So I was laying on my deathbed on Monday afternoon waiting for MH to come home and help me wipe the spittle off my face (seriously, I have never been as sick as I was on Sunday night. I can't go into details because you'll be so grossed out you'll never be able to look me in the eye.) when I heard The Cook speaking loudly and rapidly in Spanish. After the night I had had and the help I required of The Cook so far that day, I was sure she was downstairs telling off MH and resigning due to the terrible working conditions. Turns out it wasn't that at all (Thank Heaven's Julia. We love you!), it was a simple altercation with our neighbor.
Some of the people on our street have these elevated wrought-iron baskets in front of their house for their garbage. We don't have one. When the garbage truck comes by, the guy on the back rings a bell and our staff takes the garbage to the street. Well, the crazy lady next door brought over a bag of garbage that she insisted was ours. She said that if we put our garbage in her basket again, she is going to dump it all out in front of our house. Nevermind the fact that we use those white "We're American and buy in bulk at Costco" garbage bags and this was a little shopping bag full of things we don't use. She didn't believe Julia and Lili when they swore that it wasn't our garbage and then she refused to take the garbage back. They were furious!
When MH got home he called the Roving Patrol (Bolivian police officers assigned to the Embassy) and asked if they could help him talk to the neighbor. MH's Spanish is pretty good, but he wasn't sure he could handle this delicate situation. So the cops came over and talked to the neighbor and told us that she is just an old and crotchety woman (that's my translation) and to give them a call if it happens again. In the meantime, MH wants to see about getting one of those baskets installed. I want to see about dumping the dog-poo bags over the wall, but that probably won't do a lot of good for Bolivian-American relations.
