Billy Blanks in my Bedroom

“How are you and your roommate getting along?”

A question I have faced time and time again. It’s like that question you get in high school, “what are you going to do in college?” or the question you get in college, “what are you going to do after you graduate?”

I have always hated these questions because people always want a nice, organized, prepared, pc response. Tell someone you plan on studying business or law and they promptly squirm with glee at your bright future and then forget what you said because they don’t really care anyway. Tell someone you are exploring your interests and want to travel the world and they just shrug and look down (metaphorically if not literally), as if you told them you plan on becoming a bum and making yourself a papier-mâché box house to live in on the street (mine would have sequins and Picasso inspired graffiti art decorating the exterior). Other people just say “cool”… and the buck stops there.

Not that my roommate has much to do with my future plans. In fact I hope she plays no role in my future. But the question, “How are you and your roommate getting along?” demands the same sort of planned, positive, pc, and in this case, culturally respectful response. Especially when I am speaking to my Mozambican Peace Corps supervisor. I can’t just say that I don’t like her, she is controlling, and I would literally rather sleep in my glittery papier-mâché box outside then spend 10 minutes with her.

Those that know me can see through my polite little ruse of, “Oh… we are… ok. We aren’t really friends, but we get along…”

“Well that is an accomplishment,” Peace Corps Volunteer Gracey replied recently, “You have made it through almost two years living with someone that you don’t really like.”

And I suppose it was an accomplishment. And then she went crazy (although, I am sure she would say the same about me).

So now I am getting down and dirty. The gloves are off and the big fat truth is coming out.

Things I hate about my roommate:

She has explosive diarrhea in the latrine and doesn’t clean up the droplets that don’t make it down the hole so I have to walk in and see flies sitting on her residual shit storm.

She is bossy like a mother fucker.

She doesn’t share. Anything.

She is stingy and complains that I have a computer and thus use more electricity than she does. But she doesn’t seem to understand that the time she spends ironing her non-wrinkled clothes accounts for about 98% of our kilowatt usage.

Her sister comes to visit and then openly insults me in my own house.

She hates my students and is rude to them.

She hates anyone that comes to visit me and is rude to them.

She locks one of our chairs in her bedroom to use it as a shelf and when I ask her for it so an actual person can sit down she throws a fit.

She wipes the kitchen table with the cloth that she uses to clean the floor and that smells like old, rotten, pork meat.

She is closed minded.

She feels this innate urge to teach me things.

She tries to teach me things by making see that I am wrong rather than just communicating like an adult.

She doesn’t ever clean the house, not even sweep, and then has the nerve to call me a dirty person (please refer back to the above diarrhea comment. Wtf?!)

She treats me like a child.

She laughs in my face.

She uses like 14 buckets of water a DAY. Which means that I have to ration my water use if I don’t want to go carry more to feed her apparent water fetish.

She is a dirty whore… well, not really, but I am feeling like throwing the insults around.

Why the sudden dissipation of diplomatic graciousness? Well it went down a little like this:

“Hi honey, how was school,” Iraque, sitting on his mattress on a reed mat on the floor inside his little reed house, asked me one day about two weeks ago.

“Oh. You know. Same old. Teaching English to a bunch of hooligans,” I responded, a bit exasperated after a full day of 20 something men pushing my buttons because they think it’s funny, “what about you?”

“Hortencia called me over today to talk while you were at school. She told me that I am never allowed to step inside your house again. Not even if she isn’t there. Ever. “

What? Why? How? Confused reaction in my mind.

So I waited until she got home from school, sat down at our kitchen table, and without me even asking, she explained to me, as Iraque had recounted, that she was, in fact, ordering him to never enter, nay approach our house.

“Well, did he do something? Was he rude to you?”

“I am not against your love, in fact I hope you get married. But I have never liked his presence and now it just makes me furious.”

So we proceeded to discuss/fight/ I couldn’t get a word in edgewise for about 40 minutes, until she finally heard over the racket coming out of her own mouth my response of, “I’m sorry, he was probably here too much, it wasn’t fair to you, he won’t be over as much. However, you don’t have the right to say that he can never come in this house again. This is my house too  and I want him here. And you shouldn’t have gone behind my back and acted like a crazy pants, so eat a big fat puddle of your own splattered, parasite filled, diarrhea please.”  

The last part didn’t actually come out of my mouth.  But it might have if I knew how to say it in Portuguese.

So then she stormed out, slammed her bedroom door, and we haven’t spoken since. Well, that isn’t entirely true, we sometimes say good morning, good evening, the student outside is asking for you, perhaps the occasional, under the breath fuck you, etc. But mostly it is hostile silence. We don’t touch each other’s things, we don’t share anything.

I have chosen to deal with the stress of my hostile home by following a rigid routine of Tae Bo with Billy Blanks in my bedroom… usually picturing the bitch’s bossy little face.

And the thing is, I have given in many a time. I have just done things her way in the past because it is easier than fighting. I have slowly and painfully lost my fire in Mozambique, and I consider her the culprit responsible. But if I had known it would have come down to this – my last 2 months in this house being an absolute fucking inferno of childish girl drama – I would have spiced up my feist with some real American sass and moved out long ago.

“She’s a real bitch!” Iraque exclaimed after the my cat fight with the enemy. But he pronounces bitch like “beeeeeeetch,” and it sounds so cute because his voice goes up at the end almost like he is asking a question. So all I can do is laugh.

And then, this week, the truth has come out, she can’t hide the belly any longer, she is pregnant.

“I knew it.” Iraque claimed.

“At least she has an excuse,” commented another Peace Corps Volunteer.

“Round house kick. Left jab. Left jab. Round house kick,” counsels my new friend Billy.