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Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Thu 23 Oct 2014 01:21
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When I'm doing something boring like installing a
new bilge pump or servicing some water filters I listen to some podcasts, my
favourites being the "summer speakers" (Sommar pratarna), it is a series where
they let somebody talk for an hour and play their own music. I'm far behind on
the schedule as I'm listening to those that spoke the summer 2013. Fredrik
Lindström, one of my favourites talks about how many commercial messages we have
to take in every day:2000, and how we are affected by it.
One of the things that is holding the economy going
is of course our demand for the latest phone or a new TV. If we were happy with
what we had, the whole economy would probably collaps.
I read a story the other day about a guy that was
going to help a factory in Sout America somewhere to become more
efficient.
The outcome was just a disaster when compared to
other similar facilities in the world.
The specialist thought the sallary was not
good for motivation and decided they would pay the workers by the production
outcome instead of a monthly sallary. The production manager tried to warn him
but it was executed. And yes the first three weeks were really the most
productive ever- but then something happened- the fourth week nobody showed
up...
Why would they work more when they made the same
amount of money in three weeks?
Being in Fulaga you realize life there is not ment
to be boosted by more consumption and production. When they have made enough
that's it, then you can go and drink kava.
This is something absolutely unheard of in the
world I was brought up and now I can see the stressful situation in the big
city.
First of all, there are messages everywhere- things
my brain has to read and make a standpoint...and I need a new 3D television or
new detergent to be more clean.
My phone has been absolutely a berserk, having a
sim card from Vodafone they consider me the easy target on every day
commercials.
It started out with about one textmessage
(sms) per hour with unbeatable offers from who do I know? I even think they
sent me text when I was close to a store that bought their offer, by doing so
they thought I would love them?
So I went in to a Vodafone store and asked to be
taken out of the commercial traffic.
"So you mean you do not want to receive any good
offers anymore?" she asked like I was asking her something
pervert...
"Yes please"
"Ok so I put you on the black list..."
"What? What does it mean, am I
blacklisted!?"
"Yes we call it that, the list of those that
wish no offers, a black list...."
"Well thank you, yes I wish to be on it" (first
time I asked to be blacklisted)
The phone was quite for 3 hours and then Vodafone
started to bomb me with
offers about cheaper phonecalls from
midnight-answer now #343#.
Well thank you! So next time I was in town I went
to their store and asked to be taken off the list entirely, not only to offers
from vendors.
"But you are our customer! You might miss cheap
texting or cheap overseas calls"
"I don't care, put me on the next black
list"
Now she looked like I was asking her to eat a raw
pig head with tongue and eyes left in it.
"This means you will be out of everything" she
tried with a desperate look
"Yes please eat that eat a raw pig head with tongue
and eyes left in it please" i did not say that but that was what she
heard.
Tomorrow we will get our batteries and we need them
desperately now, we have to charge ours three times a day with the generator. On
top of that it is raining and there is no wind. That means no sun or wind
power.
Yesterday it was raining like crazy, but it is
still very very warm and today it feels like there should be some thunder and
lightning on the way, wich it is according to the forecast.
We have bought heavy lines and 20 meters of chain
to be prepared if a cyclone comes. The strategy is to hide out in a cyclone hole
and make a spider web of lines to mangrove etc.
We have bought some christmas gifts (hysterical
yes) for the kids since we will not have a city like Suva in the vicinity when
we move up to Vanu Levu.
Next thing on the agenda is to sailo up to
Savusavu, my new computer is on its way (thank you Jonas at Macrent, you did
it!), hopefully it is still working when it arrives.
Oh yes one more thing, Ellinor has been brave and
cut her hair in different places here in the Pacific. Last time in Tonga and it
looked really good.
This time she went to an Indian hair cutter in Lami
(8Fiji Dollars= 3,2 Euro), she told him to make it short, he took that seriously
and when he had cut the sides as short as I have it... Ellinor realised this was
going to be very short indeed!
"That is really short!" she exclaimed and that made
him take it more easy on the top...
Well now she is the first in the family to have a
punk hair style with a cockscomb, we laughed when she came back and now we have
to look forward to her hair growing out again...Pictures? We will see if she
admits-
We have said that my lack of hair in the middle
could be compensated by her top and her sides ... well you get it.
33degrees C in the shadow
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