Four Women and Manolis

Often we have problems with infrastructure in Astypalaia, although it has gotten better over the years.  Frequent brown outs and power outages plagued us during our early years working here.  Most of our problems stem from the electrical system.  The other night another electrical catastrophe, a Greek word, struck.

Of course it had been a hot and tiring day and after our nightly showers, we were hoping to crash for the night in our air conditioned studio apartment.  Well, that was not to be.  Just as we were about to retire for the night there was a power brown out, which was followed by a loud buzzing sound from the electrical panel, pictured here. 

I jumped up onto the couch to switch of the circuit breaker, and the noise stopped, but we were in the dark.  I waited a minute, flipped it back on, and we experienced several brown outs and a power surge or too.  The air conditioner was also fried, and the fan ran, but it only pushed hot air.  Aaahhh! Why do these things always happen at night?

So we suffered through the night with no AC, and the electrical panel buzzing every 5 minutes or so. Somehow I managed to sleep, Andrea says I was really in a heat induced coma.

The next morning we needed to be off to work with the sun rise, so we composed a note, in Greek, to our landlord describing the situation. To make sure that we were completely understood, we enlisted the help of a local friend. She called our landlord and apprised her of the situation.  A plan was hatched.  The electrician, the landlord, Andrea and I would all show up at our studio at 3:15 pm to assess the situation.

At 3:15 everyone was there!  After doing several diagnostic tests that included me plugging and unplugging the AC unit, the electrician decided that the main circuit had to be replaced.  He did the work quickly, but sparks flew out of the wall and he shocked himself two times. Still our AC was not functional, and the buzzing sound continued to issue from the electrical panel.  We were all hot and tired, and now it was decided that we needed to call in Manolis, the island's AC guru.  It is getting close to 6 pm when we call Manolis, which is shortly after lunch in Greek time.

I decide to go to the butcher and the fruit store to collect food for dinner while Andrea and our landlord waited for Manolis to arrive. He was supposed to be only a couple of minutes away.  However, when I returned with dinner items in hand one hour later, Manolis was still nowhere in sight.  I start making dinner.  Now our landlord, the cleaning lady, Andrea and I are all in the studio sweating like pigs and cursing the AC. Finally a cheerful Manolis arrives in his clam diggers and flip flops.

He quickly decides that the entire unit must be replaced, and so he ordered one delivered to our studio.  We had dinner, during which I heard strange noises coming from behind our studio.  I checked a couple of times, found no intruders, and decided that Manolis must be working somewhere behind the structure.  Suddenly, from around the corner comes the still festive Manolis with our land lord and cleaning lady in tow, they are carrying a new AC unit.  Manolis is also chanting in Greek that the job is being done by 4 women and Manolis.  Everyone is in good spirits, so Andrea and I decide that a round of beers is in order.  This idea goes over very well with the work crew.

Finally the work is done, and it is time for the final test.  The workers enter our studio talking loudly in Greek, they have had some beer.  The noise is so loud that I have to cut short a phone call with my husband due to the racket.  The new AC unit gets plugged in, and it works! There is no buzzing sound.  Will miracles never cease.  At this point (around 10 pm) it is decided that a group photo needs to be taken, unfortunately we did not get a copy off of our landlord's phone.

However, the second picture here is of our fabulous cleaning lady Voula and the aforementioned Manolis.  The offending AC unit is also in the photo.  They are up in my loft/bedroom performing the work.

In the end we all had a good laugh and we have a new AC unit.

More soon.