I had an appointment at 4:00 to sign the lease for the apartment and so after lunch, I went out to go to the bank and withdraw money for the deposit. I went to the bank at the nearby mall to do so (its one of the safer places). I went through the transaction, but for some reason, the ATM informed me that the transaction could not be processed. Strange, I thought, since I've been able to withdraw from that bank in the past. I thought perhaps there was some hold on my account so I walked over the coffee shop where there is free WiFi and checked my account. To my dismay, my account showed that the transaction had been successful - including the standard ATM fee and 1% foreign transaction fee. I went back to the bank - the line for customer service was out the door. I asked the guard if there was anyone there who spoke English and could help me. He replied yes, and the man and woman behind me in line said they also spoke English. Seeing the look on my face, the man said, what's wrong - are you okay? I explained to him what happened and was starting to cry when the woman told me that the same thing had happened to her. He calmly said, don't worry, I know how you must feel, but its okay, you will get your money back. It did make me feel better. He explained my situation to the guard, who in turn said that I needed to go to the banks other location (main branch) and they could help me there. So off I went. After speaking to the manager, and waiting twenty minutes or so, he came back and told me that the money should be back in my account tomorrow. I thanked him, but explained that I needed to withdraw money today. He simply shrugged and repeated that I should have my money tomorrow. If not, I would need to have my bank contact their bank. Have your people call my people? Really? Frustrated and discouraged, I returned home. I called my bank and informed them of the situation (just in case) and was forced to instead take a cash advance on my credit card, fees of which set me back an additional $50.00, all thanks to the bank's error. Funny, in Monopoly, the bank error is in your favor. Not so much here.
I had to postpone my appointment by 30 minutes also, but eventually, I made it. My roommate was kind enough to accompany me and helped translate. Finally, it was done. I move in on May 1st :) Pictures are forthcoming...
The meeting was sparse tonight. It turns out a lot of the friends are sick. I guess its going around...
Thursday: Field service - yeah! I feel so out of practice after being sick. We had a nice group meet together and it was a beautiful, sunny day. We are concentrating on working census so that we develop the territories as much as possible before the District Convention campaign. It was a nice morning, despite not finding any English speakers. In the late morning, my friend and I left the group to go do some calls. Then we stopped back at my house for some soup and then met up with my roommate for some more service. Then we traveled north for my study at 5:30. It was 8:30 by the time we got back to our end of town. We wasted about an hour trying to find a tienda open to pick up a few necessary items for dinner. We went back to the house and had a girl's night; we made dinner and then watched a movie - it was so much fun! Too bad it took us forever to decide on a movie - by the time the movie was over it was almost 3:00am!
Friday: Talk about tired. It was so hard to get out of bed this morning. But we did it! The service group met in "the south" this morning, which means an hour and fifteen minute bus ride to get there. It was worth it though - on our very first door, my partner and I set up a Bible study! We had a big group out too so that was extra encouraging. We always have such a nice time :)
Here are some other interesting and random photos from the morning:
View of the snow-tipped Cotopaxi Mountain
A young boy was holding this baby chick - so cute!!
View of Pichincha Mountains
This little guy followed us around all morning!
The brother who took the lead that morning lives nearby and invited the group to his house for lunch - yum! Afterwards, I had to hop on a bus to meet a sister in the north center part of town for her study at 3:30 - it took an hour and forty five minutes to get there. While there, I received a call from the cable company cancelling my 5:30 appointment to sign the Internet contract that evening. Some things don't change no matter where you live... After waiting two hours for the study to arrive (running late has a totally different meaning here), I apologized, but had to leave because I had also set up a 6:00 appointment to finalize my lease and get the keys to my new apartment. Since traffic is especially bad on a weekend night, I waited for a while before calling. But at 6:40 when the leasing agent still hadn't shown up, I called. She apologized but said the problem was that her car was in the shop and she wouldn't be able to make it. I took a deep breath and told myself I need to get accustomed to such things - "Welcome to Ecuador!" as the saying goes. So, my roommate and I had dinner and then both went to bed early since we were so exhausted from the night before.
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