Love to One & Love to All at this special time of Year!

 

In case you missed last year’s edition, Christmas is not my most favourite “event”, so this year, Roey & I took some inspiration from the photo above by focusing on the spirit of the festival, rather than what we were “supposed” to be doing or how we were expected to be doing it.

Simplicity was the key & whilst the idea of a huge turn out seemed like fun, we opted to keep it small. With 3 women on a retreat & 2 that had stayed on in Olon after theirs, the cook, the yoga instructor & the girlfriend of the only other guy there, it quickly became girls-night-out & that was fine by us.

The format was we’d all bring something to be part of the meal, which nicely covered both the giving & receiving bit, as well as providing a diverse menu. We had Israeli chicken, Dutch Beef, Swedish Vegetables, Guyanese Salad, Pigs in Blankets & Yorkshire Puddings (guess who bought these ;)), all followed by Venezuelan Chocolate Cake. We ate well, very well!

Eating way too much good food & ready to collapse on the sofa for a nap, check!

Unlike the stereotypical Xmas extended family meal, this was super stress free, with stimulating conversation keeping a snooze on the back burner. Now, we had planned to throw the floor open to Karaoke Christmas carolling – Unsurprisingly, I have unpacked my mike & sound system from the container, so we had the potential to go big….but in a slightly less charitable moment, we just couldn’t be arsed.

Turns out it was the right call, as by the time we turned up the volume, a comparable volume of alcohol had been downed by the ladies & they were in “Super-Trooper Abba Mode”. Good for them, they enjoyed the hell outta themselves. Entertaining as it was to watch though, for me it was equally painful to hear, so I caved to the call of my comfy seating (did I mention my container arrived? 😉 & got home at a resonable hour…..

 

I Love the Sound of Breaking…….

Having essentially bribed the authorities, my container was to be despatched in a most timely manner & thus due for arrival 2pm, Tuesday. All good, all going as planned. The Devil being in the detail & all that, the challenge of not having an address system in this country, is that you need to get extensive with your directions & of course hope that whatever you used as a reference point, hasn’t changed or been moved. I wasn’t so blind in my enthusiasm to not foresee potential for disaster here, so like a John Ford movie, I told them to meet me at the fork in the road to Sinchal. There is only a single coast road & whilst there are many small, side roads, there is only a single fork once on the coast road. Until you get to where my house that is, there coincidentally, is the second fork (to Dos Mangas). I am not storing the container at my house though; I am storing it at a friends place in Sinchal…. at the first fork.

There is a restaurant on the first fork, so I get there at 1pm for lunch as I have a feeling it will be well dark before I get to eat again. By 2pm Im alert & by 2.30pm Im standing in the road. About 10mins later, a huge truck comes barrelling down the road, clearly hauling a 40’ container I instantly recognised from only a few days earlier. Instinctively my arms went up as I guided him ATC style, in past me to the lay-by at the start of the fork. I stood agape in a cloud of dust as he carried on barrelling without even a glance at the fork. By the time I had my phone out, Sandra (my import agent) had appeared in the rear window of an SUV, equally barrelling. Our eyes locked, but the driver had his locked on the back of my container, so they sped on past as well.

On the plus side, three cabs stopped on the other side of the road thinking I was hailing them.

I quickly reached Sandra, who then had to chase the driver for a while before he answered his phone & they set about turning the beast. Thing is, this singular coast road doesn’t offer a lot of opportunities for HGV’s to turn around, so it was another half hour before we saw him again.  I used the time to (gently) enquire what had happened. The driver had faithfully repeated all the instructions regarding the fork meeting & was expecting an issue free delivery. What no one had foreseen however, was a relative of his that lives up near Dos Mangas, making him familiar with the second fork. His paperwork was folded in half, with my address on one side & delivery address on the other. I cant blame him for not turning it over, but GeeeZusss!

 

Love Cant Turn Around

When I planned this part of the process, I thought this access was the best I could hope for. Yes long bumpy dirt roads, but not uphill & bags of room. This was earlier in the year though & crops have been planted since….& fences erected to keep out  los animales. This proved challenging for a driver that prefers fast & straight. His team mates were of varied opinions & thus gave differing instructions, few of them helpful or followed. It was a lot later & there was a lot less fence & gate in a functional state when we finally got him in. The enthusiastic team then got to work emptying all my goods n chattels from the big metal box & divided them between one half its size & a covered storage area. I stood by the truck directing, assigning each box a status of “inside” or “outside”. This worked fantastically well & they moved quickly, though I did have to keep reminding them that as well as being an object to move, it was also full of my belongings, so please wait for someone to help you rather than use all your might to roll it. We are getting near the end & its only just dusk, so we are relaxing a little when the guys walk a large bubble wrapped package to the open truck doors. I can see it’s a glass panel, but they are holding it wrong & its starting to bend. I leap forward & get them to set it down on the truck bed which they quickly do. That’s when it bends again. I scream for them to pick it back up & the guy at the front does so first. That’s when I first hear, then see, the lava-like flow of billions of glass fragments from one end of the bubble-wrap, to the now pregnant bulge in the middle. I lost it!!!! Its not just the cost, the insurance will (should) cover that, it’s the fact that I am unlikely to replace it here like for like, so whilst (hopefully) no one will ever notice, I’ll see it every time I look at it. The endless introspection on how it could’ve been avoided.

Breath…then let it go.

The guys went into denial mode & I was in no state to hear it. I got up in the back of the truck & they took me into the deep recesses to where the last dozen or so items were awaiting their turn. All twelve, 2.6m x 1m glazed panels for the three Bi-Folds were stacked, record style, against one side. Including the one at the door, I found one more that hadn’t made it. For anyone that’s ever owned a 12” or two, when you stack them against the wall, the few at the front tend to slide down. Now the glass never came out of the container at the port, so it is my thinking one thing moved & pressure points changed from stuff above it &…. boompchsssssshhhh.

Im still trying to process it, I am gutted, but Ive found a guy who thinks he can replace it, so it may be recoverable….so staying positive (grinds teeth). Everything else with the house is going well, so on balance, as P. Diddy used to say, We on Top!

 

Your Love is Taking Me (Higher & Higher)

You’ve heard before how we construct each floor, so for simplicity, lets just say we’ve done it again 🙂 Since last I wrote, we have concreted the ground floor, the columns to the second floor, the second floor itself & the columns to the roof. We now only have the roof pour remaining 🙂 I grant you it isn’t quite the milestone of moving in by Xmas, but I don’t think any of us really expected that, did we? 😀

In between times, we’ve also built the basement walling & stairwell as well as begun the window reveals for the small frames Ive transported to site. Christmas is just the single day here having been mostly celebrated on Christmas Eve, so we were back at work Boxing Day. This means we just keep chugging away, so it now really, really, feels like its coming together.

 

Feels Like Im Falling in Love

If a UK Health & Safety Executive were to visit my site, he would likely close it down such are the number of potential hazards. In part this is because the vast majority of speciality (any) equipment, designed to protect workers from accidents, is simply not available here. It is also not part of their culture yet, so they rely on common sense & the good graces of whichever saint they pray to. Which reminds me of a story I heard at a gold mine in Peru. They were building a very, very high retaining wall with block-sized stone, but rather than go up the face with a scaffold, they built the ground up behind it & built from above. This lead to “several” leaning over too far & falling to their demise & giving rise to the query, “How many this week?”.

Obviously this is a poor reflection of the value placed on the worker. I do value my guys & though there are few H&S implementations insisted on, my focus is on making sure they don’t hurt themselves, rather than complying with a regulation. I’m constantly reminding them to be careful, getting them a real ladder when they begin by balancing a few bits of wood, handing them glasses when cutting steel with a grinder & gloves with concrete. Never the less, the law of averages is an inevitable player if you are in the game long enough. Nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition, but everyone knows accidents can happen.

I was less than 20 minutes away from site on my way to breakfast when I got the call, Ricky had fallen off the second floor, they’d got him in a cab & were on their way to the emergency room at the end of the road in Manglaralto. Spinning the bike around, I headed for the ER, a million thoughts rushing through my head, a lump forming in my throat & something of a pit, hollowing out my stomach. The Doc was with him, so it was an adrenaline rushed blur from the guys outside that hit me like an airbag.

He was alive, TF!He’d landed badly, but I couldn’t be sure if it was his ankle first, or whether his lower back had broken the fall, either way, they were both under close scrutiny. After…quite…some…time, the Doc came out & confirmed there was a problem with his foot, but couldn’t be specific. They didn’t think he had a problem with his back, but they couldn’t be sure. Both easily resolved with an x-ray, however, for an unspecified reason, their machine was unavailable. Roey kindly lent me his car & by the time I got back to the clinic, his parents had arrived. His dad sells peeled oranges & his mum runs a roadside eatery, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ricky is the primary bread-winner, I braced myself for their reaction. The dad was subservient & overly appreciative, his mum wary but grateful. So we got Ricky in the back, with his mum in the front & we set off for Santa Elena. First it seems we have to stop at the roadside eatery to pick up his sister as she knows the way. I try to make conversation, but most of the 80min drive is spent in a slightly surreal silence. His sister didn’t know the way, she knew how to lean out the window & ask for directions…

Comparatively speaking you could say he was seen quite quickly & as I was mostly waiting outside, they may have been getting information updates that I wasn’t privy to. What I do know is, it felt like a really long time. Thankfully his lower back was just bruised, but he had broken his toe. The break had briefly separated, long enough for it to become misaligned & therefore needed an operation to reset it. Sometimes lady luck just cant turn that frown upside down, so we weren’t surprised to learn the surgeon was at a different hospital & super busy what with the run up to Christmas n all, so Ricky had to go to him. I left mum waiting with him for the transfer ambulance, Id given her some cash for painkillers, expenses etc & I took his sister home – she didn’t know the way back from the hospital either…. On balance & I mean no disrespect by this, these are state run medical centres & I’ve had worse NHS experiences. Sure they may seem to be outpaced by molasses, but they have a large turnover of patients. The care, when received, is top notch so I’m told.

He’s out of the hospital now. We got him some crutches & naturally I took care of his wages, but I didn’t want to knee jerk this & do the wrong thing. I also didn’t know what their expectation & intentions might be. So I did some research, conducted interviews & this is what I found. Whilst there was no guard rail to stop him falling, he had fixed a piece of wood in place to act as such. He then leant on this to gain greater access & said wood became rapidly unfixed & down he went. The HSE would disagree, but he is accepting of a goodly portion of the responsibility. I gave him a generous xmas bonus & reassurance he can come back to work when he is able. In turn his brother takes over the vacancies of both employee & breadwinner, life carries on.

 

Lovesick

The new administration has apparently done some good things, but like all good things, someone eventually has to pay for it. Their solution was to save a fortune on free healthcare & medication currently provided to expats & generate income by making them (us) take out insurance. It became legal beginning of December & has to be assigned to your cedula ID.

As I understand it, if you don’t have it & you leave the country, you have to pay all the back payments since you arrived, before you are allowed to leave. You also have to have proof on entering or buy at the airport. I was told there was a mixer cum info exchange being organised by a few expat-centric businesses, looking to capitalise on these changes by explaining revised rules regarding visas, importation of containers & now, healthcare.

I get why they are doing it & I have no challenge to the principle….however, I take issue with their first foray into this as a “blanket” roll out without thinking it through.

In essence, it’s the same deal they offer to the over 50’s in the adverts fronted by the late great Michael Parkinson. No medical, no forms to complete….piss poor cover should you actually need it. The difference here is we didn’t even get a free pen, let alone a handy travel alarm clock! I tried in vein to demonstrate how fit I am, that my number was non-reflective of my age & thus the risk of them having to pay out was minimal. No, I was now in an “at risk” category. Not that I would normally care what bracket anyone placed me in, but because I fell above the 49yr threshold, my premium would be $75 p/month. Outrageous!! I countered with the suggestion I could pay a (nominal) fee for a PAYG card, detailing the dental & x-ray work I’d paid for previously when I’d needed it, alas, no. Persistent as I am, she finally relented & agreed to class me as 49, which meant my premium dropped to $45. Yes I understand that, if required, a single operation can cost years of subscriptions at that sort of money, but even so, I still somehow felt cheated & anyway, isn’t that the risk they take when accepting your money?

The remarkable thing about this country though is that this is not where it ended.

I duly received the notification of attachment from the Ministerio, I am now on record as having official health insurance. Check.

What didn’t happen though, was any form of request for a 2^nd instalment, so I made my own enquiries. You are supposed to go to a bank & make a deposit to their account & then send the payment slip by way of confirmation that you paid it, & of course who you are, so they know who has paid & who has not. On further investigation, this time to the healthcare insurance provider, it appears the records are kept by the Ministerio & they are the only ones who check, or indeed enquire, who has what & then only if someone calls to ask & no ones going to do that except they themselves. So of course, I made no second payment, but as I intend to leave & return as frequently as I can, I needed to be confident I was legit. In truth Im probably just being bullish, but I don’t want to set reminders to make the trek, then to make the payment I don’t want to pay, so at least make it easy for me goddammit. This lead me to call into a bank last time I was in Santa Elena to find out, if I opened an account, could I at least set up a standing order. Well wouldn’t you know, Banco Guayaquil, much like Tesco’s or any other well renowned credit facility, also offer insurances. Bottom line, once you have an account you are entitled to get health cover at $60 per anum. Holy Santa Maria, I’d found what I was looking for & problem resolved 🙂

 

Eat, Pray, Love

My pigs in blankets won 2^nd place to the Dutch Beef on Xmas Eve. Im pretty sure they’d have taken poll if only I’d had real sausages or proper bacon, so buoyed by the flush of success & with the bit of extra time I had on Xmas day, I thought Id further indulge myself.

I still had some batter left over from the Yorksire’s & there was some beautiful looking calamari at the fish market. Yes it was open Xmas Day. I’m mostly too late for the market these days as Im at work, or don’t get there till lunchtime for the cats fish (yes, I spoil them!), so it was great to pick n mix from the days catch. Id picked up a baby tuna earlier in the week & Id had full on, side of beef to myself Xmas day, so I fancied a change. Bring on the calamari in batter to die for. Soft, succulent & full of flavour, that simply zinged with a squeeze of lime. Under 4hrs boat to belly meant this was the freshest squid Id ever eaten & whilst I always quite liked chewing my way through my allotted portion of rings in a basket, in venues believing the menu was exotic due to their inclusion, but this was something else entirely. I threw what was left over in with a bunch of prawns for a sweet ‘n’ sour Boxing Day & they were just as delicious. I tend not to make many resolutions, however, next year, in my new kitchen, in my new house, I will indulge my pallet more often, just for the sheer pleasure of doing so when you don’t have to.

 

I Love long walks on the beach, or, I’ll Always Love you Heidi

 

In this weeks, “What washed up on the beach today?”, we have a rather large seal. Its a Little Bit Crazy, right?!

It was bigger than they usually look from a boat or even on tv when they are seldom shown against something of known dimensions for perspective. So this fella was a good 6ft & must’ve washed up pretty soon after dying because he was relatively free from snack marks. It was something of a relief to not see the distinctive bite marks of its much, much, larger natural predator, so Im assuming  it was heartbreak….

By the following day & two tides later, it was clear he wasn’t going to get pulled back into the sea & he had begun to be carried on the wind. I was hosting an Elemental Dance class at my place on Friday, so I could only imagine what the smell would be in two days time.

Thursday as I get back from site, my neighbour comes rushing around to borrow tools. He’s Venezuelan & gets very animated when he talks, so its not always easy for me to define the subject matter. Eventually it transpires that the local bar owner has been contracted to remove the behemoth on Friday, which means he only has today to get the teeth. Im a little perplexed, but hand him a hammer with chisel & follow him down on to the beach. This is where I learned two things, seal teeth are much bigger than I thought & their jaw bones are practically unbreakable. Frustrated at watching Enrique chisel away & get no where, with the tide now over our flip flops, we had to move fast. It seemed to me that if we took the whole jaw, he could play Herman Mengler at his leisure. Taking the hammer  from him, I lifted the front of the jaw & swung full tilt about halfway along where the canines stopped. There was an audible clang & the hammer bounced right off. Fazed but undaunted I struck again fast, nothing. Enrique took a step & made some derisory comment, I switched to frenzy mode & hit everything within arms reach, yet still the bone remained impervious. Crestfallen & shaking my head, I handed the hammer back to Enrique. Luckily for him, the bone was thinner where the teeth erupted, so he was able to work his way up slowly to release all six. One machismo necklace coming right up 😀

 

Love X Love

I emptied most of my tools out of the container & onto site, but I took all the new Dewalt kit home. Serendipity being what it is, my front gate finally gave up the ghost & fell off – it had been swollen for a while now & jamming constantly. So I broke out the kit, put it back together, made it fit & work correctly. Naturally this attracted some attention & much marvelling was done over the tools. So it was only a few days later that Enrique, sly dog that he is, popped in for a chat. He & Carolina his wife are opening a small bakery in Olon, so he wanted to talk over some design options. In short, how do I make a shelf when I have no money. It didn’t take too many suggestions followed by “how do I do that?” before I realised where this was heading. So I embarked on a small shop fitting business, opting for the artisanal style due to lack of diverse materials. What this meant in reality is that we made up a lot of stuff as we went. He had begun by banginging in a couple of unevenly spaced nails, so what I gave him was some semblance of craftsmanship. I used screws & I counter sunk them, where possible I hid them all together. The shelves were the same planks I use to shutter concrete, but planed up & left rough. The coffee dispense work bench came from off cuts blagged from a developer of luxury flats who’d had the block-board imported. Im pleased with the results, he’s ecstatic, which makes it all worthwhile. Maybe when others want something similar, I can start charging 😉

 

Ill close this one with what feels like a blast from the past already. One of my new found friends made in Panama has finally got home & processed their photography. In amongst them was this one they took of me on a little archipelago looking back on the city skyline. I didn’t ask why or how, but the island has duty free status, so is a tourist honey pot. You wouldn’t believe how many people were queued up in a line with the photographer, all waiting to take their shot, but everyone waits their turn, whilst studiously watching their place in line. When people were called on jumping, they turned & went to the back, it was quite an amazing social display to watch. The downside of course is you are then looking back at what seems like the entire Spartan army, waiting to charge, so it’s a little difficult to relax. Well that’s my excuse & Im sticking with it!

 

Till next time people,

Show some love to yourselves this coming year

 

Si x