Call centers

Younger daughter and I have recently spent hours on the phone with different Indian gentlemen trying to explain that our Internet connection doesn't work. It's exhausting and oh, so time consuming, plus when it comes to spelling my name in that special code that they have adopted I am at loss. What's wrong with A like in armpit,  N like in news, D like in dishwasher,  E like in eggs, and R like in roses, and S like in sandpit, and O like in orange, and finally again N like in news, instead of all that military stuff, Alpha , Bravo, Delta, whatever.  By the way this would then spell Anderson which is a relatively common name but not my name.  For goodness sake, this is not the second World War and we don't have to speak in code anymore ( or do we?)

This leads me to an incident that our daughter in Senegal told me about recently. She was on the bus and this elegant Senegalese lady was engrossed in a book. Our daughter just glanced at it and saw that it was in Swedish, her mother's native tongue and also a language that she is fluent in. She couldn't help herself but had to ask the lady "Are you Swedish?" in Swedish.  The lady said "No I am not" in a very distinct and particular Swedish accent from the south of Sweden. She asked her if she had lived in Sweden and the lady said no. She then asked her if she had ever been there and the lady said no. She clearly wanted to get on with reading her book.

She did say just as she was getting off the bus,  that she worked in that green building that they could see, in a call center and that their teacher was Swedish,  from the south of Sweden, from Ystad (of Wallander fame) so that all the people in the call center had that accent and she had only been learning Swedish for 7 months. I guess it goes to show you that you can learn fast if the motivation is there. And also that the call centers are everywhere where cheap labour is to be had. Apparently in Chile where our youngest daughter lived previously,  their call centers were all in Columbia.

Let's see, what else has happened since last we spoke... well, we have had Mother's Day here in Australia and we all went to a lovely restaurant in Cronulla  called Alphabet Street where they served a sort of Thai Fusion Menu. It was fabulous, every dish was a piece of art.

Other than that, we are already preparing for our trip to Europe in June.  I can't believe that it is already a year since last time This time it is nice to leave someone behind to look after the house. I am talking about younger daughter and boyfriend who have been with us for a while.

Last but not least I wanted to tell you that we went to an opening at Hazelhurst Art Gallery where my art teacher had a painting exhibited. During the somewhat drawn out speeches I went outside to sit in the park. I was surrounded by birds and all of a sudden one of them let go of his (or her) load right on my hand. Trying to wash it off in the bathroom was almost impossible. I think they should adapt this glue to the industry somehow. It just stuck right away.

This was almost impossible to wash off.

Time to say goodbye and go and prepare
Sunday lunch.