Home Sweet Home Part II

May 17, 2007 - 4:42 PM by Israelity

Ah, the life in Beit Canada. In a not so surprising turn of events, I had deal with common place Israeli bureacracy in my very own living quarters. I happened to lose the key to my room and asked the guard to open the door. My roommate was already sleeping that night. Unfortunately, I failed to mention to her that my key was missing and she decided to lock the door before leaving this morning before I awoke.

I found myself locked in my own room without a way to break free. For a little while, I thought about yelling to my Israeli neighbors from the fourth floor window . For a split second I even thought about jumping out–but fortunately I stopped myself.

I laid in bed wallowing in my misery, realizing I would have to wait for my roommate to come home.

And then I sat up with a start. It was Thursday! My roommate never stayed here over the weekend, often scurrying to her mom and boyfriend in Kiryat Motzkin (near Haifa) after her ulpan in the mornings. Would I have to sit in this prison until Sunday?

Did I fail to mention that my cell phone is currently being fixed and I had no way to call ANYONE?

I ran to the door and looked out the little peephole–the only person in site being the cleaning lady at the other end of the hall. Nevetheless, I began banging furiously hoping G-d would answer my prayers and someone would hear me.

I was in luck as the woman just one door away was a married woman with two children at home. She looked around to see if there was some kind of construction going on and I proceeded to yell for her to get the guard. The door was open and my life was saved!!

But the fun doesn’t stop there–I went downstairs to see about getting a new key–more worried that my roommate would be mad at me for leaving the door open then for having our things stolen. I had to

wait until 12 for the “person who comes to look after the apartments and fixes things” to arrive.

Time passed slowly and I was wondering if my boss would be worried because I hadn’t called him about why I was late. And then 12 came and I rushed to get a new key–and then 1215 and 1230–and still no key! Finally, I was able to get a hold of apartment staff at 1245. (Down the stairs.) He proceeded to tell me I would have to check to see if there were extra keys (up the stairs) and new key would cost 50 shekels (down the stairs.)

After all this, I’m very winded, 50 shekels short and writing this sad little blog entry at 5pm after wasting my entire morning and some of my afternoon trying to figure out this sad little dilemma.

The perks of living in a Merkaz Klita!

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