I went to Costa with the intention of helping a Swedish woman who wish to start a school here, for little less than 2 months. I was looking to help with whatever necessary but also to potentially find a long term business partner. I just left her house early yesterday morning with a note saying our chemistry is off and I need to leave to protect my energy. I had more on my mind that I could've written but she wasn't really open to feedback and I've had enough of the arguments. In fact she wasn't open to much.
She had a number of problems and luckily I came to fix them. She needed to get her project down on paper and since I have a nick for writing I figured I could help her. I tried asking her what kind of format she was thinking but she cut me off with "we need to put it in writing" so I didn't ask again. But also practical things. She needed a carport. I could've build one for her. She needed a better parking space. I could've gotten that done. Mainly she needed to fix her bathroom plumbing. But when she claimed that the water coming out of the foot of the toilet when it rains, is fully natural as it keeps the actual toilet bowl from flooding and she rejects any other suggestion - I could no longer pretend to take her seriously.
There's clearly a problem with overpressure down the line due to poor drainage. She might need a new wax ring. Concrete could be a quick (possibly somewhat permanent) fix. I tried to explain this and offered to help out but she refused to believe there was a need for concrete (or anything else) to fix it. Instead she was mostly upset that I didn't tell her immediately when I noticed the water not flushing out as it should and somehow made that to be the main problem we were dealing with. The morning it happened I went to the toilet twice. First time I did my business and it went just fine. After that she went to the toilet and flushed. An hour or so later I had to pee again (the humidity makes me pee like all the time). This time I stod up to pee. No paper in the bowl, as instructed, so only liquid. I noticed it didn't flush properly but assumed she must've caused the stop since she was there before me and I just flushed liquid. I also noticed water coming up from the side, on the floor. It was morning time and I went back to bed for some rest and that was my mistake. I should've told her at once. After this she went to take a shit before I got a chance to discuss the stop. BAM when she flushes there's shit all over the floor which obviously makes a huge mess. I cleaned it up best I could and started working after her theory that if there is a stop in the bowl, the waste water will seep out on the floor as an intentional mechanism to "avoid flooding".
So I go back in my mind to the 7 years I spent as a janitor on a school, being the guy they called to fix plugged toilets. I picked up a few tricks from that time. One was to take a few deciliters of Yes dish washing detergent, pour it in the bowl to act as lubricant and then fill the bowl up with water to add pressure. As the pressure rises and the lubricant is pushed down you'll usually see whatever is stopping the line flush right out. Another great trick is to take a steel rebar, bend it to fit the bend of the bowl and carefully stir around to get up any mess that might be clogging it. Having tried this made her upset to the point of saying I don't need you to "fix" anything (she winked her peace fingers to make sure I knew my fixes will never fix anything). She claimed that I had probably broken the bowl because it's made of porcelain and I had used a metal tool. She was further upset that I had used her branch cutter to cut a bicycle tube to plug the hole in the floor. "Was that your tube?" she asked with lightning flashing in her eyes. In fact yes, that was my perfectly fine spare bicycle tube which I sacrificed to try to plug the whole in your floor to keep the water from flushing in. Next she was highly upset that I had taken an empty glass jar from the kitchen. I first used it to mix water with the hard dish washing detergent I had found in lack of Yes. Then I figured I'd use the same jar to empty the toilet bowl and back water container. I realised we needed to stop the flow coming in by tieing the floatation device up in a fixed position. I would've used a hose to siphon the water out but I didn't want to ask her for one as she would've dismissed the idea on reflex as she did all others. I brought the jar and lifted the lid for the water tank. This was when she really lost it and went at me with all sorts of accusations of making it all worse. Still, trying to fix the stop when the problem is an overflow in the drainage, seems futile. So sure, made sence to stop. Instead of turning the water off for the toilet though she instead went on to shut it off in the entire house. She further instructed me to do my business in the jungle which I was perfectly fine with, considering the situation although a trip to the hardware store with me would've solved the whole matter. I published a post in "Off grid living for beginners" about the problem and the commonly suggested solution was to evaluate the drainage field and get a new wax ring. When I told her "I published a post in a group on Facebook and they had some great advice..." she interrupted me and said "Listen to yourself. Posted on Facebook??". At that point I realised I cannot work with this woman. I made a decision then and there to leave at first opportunity and so I did, early dawn yesterday morning. Good luck with your school. Next time when someone comes to help out you might consider treating them with respect and they'll probably give you a hand. So good luck fixing it by pushing plastic bags down the hole. I'm sure that'll last.
Oh and also there was the car! Not to forget 😂😂😅. As we were driving back in the rain one night after visiting a friend (also involved in the project, a beautiful painter named Amanda with amazing art work) she was going back and forth with the decision whether or not to park on the parking lot or somewhere else. The lot is heavily sloped and a bit muddy so a little tricky. Still we had patched it pretty good during the day and since she was asking me where to put the car I said the parking lot seemed like a good idea. Instead when we arrived she pretty much drove the car straight into the ditch on the side of the road, burying the front right tire and kept pushing until the wheels were spinning. I couldn't tell if she did it on purpose or not. Just straight in there. Having gotten caught in the snow with various cars in Sweden I figured we could probably get it out then and there. I asked her if it was a front or back wheel drive. She responded that the 4 wheel drive was broken. I already knew that. Since the front wheel went in and got dug down I assumed it was a front wheel drive. Later when she had rejected every viable solution I suggested and stood for hours by the car looking helpless until the neighbours pulled it out for her, I realised it was a back wheel drive (which I guess most cars are??) when she spun up the parking lot again. Meaning we had the driving wheels on solid ground all along. We could've just backed out. She was stuck for about a day and a half before getting help from her neighbours. If she would've trusted me with the keys I would have had it in the parking lot in less than an hour without assistance. I also told her that but I guess she didn't like hearing solutions as problems also need to claim some head space, for balance.
I mean if we were talking about gathering a band of adventurers to capture land in the Caribbean and start a self sustained farm/ guest house to create a business model to save the world - I clearly don't have what it takes yet. But bad plumbing and trucks stuck in mud? That's when I fucking shine. If you'll let me.
I'm all about helping people. I love to help. But I can't help anyone who doesn't want to be helped. Next stop for me is Mexico. Hopefully I'll be of greater service to the people at the World Summit (which I guess includes me!). Hopefully they have the vessel to take this revolution to the next level. Also happy to say I'm still in connection with Cha and we are looking to connect in person again as we share a lot of mutual interests and he wants to build "The City of Tesla" which is another fascinating world saving project, that I'll love to help creating.
So... Sorry that this was a post dedicated to saying not so nice things about other people. But I need to ventilate, my family pretty much just broke up with me for smoking weed and being vocal about it and I need to stop sending 3 chapter messages to my friends who seem to be having some sort of social life apart from making sure I'm enjoying myself. So there you go. This is apparently officially a blog about my personal life and I'll probably keep giving random people I meet reviews here so stay sharp folks or I'll roast ya.
I've also shadow banned some people by deciding not to share these posts on my public profile and removing people from the Time Travelers Facebook group, like the dictator I am. If you're still around you're one of the lucky few. I still might ban you soon though so stay alert. I'm also starting to get some followers on steemit so even though their "views" function is out of order I still get to write and connect with some people. I noticed I've got 177 followers which is fun cause I haven't really made an effort in that forum yet. Still waiting for that massively viral thing that'll reach half the world but until then I'm taking things as they come.
I'm thinking of taking a vow of silence though as my words seem to upset people to such an extent. Most people don't listen anyway. Maybe I'd pick up some wisdom before opening my big mouth again. We'll see. For now I need to go somewhere to recover my mental health after this nightmare.
