Seattle to Mozambique

Chata is a particularly useful term to designate someone who is annoying, awful, bitchy etc. This is the term that I’m now using for my landlady. Yuck…she is the definition of chata. First I went to her house to discuss the rental agreement with Magdalena (my new roomy), Bruno (my friend from work) and the rental agent. She was brusque and rude and treated us as if she was doing us a favor by renting us this house. She tried to get more money out of us. That is when I became chata. I refused to pay any more and told her I had already seen other options. She responded by not addressing me directly and instead asking if “this girl” (ie. Me) was ready to move in right away. She spoke only to Bruno and looked down her nose at me. If I didn’t have a strong desire to unpack (after more than a month) and if Magdalena didn’t need to find a place, I would have walked right out of there. Ahhhhh. But instead I sat there and glared at her and she glared back at me.

We all got into our respective cars and drove over to the house to take a look. We couldn’t go inside so I just stood there and explained the layout of the house to Magdalena. This whole encounter happened in Portuguese…Magdalena doesn’t speak much English, Bruno does but generally we speak in Portuguese, and Chata doesn’t speak a word of English. She then turns to Bruno and tell him that we could return to see the house later but that Bruno would have to come because the guy that was currently renting the house doesn’t speak English…and I thought “what the f*** do you think I’ve been speaking to you in??” AHHHHH. Ok…maybe this doesn’t sound as chata on paper but it really really was.

Magdalena and I crossed the street to wait by the car as Bruno discussed contract issues with the Chata. We waited and waited and finally walked back across the street to see what was taking so long. Suddenly the Chata was all nice to us and told us we could call her anytime if anything went wrong. I smiled acidly at her and returned to the car with Bruno. It turned out that Bruno was very direct with her and told her that she was rude to us and that we had our doubts about living in the house because of her attitude. Magdalena and I were grateful that he was so direct. She made the pitiful excuse that it was all because it was Ramadan and she was hungry. But perhaps his directness would mean that she wouldn’t be such an awful landlady to us. Boy was I wrong.

This is the second night in this house and I’m going to the office tomorrow to see if I can break the contract that I signed. She is a racist b***!! She had the gall to come over unannounced last night and then talk about how black Mozambicans are always to trying to take advantage of things etc etc. I won’t go into all that she said but it took every ounce of calm in my body to not physically throw her out. Instead I opened the door and said goodnight and slammed it shut. My only out is that she told us, although there was no sink to wash clothes in, there was a washing machine in the kitchen that worked. Well, it doesn’t work! It seems like it hasn’t worked in a very very long time. Hopefully this will allow me to break the contract! Magdalena also is keen on leaving. The Chata will not even speak directly to her. I should have followed my instincts and left her apartment the minute I realized just how chata she was. I’ll follow them from now on for sure!!!!