Techi-nickell problems

A Pilgrim's Blogress
Today, I am typing on an ancient, sticky and dirt-encrusted keyboard. I am waiting for the one terminal that is able to transfer digital photos to free up. Currently it's occupied by an elderly Tibetan monk typing at medieval rate so I think it will take a while. Actually it's quite cute. He leaned over a few minutes ago and asked for spelling assistance. He was trying to type the word "safely." "I am glad Budha has arrive safely." I reached over his shoulder to type for him and he was very grateful.

Now (one hour later) the terminal is free, but the shy young assistant (who is here from 7.30 am till about 11pm) can't get the drive to work at all. I've yet to be able to blog properly or upload photos since my return to India on Wednesday, due to crawling connections and non-working disk drives. Ah, back in India, where everything is possible, but nothing is easy.

It reminds me of the tailor who "fixed" the zipper on my backpack 3 times (three!) and each time it broke again with 24 hours. The second time, I began to get impatient and demanded he give me a good zipper. "But this good zipper," he kept insisting. "Good zipper, but techi-nickell problem." Well, that makes it a BAD ZIPPER! I kept trying to reason with him. The more I kept up with this line of reasoning, the more firmly he insisted that it was a GOOD zipper - somehow in his mind, the fact that it did not work, at all, did not inhibit its being an inherently good zipper. He also didn't understand why I would not give him additional money for fixing the broken zipper he had sold me to begin with. He wanted more money each time he repaired his own crummy zipper. The fourth time he repeated "just techi-nickell problem," without fixing it, I had to restain myself from throwing it across his tiny shop.

Perhaps I am being too harsh. Maybe it really was a good zipper at heart, but just needed three or four times repairing to see the error of its ways. Tomorrow I have to find a place with a working disk drive.