the end, I hope.

So now that I’m starting to get this Spanish thing down, it’s time to learn another skill here in Guatemala: problem solving.

If you’ve talked to me over the past few weeks I’ve probably annoyed you by listing off all the things that have gone wrong recently. Between a flooded kitchen, ghosts locking me out of my bedroom, a stolen wallet (and therefore three weeks without money aside from that which my WONDERFUL roommate is lending me) and a dead rat-blocked pipe, my stories haven’t exactly been filled with sunshine and gumdrops.

So when we left our house Monday morning to head to work and Roscoe the car wouldn’t start, you can imagine how excited I was to add one more fun circumstance to the list.

After some investigation, we fed Roscoe all the liquids he was so thirsty for (the poor, neglected thing was almost completely out of oil, coolant and windshield wiper fluid). We borrowed jumper cables, which helped him start and gave false hope, since as soon as we turned him off he wouldn’t start again. We drove around for 40 minutes hoping the charge would stick, but nothing.

So at this point we know it’s the battery. Since I’m renting the car and the lease has directions for where to take it if something goes wrong, I call the number for the mechanic and tell him exactly what’s happening. “Good evening, I’m renting this car from ____ and I think it needs a new battery. I can start it with cables, but the next time it won’t start” (but in increasingly impressive Spanish). “Yeah, yeah, bring it in,” they say to me.

So after a very complicated morning including Don Roberto the taxi driver, borrowed jumper cables and a guard at the mechanic’s cutting grass with a machete, we drop the car off at the shop and go to work.

I get a call around 5 p.m. “Good afternoon, that car you’re renting from ____? I think it needs a new battery. We can start it with cables, but the next time it won’t start.”

Ok. Yeah, I knew that.

“You’re going to need to go buy a new battery.”

Argh. I may be wrong, since I’m limited in my experience with mechanics in the US, but I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work. I mean, thanks for validating my knowledge of what a car needs to start, but you really can’t give me any more help than that? Isn’t your job to fix problems after you diagnose them? I asked where in the world I could go buy a battery. It’s not like there are Wal Marts or Auto Zones around. They didn’t know.

So we walk down to the mechanic this morning, point at the car and say “that one’s mine” (I could have been anyone, but I guess it’s good that they didn’t ask for ID because I don’t have any), got someone to jump it and drive to work where my new favorite coworker tracked down a battery and someone to install it. The sound of the car starting without cables could not have been more welcome.

We went through the AutoMac and bought McFlurries on the way home to celebrate The End, both to the car saga and hopefully to the series of unfortunate events.