The Apartment
What a fiasco this has been, but ultimately we are here and we are happy. As I explained earlier we were living in a hotel/hostel for the first couple of weeks, it was nice you could get meals there, but think of it like the dorms, nice is some ways but really expensive. Eight reais for 
each meal, when we had budgeted three for breakfast, five for lunch, and seven for dinner. Now, we have a little kitchen, our own rooms, our own bathrooms (more than we needed, though his shower leaks so not to cooshy yet), a small living space next to the kitchen, and a balcony. We are now farther from the LDS employment center and the church but now the beach is only two block
s away, groceries one block away, restaurants everywhere, and the “shoppings” or malls are much closer. We can take a cheap bus that will drop us off right by the center and the church.The Beach
Speaking of the beach being near by, having it close still doesn’t spare me from being an obvious gringo American. Today, in the afternoon I thought I’d take the short stroll from our apartment down to the beach with my camera, take some pictures, enjoy a stroll and come back. Well, Sunday is a big day for relaxing it appears and as I was getting closer to the beach three tourist buses pulled up packed full of young adults who where just chomping at the bit to verbally dig into a clearly foreign gringo. Since I was wearing athletic shorts that gave away I was carrying something, and I knew all of them would want to “look” at my camera if I pulled it out, I rounded the block and went home with my own personal peanut gallery “cheering” me on as I went home. That day I wished I was of Latin decent like Hector so I would go mostly unnoticed; at least he’s not given away until he opens his mouth. I had plenty to do at the apartment so I wasn’t too bother about it.
The fiasco
The fiasco was with our manager. He, despite his initial gracious commentaries that he’d be more that willing to help with anything, clearly didn’t like the fact we were not happy with the “housing” arrangements. Considering he was trained on this and given a Power Point explaining exactly what we were supposed to have, and he basically ignored half of the specifications, I thought he had no room to complain; clearly I was wrong. He eventually gave us a couple of hours of his time one evening to exchange our money and look for deferent accommodations, explaining all along the way that is was basically impossible to find anything, everything needed a year contract or was too expensive and I got the idea that he was hoping to go on this little adventure just to make a point; for sure at least to guilt trip us along the way.
Well, in less that an hour we found a really nice place, within the budget, and near the beach. Of course then he explains the next day that he doesn’t know how much he can get back from the hotel, that he doesn’t know if he can get the money because the man renting the apartment wants it up front, blah, blah, blah, blah, BLAH. Once again if he had paid attention to his training information he would know that all he had to do was open an account for the area (as in the area we have an Area Presidency for) and then BYU through the church would reimburse the money back to that account in the end. Well, with all that we lost that apartment, but of course in one afternoon Hector and I found several other suitable options. Longer story short, he got us into one of the ones we found, or course it had to be the most ghetto of them and the one farthest from the center but at least it meets most of the requirements outlined for us. We still don’t have desks. If we are sounding a little bratty it’s because we paid good money in America for something specific and he didn’t deliver, and even more importantly, our directors in Salt Lake found out where we were living and said it was against the regulations that had set out. Regardless, all it good now and we are happy and the center is happy.
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