The Saga Continues

Oh no, the power's off downstairs again! There is definitely a short in the circuit downstairs somewhere. The difficulty is isolating it, especially when it often doesn't show up immediately, but more like after a couple of hours. We now have 4 circuit breakers in the house. One for upstairs, where I mostly live, and the other 3 for downstairs. Supposedly one was for lights, and the other two for power, but it hasn't quite worked out that way. The latest event is the circuit tripping when all that is switched on is one 22W flourescent tube. I'm beginning to feel sorry for the landlord. Personally I think the whole house should be rewired properly, but that's not going to happen! This house would be an Australian electrician's nightmare! But then, I imagine that so would a large proportion of houses in Cambodia, so that's not really saying much. Hopefully it can be fixed tomorrow or my housemate is not going to be very happy. She's been away for 3 days, in the hope that all would be fixed by the time she returned, especially since it's the power to her room that keeps going out.

Today was wonderful! For the first time since Sunday a week ago, I did not have to be up at 6.30am either for school or to let in the tradespeople. Not only that, there was no generator running outside the house! Peace. I'm sure the neightbours thought so too! Apart from sleeping in, I also went across town with a friend to a new 2nd hand bookshop that is just getting established. They had put aside a number of cartons of books for us to go through for the new Khmer school that is being established by Asian Hope (the NGO that operates Logos). We spent a couple of hours sorting through the books, and then while my friend made the final decision I went looking for books for me, and managed to find 5 that I am sure I'm going to enjoy. All second hand, so for $20, I got got books that would cost me more than $50 new! Bargain.

Progress on the roof has halted until the Water Festival holidays are over, but they did make some definite progress on Sunday morning (and were most frustrated that I said they had to leave at lunch time, which was the agreement I had with the landlord and he assured me that they knew this). I would have preferred they hadn't worked Sunday at all, but sometimes you have to make the best of difficult situations. The ended up tieing ropes to each end of the chain wire rolls, and hauling them up the side of the house. I think they actually split each roll into two pieces, as there are four rolls on the roof, and there were only two when they brought it in downstairs. They will start again on Wednesday, but fortunately I'll be at school most of the day.

Time for bed.

Karen