April 1
So I moved into a new neighborhood, called Pernambues, which is the most populous bairrho in Salvador. It’s pretty poor, to say the least. By American standards it’s a slum but by Salvador standards it’s a few steps up from a favela (slum). Lots of people live in cheaply and quickly built brick buildings (complexes?) that look as if a swift gust of wind could knock them over without a problem. Some of them don’t have windows, just window holes, and doorways without doors. Mine, luckily, has a door. And isn’t too bad, except there’s nothing in it. Except a lot of mosquitoes. Which have been experiencing a pretty high mortality rate since I moved in. As has the skin on my feet and lower legs. Anyway.
I have a twin-sized mattress on the floor of my bedroom with no pillow and a sheet that stretches over it. My landlady also gave me a couple of sheets to use as covers which I haven’t really used because it’s been hot. The air circulation, too, isn’t nearly as good as my last place, which was on the 9th floor and had a lot of wind. This place is on the first floor, and for security purposes it’s not a real bright idea to keep the windows wide open all the time. Most of them have Compton-style security grates (that look like you’re in jail) on the front to keep out fat people.
The place wouldn’t be too bad if there was anything in it, which, unfortunately, since I’m only there until April 1st, there isn’t. I think I’m painting a worse picture of it than it really is – the tiling in the bathroom is nice as hell, as well as the kitchen. It has two clean bedrooms and the rent is cheap as hell (~$166/mo). It has two bathrooms, although only one has a working shower and the other the only working toilet, so you can’t do the one-stop shopping you’re used to when using the bathroom in the morning. Plus the wiring on the shower that works is faulty. I know this because when I tried to adjust the head I got zapped. Not bad but I didn’t want to do it again.
That reminds me – I’ve been shocked by what I believe is no more than 110-120 volts on three separate occasions, in three separate places, within the past month or so. The first was at my last apartment when I tried to plug in my hair clipper in the outlet next to the mirror in the bathroom. ZAP. Ow. No more using that socket. The second time was when I tried adjusting the shower head in the bathroom of my new apartment. It didn’t feel quite as strong that time, maybe because my nerves were already fried from the other place. But then I was over at a friend’s house (SHE lives in a slum – another story) and when I took a look at her computer to try to fix the sound, I got zapped pretty good, probably around 5 times, because it took a while to fix. The clue should have been in the net of power cables that were hanging down from the ceiling, particularly the one that came down to rest on her bed with approximately 6 appliances jammed into it through the use of (quite unsafe, I might add) splitter adapters.
“Are you getting shocked?” she asked when she saw the look on my face around the 3rd time it happened.
“It doesn’t hurt that much,” I said.
I have a twin-sized mattress on the floor of my bedroom with no pillow and a sheet that stretches over it. My landlady also gave me a couple of sheets to use as covers which I haven’t really used because it’s been hot. The air circulation, too, isn’t nearly as good as my last place, which was on the 9th floor and had a lot of wind. This place is on the first floor, and for security purposes it’s not a real bright idea to keep the windows wide open all the time. Most of them have Compton-style security grates (that look like you’re in jail) on the front to keep out fat people.
The place wouldn’t be too bad if there was anything in it, which, unfortunately, since I’m only there until April 1st, there isn’t. I think I’m painting a worse picture of it than it really is – the tiling in the bathroom is nice as hell, as well as the kitchen. It has two clean bedrooms and the rent is cheap as hell (~$166/mo). It has two bathrooms, although only one has a working shower and the other the only working toilet, so you can’t do the one-stop shopping you’re used to when using the bathroom in the morning. Plus the wiring on the shower that works is faulty. I know this because when I tried to adjust the head I got zapped. Not bad but I didn’t want to do it again.
That reminds me – I’ve been shocked by what I believe is no more than 110-120 volts on three separate occasions, in three separate places, within the past month or so. The first was at my last apartment when I tried to plug in my hair clipper in the outlet next to the mirror in the bathroom. ZAP. Ow. No more using that socket. The second time was when I tried adjusting the shower head in the bathroom of my new apartment. It didn’t feel quite as strong that time, maybe because my nerves were already fried from the other place. But then I was over at a friend’s house (SHE lives in a slum – another story) and when I took a look at her computer to try to fix the sound, I got zapped pretty good, probably around 5 times, because it took a while to fix. The clue should have been in the net of power cables that were hanging down from the ceiling, particularly the one that came down to rest on her bed with approximately 6 appliances jammed into it through the use of (quite unsafe, I might add) splitter adapters.
“Are you getting shocked?” she asked when she saw the look on my face around the 3rd time it happened.
“It doesn’t hurt that much,” I said.
posted by n10471 at 4:14 PM
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