Janet (with a Y) and I are developing an unlikely friendship. She seems to feel that she can confide absolutely everything in me, lowering her voice and casting a sideways glance both left and right before she begins to reveal intimate secrets about her family, friends, and employers. If it’s highly classified information, then it’s not really a problem as I can only understand about 60% of what she tells me anyway, such is the galloping velocity of her speech, peppered with Nicaraguan slang and proverbs.

Apparently where she is from, eating with the fork in your right hand will bring you bad fortune and sorrow – I think my grandmother just used to call that my bad table manners inherited from the Americans, along with “It’s yes not yeah”, and “Who’s she? The cat’s mother?” accompanied by a slap on the wrist.

I get quite distracted when Janet is speaking as she enthusiastically launches into her diatribe, so in awe am I of the speed with which she puts her words together that I find myself studying the vibration of her lips and I forget to pay attention to the meaning – not to mention that I am usually working when she comes by and unable to give her my undivided concentration.

When I heard the knock on the door today I wasn’t prepared for the zigzag scar and the gold-toothed smile standing on my doorstep. She seems to enjoy the element of surprise she wields by turning up on a different day each week, my obvious confusion amusing. It’s of little consequence to me that she comes when she pleases – I am always here during the day anyway – it’s just that, if I had a little warning, I could at least be prepared with some fresh coffee and a packet of biscuits.

I busily set about loading up the machine, which refuses to work even though the light switches on – it’s a bit temperamental and every time I write it off it cranks back into life again the next day, except when Janet comes and it stubbornly goes back on strike. I smile at her apologetically, asking if she minds drinking instant coffee.

I am ashamed at my lack of hospitality as I scour the cupboards for something to offer her. I’ve been so caught up in my life lately that my fridge has nothing more in it than hot sauce (quite a lot of hot sauce actually – six different types – Tabasco, two kinds of Jalapeño, Habanero, Sriracha, and one particularly devilish jar of homemade fire from locally growing plants, full of seeds). I also have a rotting watermelon, some cereal (no milk), and half a tomato.

I remember the story last week about the lady she goes to after me, whose house is like a pigsty, with four large, long-haired dogs that sleep in the bed with her and who she kisses on the mouth. Janet won’t even accept a cup of coffee there, as all her crockery is full of dog hair – “ay Christy es un asco” (disgusting) she groans. I wonder what she says about me. After today I am going to be known as the slovenly, unmarriable single girl who doesn’t know how to properly stock a kitchen and has an unhealthy penchant for food that burns her lips.

I feel so bad I over-compensate by giving her two sachets of lite sugar instead of one and five more minutes of conversation. I make my way back upstairs to work and she switches on the telenovela, dexterously operating the remote control that I’ve spent the last six weeks thinking was broken.

I enjoy her visits, as distracting as they are, and find the peculiar way in which she organizes my house bemusing, with the sofa facing the wall instead of the television and the toilet paper in the wardrobe. Last week she fastened the tap on the pipe of my toilet. Totally clueless about all things plumbing, the fact that it was no longer flushing water, for me meant that it was broken; until it was pointed out that the tap might need opening.

I gently ask her if she could let me know when she changes the setting on something, adjusts the plumbing, or decides to carry out full-on feng shui in my bedroom, so that I can save myself countless wasted hours looking for things. Seriously it would never have occurred to me that the remote control for the air conditioning would be better off living under the kitchen sink. She cackles with laughter and I smile, who am I to deny her these little pleasures? She’s like a different person today from the lady that I first met who brought a cloud of sorrow into the room with her. She’s opening up to me.

I was quite caught off guard on Sunday when my cell phone blared with a number I didn’t recognize. It was Janet. I didn’t realise straight away but after a few words in that unmistakable twang, I waited for her to come to her point. Not a big fan of the phone as a medium of communication, preferring instead a long chat over dinner or a few glasses of wine, I tend to only call people when I have something specific to say or arrange.

She started to giggle on the other end of the line and began to probe me about the green-eyed Italian that came by with food last week when she was here. “He likes you Christy, he’s very attentive, and he seems like a very nice man”. “Thank you,” I said, still waiting for her to tell me what she wanted. After a few minutes more it was apparent that she was only calling to gossip. My heart melted just a little.

“How’s your new grandson?” I ask – she became a grandmother at 40 last week – “what’s his name?” – “Addis… Anis… ay Christy I can’t remember” she replies, “it’s one of those gringo names”. I find it slightly odd that she doesn’t know the name of her grandson, but then, she did lose track of how many children she herself had had the other week. “None of my kids are worth a dime,” she says, “they’re all spoilt and ungrateful; they never come to see their Mum except to ask for dos rojos*.” Perhaps that’s why she’s taken to calling me.

She clunks up the stairs with the broom and the mop, chattering non-stop all the way, presumably to the air, as she is barely audible from here. She stops for breath for a moment until at last, with a glint in her eye she swoons “So Christy…”, poised to fish for more details, utterly oblivious to the fact that I’m working.

There is a sudden gurgling noise from downstairs and the coffee machine (blessed be) splutters into life. Janet takes this as a sign from God and enthusiastically bounds downstairs. I’m not so sure about God and if he’s not too busy with things more pressing than bringing my coffee machine back to life, but I do send out a grateful smile to the universe for rescuing me from an awkward conversation.

* dos rojos = 2 thousand colones (the 1000 colones bill is red) about $4