Not Welcome Part 1

"So now I'm paid up through the end of August," I half-ask as I hand Don Flor the second half of my rental payment for the next fifteen days. I've just run to the bank for the second time in three days because Flor insisted I pay the whole three thousand and not fifteen hundred for just a week like we'd discussed.

"No," Flor responds, "now you're paid up through today." I cringe. This is what I was afraid of. I haven't been keeping records, but I have paid every first and fifteenth since I arrived, including the one payment Peace Corps gave me to deliver at the beginning of May when first I came to visit my site, a couple of weeks before moving in. He insists that I have not been paying for my room in advance, even after I try reminding him of that first payment. Rather than ask him what he thought the first payment was for, I decided not to press the issue. To do so would likely only aggrevate an already stressful situation.