The Tenth Week

Week 10-  One giant Manoli-ism (I will add more to this later- off to Portugal now!)

            When I walked into my room the morning I got back from Dublin, I smelled something weird. Our room felt funny and moist, which sadly enough isn’t that out of the ordinary. I was putting all of my stuff away in the 4:30 am dark, trying to avoid waking up my roommate, but this only lasted two minutes. I couldn’t stand the moisture in the air or the moldy smell so I turned on the lights to see what was wrong. First, I open the window, letting in the first fresh air our room had probably seen in a week. Then I flick on the lights, and my eyes quickly adjust to the extremely dim glow our single light bulb puts out. I look over at my roommate who is now fully awake, but I am distracted by the blue wall behind her. The entire wall was covered in water, the ceiling now brown with water stains, and our wall was actually squirting water out of its invisible cracks. This is my nonspanish speaking roommates take on it, “Yeah I noticed that there was water on the wall earlier, but it was only the size of my head so I wasn’t worried.” Oh, good. So it was now about 5 am and I was not about to wake up the fog horn snorer, Manoli, so I went to bed.

            The next morning I told Manoli, “Ehhhh, Manoli…we have a problem in our room. Come here, please.” She replies with the typical, “Sin favor” and walks toward our room. She walks up to the wall and touches it, only showing mild shock on her face. I say, “Look! Its even coming out of the wall! What do we do?” When she saw the water dripping out of the wall she takes in a quick breath of air like a gasp and walks away. I continue getting ready for class, thinking “Hmmm….I wonder where Manoli is going to put us when they have to replace this wall?” I looked out our window to see the what weather we had in store for the rest of the day, and I notice someone leaning out of the kitchen window. It’s Manoli with a broom in one hand and a burning Pall Mall in the other. She is smacking the window above ours yelling, “Marisol!...Marisol!...Ssss Marisol!” Marisol finally responds and I hear Manoli tell her to get down here right away. The two walk into my room as I am changing and rub the wall repeatedly like the water will just dry with one more magical touch. The two are standing about three inches away from each other, hands on hips, and talking at each other in voices that could be considered yelling. The thing about Spanish culture is that you can say something incredibly mean and rude, but if you add “Mi alma” at the end it swipes the slate clean. “Your pipes are ancient and you never take care of your place. You know I have American girls living here and I do all year. What is going on in your house up there? What in God’s name do you want me to do about this, mi alma.” The loud conversation lacking in personal space continued until I asked if I could get out the door, because they were in front of it. They step aside amazed that I was in the room. I see Manoli and Marisol give each other the double beso plus an arm rub as I am leaving. No hard feelings.

            I get back from school and Manoli tells me, “Lin, don’t worry it is being taken care of…her pipes broke and now its on the ceiling of my kitchen too! Horrible. I’m not paying a cent, ok?” I respond, “Ok, what do you want me to do about the room?” Manoli replies as if this response is so obvious, “ffffhu! (hand wave) I will paint the wall in the summer when you leave.” The wall is crumbling away and now has obvious cracks, not to mention black mold spots. I accept that I will have to be breathing in the mold for the next two months and say nothing else about it, until…two days ago. I looked up at the ceiling and notice a crack in the crown molding that looked like it needed inspecting. Obviously, I got up on the bed and poked it. This poke was like poking a baby. It was gentle and I was not trying to hurt it, but I did. With that one little poke, the entire strip of crown molding swung down, hitting the corner of the wall, and knocking off a picture of a boat with Christopher Columbus in it. The corner of the wall breaks off and part of the wallpaper and ceiling tear off too. Once again, “Manoli! We have another problem.” Now she is shocked. She asked me what happened and I decided this was a good time for a white lie. “It just fell.” She thought that it hit my roommate on the head and kept asking her if it hurt (she didn’t understand Manoli and just nodded). I had to explain that it didn’t hit her, but Manoli didn’t believe me.

            The other day I was walking back from the metro stop and I see a crowd of people and hear an ambulance coming from down the street. I don’t really bother with all the commotion, until I walk by the group of people on my side of the street. I glance at the road and keep on walking, but I feel someone grab my arm. It felt like someone was falling and needed to grab onto anything to stay standing. I turn to look at this little old lady with a church ankle length skirt on and obviously fake blonde poofy hair. She smacks my other arm with her free hand while the grip she has on my other arm tightens. She looks at me and says, “Look! You don’t want to miss this! This guy is crazy! Where were you going? Why don’t you care what’s going on! Look at him! Hey, honey, everybody is looking. You need to too!” I look and see a man lying in the middle of the road with paramedics surrounding him. The funny thing is, I couldn’t tell if the guy (who was homeless) had decided that the middle of the road was an excellent sleeping spot or if he actually joined my “I’ve been hit by a car in Sevilla” club. He had a jacket tucked under his head and he looked so content. I turn to look at the blonde haired lady and she is slapping her thighs laughing hysterically at the man in the street. She places her hand on her heart as she is laughing and says, “hmm pobrecito”. Thanks for making me see that, crazy lady.

Manoli-isms

“I used to go get waxes, especially when I was dating Antonio. You know, my armpits… but then I ran out of money and and had to do it myself. I bought the wax and heated it and then put it on my armpits. Then I couldn’t pull it off. I said ‘Mamá! Ouuuuuu!” So I left it on for the rest of the day until she tricked me and told me Antonio was outside asking for me. I went to open the window and she pulled the papers off! Horrible woman. It was horrible. Ahhh my mom (smiles).”