Tsunami, 6. Beam Me Up, Scotty!

I want to smash two plates, five glasses, and a window. I want to howl in anger and frustration.

My internet odyssey isn't over yet. 

The technicians from Movistar came this morning. After calling yesterday to make an appointment for nine o'clock this morning, they came at nine thirty. They came, said they would check along the line to find a hook-up box, and would then proceed to install the fiber.

One went down the road, and the other went up the road. After a while, they both came back, shaking their heads. There is no hook-up. 

Almost three years, three years ago, they installed the fiber cable. Since then, there has been no follow-up to install the box. Nothing, zilch, nada. Movistar probably installed the cable because of pressure from the regional government to extend the network of fiber to rural areas. But they stopped at that. The rubes don't really need internet, after all. Milking cows and feeding the pigs doesn't require a computer.

So now, I have to wait. The technicians said they would send a note to the central office, who would then send someone out to find the best place to install the box, and then they would come back, to install my connection. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll have fiber by this summer. Maybe.

In the meantime, internet is becoming a requisite for just about everything. Until we are allowed to get together again, I give classes by internet. I have to make appointments at government offices, doctor's offices, etc., by internet, because no one picks up the phone anymore on the first call. Forms have to be filled out on internet. Everything is moving online. But not everyone lives with a connection. Many people out in the rural areas only have connection by satellite or wifi. And it's a bad connection, which tends to disappear in stormy weather, like what happened to me last week, or just because the system gets tired of transmitting data. 

So, with another week ahead of me with video calls, I'm waiting for the moment when they will become impossible because I will have used up all my monthly data plan of 40 gigas on the wifi. Life in twenty-first century rural Spain. There are days I absolutely hate this place.

Life continues. Angrily.