hell with wind

The fuel pump, not the thermostat, may have cut the engine’s power.  I don’t know what the hell I am talking about, and you’re from Detroit?  Ya gotta know your auto parts dude.  So Farhat is taking a look at it in his new digs, a garage which I congratulated him for finding. 

The sky is filled with sand.

Lord have mercy.  My students are having a party tomorrow.  They are excited about it, ok, I’ll go along, cancel the afternoon class, and who cares, sure they’ll worry about the final exam next week but not enough to continue studying.  True, two thirds of them will most likely pass, it’s the border ones and the truly weak who I am concerned about but if that one third do not come to class for the rest of the week, what does that say?

6.8.15

Forty eight degrees and strong northerly gusts, a Shamal darkens the desert sky.  Hell with wind.  The students had a party with a beautifully decorated two layered cake with the inscription, “I love Joon” and plenty of starchy food and pepsi.  I am blessed and honored.  I’m also a little irritated to see a video one of the students took while I was teaching and with some moving graphics falling red leaves or hearts I couldn’t make it out.  But they take photos and videos of me and I can’t take a single shot of them.  And I tried from a distance but it’s not the same.  I understand the thinking, the women of Oman and other gulf Arab states are ‘princesses’ and as such are to be protected and kept under wraps and again another year goes by where I am not privileged to remember any of them with a single close up. 

So, are they prepared for next Sunday’s exam, who knows.   We got three days and my doors will be open for tutoring, consultation, whatever, and we’ll see who comes.  In the meantime I wait to hear from the mechanic about my car.  He might do a paint touch up, something I didn’t ask for but didn’t refuse, it could use it. 

The steely grey eyed girl who was simply wearing colored contacts this whole darn time gave me a big rose.  How sweet and it smells so nice I have it in water now on the console above the tv and next to the candle that melted all over the cover cloth Maya gave me.  How long will a rose live in water once I turn off the a/c I don’t know but I expect it won’t last long. 

The young man on the mountain forwarded a job opening for a teacher at a prestigious boarding school in Kathmandu.  Heavens.  Why does this interest me I don’t know but it kind of does.  Oh John, don’t, but it’d be a hellava lot safer than where you intend to go and yes there are earthquakes in both regions.

8.04pm—‘I check oil, no oil!  you wait three months no change, why, one month I in jail, I put one oil in, you wait three days, change oil change filter, maybe car ok.  you drive long time, maybe electric sensor here,’ and he showed where and I didn’t think it was going to be just the fuel pump.  I wondered if it had been three months the first time I took the car to him and I wondered then if he had indeed changed the oil.  Hmmm, I don’t know about nothing.  I suggested driving three hours and taking a lot of water because if it is an electric sensor and the car dies again, well there’s no way of knowing from a man who spent a month in jail for not having the correct papers and who for two weeks worked on the sidewalk without a garage.

He showed me the Honda dealer receipt from which he bought the new fuel pump and I had to ask him how much for labor.  Why don’t they tell me how much, it’s a sliding scale, there is no scale, a rule of oily thumb.  He seemed happy with a $26 labor charge, and  if he is happy, I’ll be sort of happy if the car runs fine for the next four weeks. 

I did wash the car before I returned to the pigeon palace, at Al Maha’s automatic car wash.  I tipped the very friendly Bangladeshi man-boy a rial, the cost of the exterior only wash, thinking now but not then I need to spread my good karma around more often.