My Costa Rican “Kitchen”

Last Saturday, there was a problem with the fridge in what passes for a kitchen that I can use.

On Sunday, when the Internet was up I reported the problem to my landlady's daughter, who is the only family member who speaks and writes English.

Our exchange of emails tells almost the whole story.

In my email with the subject line “...and now the fridge isn't working”, I said:


"It has been a very frustrating week here.

"For most of the week, my Internet connection down and then up...down and then up. It was down all day Thursday.

"Since I had no classes last week, I planned to spend most of my time working online on my website.

"Unfortunately, with the Internet going down as often as it did, instead of having 5 productive days, I might have had the equivalent of 2-3 productive days.

"Yesterday, I noticed water around the bottom of the fridge. After I cleaned up the water, I checked the fridge...it was not working. Not even cool to the touch.

"As I write this the Internet is down again. I will have to wait until it is back up before I can even save this message let alone send it.

"Fortunately the coffee maker is still working.

"Yes...it has indeed been a very frustrating week."

Her response:

"Regarding the internet probably is a problem with the company provider, the frigde my mom is going to chek it."

To which I replied:

"The problem with the fridge is the latest and least of the problems with the 'kitchen'.

"I was happy to have the kitchen included as part of the room rental. I had hoped to prepare some meals here. Unfortunately that opportunity did not unfold as hoped.

"With no proper food storage, apart from the fridge, there is no place to store food without attracting ants. Invariably, Whenever I have left food sealed in plastic anywhere in the kitchen, within a couple of hours, it has been totally covered with ants, so I had to throw it out.

"As regards the hot plate, I can only turn one element half way before the breaker switch cuts off. So doing my own cooking is not an option.

"The coffee pot works fairly well. However, a few weeks ago, I heard a loud crack in the kitchen. When I went in to investigate, I saw that the coffee pot...which was sitting where I had always left it had cracked. So I went looking for a replacement and found one that seems to work well.

"So the problem with the fridge was, as I say, the most recent issues with the cooking arrangements. (Your brother was just here and seems to have fixed the problem)."

The fridge problem has now been fixed...sort of.

The extension cord into which the fridge is plugged has been replaced with one that makes me thankful the kitchen is isolated a room made of solid concrete, separated from my room by another room made of solid concrete.

And now with the replacement extension cord, the coffee maker working by itself is enough to trip the breaker switch. I now stay by the coffee maker to reset the breaker switch.

But yes the fridge does work. The last time I got something out of it...everything was frozen solid.