World Dominican Republic Puerto Plata Luperón

Carry Okies

Water pump, batteries, PVC chairs, shower and toilet and more! Aug 5, 2009

Thursday, August 5, 2009

Our Italian neighbor down the hill below us had a new Dominican puppy living at his house for a few weeks as a “guard” dog, the term being very loose based on her lack of ferociousness. The not so intimidating dog was nick-named Squiggles by our neighbor Jan and preferred to spend her days laying on the floor of our tiki hut with Bear. (Bear was not so much a fan of this). Unfortunately, we think Squiggles may have been fired from her protection gig because we haven’t seen her all week.

Last week Dave and I dug the trench for our drain line for the sinks and shower. Dave’s a little out of shape in terms of pick-ax skills. The 20 year old kid next door would be swinging the pico 20-30 times in a row and Dave worked his way up to 5-6 before he had to take a break. He explained that he was merely resting so I could shovel what he had dug up out of the way. Yeah right, and the sweat on the shirt was just for show. Based on that activity, we now have indoor plumbing and can take showers inside. We had previously been taking sun showers from our 5 gallon bag of water that warmed up in the sun all day. The sun showers were warm alright but there’s something to be said about taking a shower in your own house.

Last week was busy for us because we also had Brown, Chuck’s assistant, help Dave install the water pump and accumulator. That’s what enabled us to use the shower and flush the toilet. We are moving right up into the 21st century with all these new-fangled tools of modern American/Dominican living!

Dave and Raymundo, our electrician, also installed our 8-T105 battery bank on the wall downstairs so we now have power for our lights, computer, water pump and so on without turning on our Honda generator…in other words, silence! Yesterday our propane powered generator arrived via Raymundo and his visit to Santiago. Raymundo did the bargaining for us since we knew if we showed up at the store the price would still be the Gringo special. We have no silence today, unfortunately, because we are using the generator to charge up the battery bank. Raymundo thinks that we should be able to run the generator for an hour or so every 3 days to keep our battery bank charged. (Translate into “silence” for most of the time!).

Pachichi’s the local bar across from the softball field held their annual beauty pageant for girls under 15. We sponsored a 9 year old little girl this year. The 2-3 week long festivities included bands at night, dancing and occasional “feats of strength”. Dave and another Gringo went head to head last Wednesday in a hard boiled egg eating contest. Unfortunately, the Gringos decided to spice up the hard-boiled eggs with a slice of jalapeno on each egg. I am sad to report that Dave won after eating 15 hard boiled eggs. Do not try this at home folks. Dave felt like a snake that had swallowed a chicken for the first 24 hours after his victory. I imagine it is with great pride that Dominicans now call him Senor Huevo( Mr. Egg) and point at him as he waddles down the street.

We also had our first Happy Hour up at the house last week and are glad that no one (Andy) fell off the balcony (the wire that rings the deck is loose on the top rung and non-existent on the 2nd and 3rd rungs.) In order to get the wires shipped from the states they had to divide the 3 wires into 3 shipments to avoid paying taxes on the items. The first one took almost a month to get here. We’re optimistic that by early spring we should have the other two installed on the deck!

I’m tutoring 5-6 times during the week once again and Dave’s doing his occasional Karaoke at Puerto Blanco. On weekends we have Dave assisting the Los Normans fast pitch softball men’s team and I’ve been playing on the Luperon woman’s team. We (the ladies team) lost this past weekend in the semi-finals to the town of Escalareta, but we may round up some more games with local towns on the weekends to come. Dave’s in the process of making PVC barstool chairs for the house. He was worried about how they would look inside our house (with his mocha latte bathroom walls) and I laughed at the concern of PVC barstools in a 8-sided house with all the walls different lengths and painted like a basket full of Easter eggs. If it’s weird, I am all for it!