Day to Day Events

Today I thought I talk about some of the day to day things that happen around here.

One of the things I dislike most is the trip to town for gas. It's about 45 minutes and most of it is on bad roads. The dirt road has really gone down hill with all the rain lately. There is one place where a drain pipe goes under the road and a couple of guys tried to repair it the other day. They didn't fill it in properly and now there is a huge ditch about 10 inches deep and wide in the road. One of my workers got stuck there yesterday and we had to tow him out with our truck and rope. It really tricky to negotiate. You can't go too fast but it you stop, you are done.

Another daily hazard is cows and horses. Cows constantly break out of pens and roam the streets. The locals hate them because the cows are looking for new pastures and end up eating all the flowers and nice plants people might have. When you're poor already you don't need cows eating your stuff. Horses don't seem to cause as much problem but they are in the road a lot. You just drive real slow until they move. My horn doesn't work so I don't have any way to warn them.

A local lady that has a very tiny local bar really took advantage of me today. I bought some 5 gallon water bottles from her last week and left a couple of emties with her. She later said the water company wouldn't take my bottles because they were oily. I took a couple of fresh ones there today and she gave me the rejects. They were not my bottles. Someone had used them to store gasoline and we never do that. I was pissed but didn't say anything. I will surely not be buying water from her again. She cooks lunch for my workers and I stop that if I had another choice.

We've been diving for almost 2 weeks now on the other side of the island which is a pain. We have to cart guests and equipment over there every day. Yestday, the boat was late in arriving at the dock so we got a late start. I can only use the resort bus until 1:30 each day and the boat wasn't back yet so I had to hire a taxi bus. Then one of my workers needed the afternoon off so I had to hire a guy to help out for the day. I had to make my 2 hour journey for gas so all in all it wasn't a fun day. I didn't even get to dive.

Today we finally brought the boat back but it was too rough to dive in the afternoon. I can only hope it clears by morning or its another $150 trip in gas to get the boat back to the south side once again. All the locals are amazed at the crappy weather. They have never seen it last this long. There is talk of an El Nino or something.

I've cooked a couple of my own meals lately and while I don't like doing it, I enjoy good old american comfort food. I've had tomato soup and macaroni, spagetti and hamburger helper. I also made a box cake and finished it off today.

I'm still waiting for my DirectTV to be hooked up. That was suppose to be done 5 weeks ago and I have no idea what the hang up is. I'll have to ask soon or it will never get installed.

Electric goes out at least once or twice a day and it usually takes 10 to 20 minutes before someone starts the generator. It's really hard on a lot of appliances and various devices. I bought a microwave and I'm leaving it unplugged when not in use. The power just fluxuates too much. I almost always have to reset my Internet connection.

Even with all the little problems, I'm still enjoying most days. Gerri and I have been able to talk at least twice a day almost everyday and we both enjoy that. As she says, we talk more now than we do when I'm at home. The garden at home is coming in strong and Gerri is loving it. I miss it especially my first crop of asparagus.