Toilet Situation

Samuel finally recieved his letter from the united states visa center or whatever its called, informing him that they are ready for final processing and now he needs to gather all these documents and forms before his big interview at the american consulate on July 5th! its then when they decide if they want to give him the visa... which would allow him to come to the United States...the "promise land". Its been quite the process. its been a lot of waiting and stressing. At this point it seems to close, yet so far away.. there are so many things to do before his interview.. including collecting some documents from Italy.. which could take a while. We had hadnt realized how expensive this would end up to be with all the fees and payments involved. To make matters worse suddenly three of his studnts quit, all at the same time..i wish i could work or do something, but i have to take care of matteo.. plus my portoghese sucks. Looking back on this little adventure, which has taken us across three continents, it makes me think of our toilet... you know, in the sense that when it gets hard and seems like the end, you have nothing left, it can only get better.. usually. let me explain....

When I first got here to this apartment, it had been empty for several years before samuel got there a couple months before me, so not everything was at its best, including the toilet. It wasnt terrible, the seat was just a little lose and to flush it you had to pull a string someone had attatched inside the tank, hold it until the water had gone, then let it go...otherwise it worked fine. Sometime later, his brother came for a visit before returning to italy, he thought he'd be helpful and attempt to fix the flushing function. but instead, the toilet situation worsened and now it was leaking and had no more pullcord. but oh well, at least it still flushed.. until another member of the family stopped by.. after that, it no longer flushed so we had to fill up a bucket of water and dump it down the toilet after we used it. a little while later, someone tried fixing the problem, but ended up dropping the lid to the tank on the seat and cracking the toilet bowel. so now, we could no longer sit on the toilet, and we had t0 dump the water after use.. not to mention it was starting to get smelly. at this point, I thought it would be better just to have a hole in the floor. Well, the yesterday morning i heard a lot of goings ons in the bathroom.. and when i looked.. there was no toilet.. just a whole in the ground.. huh... well, at least I can squat instead of that awkward hovering. With a heavy heart, I headed out the door to use the bathroom at the ground floor enternce to apartment complex. I guess it cant get much worse from here. I was right, because later that day, samuel's father showed up with a new toilet... theres still no tank, but i know its on its way. Little by little the toilet situation is improving, and when it's finished, when we get to the end of thing, I will be better than it was before and everything will be super...right?
So anyway, that was my connection..