I am dirty... :-(((

.... I was looking forward to making a trip to my favorite beach today... but I can't go anywhere, for the simple reason that there is NO WATER in my apartment complex today and thus I could neither take a shower or wash my hair... and I am not going to go anywhere dirty!

Nobody knows why there is no water, nobody knows if and when it will be back... not even the maintenance people. Oh, Puerto Rico is hell more often than not!

OK, I brushed my teeth and washed my face and hands - using water sparingly. I have only one galon of it and carrying enough water to the third flor to wash up is not a doable task for a woman my age.

So I am sitting on my balcony - sweating (it's hot!) and fuming that I HATE Puerto Rico! With a vengeance! I want to leave, NOW, no matter if I had to give away all the stuff I acquired here. I am - personally - sooooo sick and tired of this hellish "paradise"!

But one of my coworkers quit her position during the holidays, I got a couple of grants for a project I designed. It needs to start in February, or the organization risks loosing its credibility as a grantee, not to mention the disadvantaged Puerto Ricans we work for, who'd lose a chance at employment, income, improving their living standard and their quality of life....so for THEIR sake I should stay - another six, seven months??? Until a suitable replacement for me could be found?? If there would ever be another skilled one willing to work for peanuts....

And I am doing best I can to try to stay, despite the fact, that I am uncomfortable and thus unhappy here, that I can't stand all those inconveniences: heat, lack of water, general shabbiness and shoddiness of dwellings plus a bysantine bureaucracy everywhere!

The repairs in my current apartment finally were done last saturday.

But... not only had I to cut short a brunch with club friends, witch I greatly enjoyed, to hurry back home to meet the plumber.... one of the newly installed faucets - the one in the bathroom, stopped working already the next day - lasting barely long enough for me to pay my January rent!

So I am thinking HOW, on earth, could I be able to stay here any longer???
Where???

There is NO supply of decent, even halfway decent rentals in this part of the island. And there is no service. None. Zero!

Cabo Rojo has a plethora of houses and appartments for rent on clasificicados. So does Mayaguez. But that's a theory.
Many of them are the same places listed in duplicate, triplicate etc.
Many of the reasonably priced ones have already been rented and are no longer available, but are on the list.

I keep calling real estate agents, yet few of them even have a decency to return a call, once they know you want to rent, not to buy.

So how am I going to be able to do any job without even a halfway decent place to live??? With water, internet, working appliances?
You tell me!