öt hónap

five months


It has been five months since we had this problem. I was in the shower this morning and noticed the water getting cold pretty quickly. Fortunately I was done, but I did think it was odd because we never run out of hot water here. Something about the way the water is heated or something... But anyway, I came downstairs, and Kevin said he couldn't get any hot water out of the sink either. He checked to see if the pilot light was out, and it was. Like last time I tried to get it relit forever with no such luck. In September we eventually did get it back on after quite awhile.

This time though the main problem is not that the pilot light is out, but rather we have absolutely no gas running into our house. That means of course no hot water but even worse no heat. And then we also realized after checking that it also means no stove or oven.

We were on the phone all day trying to get a hold of someone, and we finally got a hold of Ildiko, who works at the school and helps us Americans out with these things. We now have been playing phone tag all afternoon with her. She called one of the maintenance people at the school who told us to check with our neighbors to see if it's just us or maybe our whole building. We only have one neighbor who speaks English, and of course she wasn't home. We were told next to check to make sure the gas valve was open, and it was. Ildiko said she would call the gas company and ask, and then they said they hadn't gotten any other complaints so it must be just us. They told her what to tell us to do, but the button they said we needed to push does not exist anywhere. She told me that she was going to call them and have them send someone out. We have been smelling gas outside of our house recently, and we told them about it already. Nothing has been done about it, so I am thinking that this might have something to do with it. It was so bad a few times that the air outside our door had that sort of wavy lines/haze effect. Nem jó!

I ran over to school to try and explain this all to Kevin since he is playing basketball. I had to wake Seth up to run over, but he is such a trooper and didn't seem to mind. However, I got "yelled" at in the meantime by a Hungarian who walked by while I was locking the door. I didn't have Seth all bundled up in his bunting bag but only wrapped up in a blanket for the 3 second commute because I was trying to go as fast as I could to get back in case of another call.

But now Seth and I are back home and waiting to see if someone from the gas company shows up. I have no idea how I am going to communicate with whoever shows up, and that is such a great stress of living over here. Oh well. Praise the Lord for people like Ildiko who can help, that the weather outside is not terribly freezing, and for Whittington's space heater.