call u-haul

this summer we moved. it's the second large move i've had here in the dominican republic - and hopefully the last for a long time. when we moved into our first apartment, we relocated in a mini-pick-up - all we had was a bed, a couch, some plastic bookshelves and our clothes. while i cleaned the new place, amalio and his brother ran around town buying a dining room table (hideous - but we still have it), a stove (since replaced), a refrigerator (in need of replacement), a dominican style washer (sitting outside collecting dust) and an iron (since replaced at least 4 times). 

by the time we moved into our second place, we had two babies and three years of life under our belts and needed something bigger than a pickup to move. luckily amalio's students and some other strapping young men were willing to move us for the promise of lunch. it's not easy to move from one third floor to the next.

this move, however, was easier. we were moving from a third floor to a house. on ground level. and i had purged a ton of unnecessaries from our lives not too long before - so we had less boxes of junk (still, the boys will point out, the same number or more of heavy, heavy books).

luckily we were able to practice the patience needed for a move in this country when my dear friends rebecca and josh moved to san francisco de macoris just days before our big move. somehow, i avoided their packing chaos and made it just in time to witness the most incompetent truck packing i've ever experienced. 

You can read more about this moving hilarity here

see that big piece of furniture going on the roof of that truck? well, the basic consensus amongst the movers was that the big, bulky furniture needed to go in the truck last - despite the fact that it isn't a big space taker - tons of things could have been nested into its open spaces. alas, it took a 1.5 hour drive to san fran and didn't kill anyone.

once it got there however... it didn't fit up the stairs to the new place - so it was cut apart, carried up the stairs and then put back together.

since all of that moving nonsense wasn't enough for us we decided to move into our house without our water connected and without the permission of the owner. i know this sounds sneaky, but we had signed our contract one month prior and were still waiting for this fool to get his act together. ridiculously, he gave amalio the keys to let the alarm guy in one day - we took advantage and called the strapping young men and amalio's students to help us move in the next day. we would have moved in that very very day except i had just helped rebecca move out and was pretty tired. besides, our cistern was empty and i refused to move in to a house with no water at all.

i paid this kid 1,000 pesos (about 25 dollars) to fill up our 2500 gallon water tank so we could survive until the water company resolved their problem.

the following day we were ready. all the boxes were packed (mostly) and the boys were ready to carry heavy things. one of amalio's ex-students had access to a flatbed, and since that would be cheaper than hiring a truck, we loaded things up

of course, it made perfect sense to start loading from the back to the front, right? hence the logical packing in the back and haphazard packing in the little bit of space left to them near the front. it took two trips, and each time 10 boys rode around on the back like kings.

we've acquired furniture over the years - we have way more than a bed and some shelves nowadays. not too long ago we got this beautiful tv cabinet from a coworker for a really great price. it took a lot of work to get it into the apartment. i even promised the guys who carried it that i wouldn't move for a long time. alas, two months later, we were trying to get the thing out again!

we've been settled in for about two months now - the house still feels like a wreck and the backyard is finally starting to take shape. it's a beautiful place, and a complete blessing that just fell into our laps unexpectedly. i'll be taking some pictures soon of the yard and the house - but of course, friends are always welcome to come see it for themselves!

re-building of a house.

i'm super far behind and crazy backed up on my blog. i know. i'm sorry. but last week i sat down and emptied my little memory chip onto a computer and proceeded to break down the pictures into groups. we're talking photos from july. but, better late than never, right?

right before we moved out of our old place, it was raining. a lot. like every single day. and when it rains like that, streets flood. especially the street we needed to cross to get into our neighborhood. there were many days i was stuck on a kind lady's porch waiting for  the water to subside. mostly because the water wasn't rain water, but overflow from the sewers. gross. i know.

a friend of ours lives on this street. and every single time it rains, her house would flood. this past rainy season was intense, and a few times the house flooded up to the beds. can you imagine your house being inundated with aguas negras?

 

this summer, she was accepted into a new government program that was supposed to rebuild the house in three days. like many governmental programs however, three days turned into 6 weeks. and, like many other not-very-well-planned-out "do-good" projects, the government planned to rebuild the home without actually raising it up out of the danger zone. 

so, three truckloads of debris was ordered in, money was found (somewhere, who knows?) and a bunch of neighbors chipped in to help fill the foundation of the house.

a few days later we stopped by and the floor was laid (simple cement) but the family was still waiting for windows and doors to be installed. (see? larry allen was here this summer! he's there in that picture!)

i'm sure that in the end all of the house-guarding, not being able to leave and living with two grown children and a baby in a small room for six weeks was worth it. the new house is gorgeous, and even more importantly, out of flood danger.

i had pictures of the finished product - doors and windows installed and painted. but i'm following the lead of the government and doing this in installations. look for more pictures of this house at a later date!

fire.

a few days ago, our apartment filled with smoke. it smelled rank and nasty and, well, smoky. 

it's not abnormal for people to burn their trash, but this was a little bit extreme. we closed all of the windows and doors and had to open them right back up again - dying of smoke inhalation and foul smell was preferible to roasting to death in a closed apartment in the middle of june. in the carribbean.

after a while, i guess the wind changed, and while the smoke hazed over the street, it wasn't nearly as unbearable as it had been earlier. i looked to the west for the usual culprits - an empty lot, about 200 meters big, routinely burned to get rid of trash and weeds. nothing.

so i went up on the roof and looked around. an entire field was on fire. 

burning is common here - it rids empty fields of un-wanted undergrowth and allows growth to the plants we want (tubers, vegetables, etc...).it is also not unusual for people to use empty lots as trash dumps because of the scarcity of public services. burning gets rid of the garbage quickly without having to do much work. it also produces nasty smelling smoke for the neighbors, but, hey! you win some, you lose some.

apparently, the fire got out of the control of the burn-ers and took over the entire field, instead of just the square patch they were supposed to burn.

they were able to cut open a water pipe in the street (welcome to the DR!) and redirect the water to cool the fire down. it was smoky for awhile, but everyrthing worked out in the end~!

maybe i'm the one who has it all wrong...

when i had samil, i was laid up for a few days because i'd had a c-section. dominicans are good about taking care of sick people - or at least they're present during sicknesses. i think it comes from the fact that you can't just leave someone in the hospital. so, if someone gets hospitalized, they need to be accompanied 24 hours of the day. and who doesn't like to hang out with sickies?

i'm kind of independent. and i didn't like the idea of having someone to "take care" of me. my mom was around for a few days after he was born - and then. then amalio's step-mom came. i had resigned myself to the fact that she needed to be here. see, there are all kinds of hilarious post-partum beliefs that range from the new-mom only being allowed to eat fish soup to new-mom not being allowed to wet her head for 42 days. and since i'm against all kinds of non-logical beliefs (i understand the hair thing to some degree, but still think it's ridiculous) and she is all for non-logical beliefs, i knew we'd butt heads.

never did i imagine she would show up to take care of me with a slew of children in tow. okay, that's an exaggeration. there were only two. but they were two children who had never been to the city and were used to living on a farm. to my small, small apartment. me, laid up in bed with a brand new baby.

i was livid.

and my anger only grew as everytime the damn kids asked to play outside, SHE SAID NO. because "the city is dangerous" and "you don't know those kids playing out there."

recap. me, in bed with a c-section. new baby. crazy step-mother-in-law. two kids who spend all day, every day playing with cows now locked in my apartment.

it's amazing i didn't suffer from post-partum depression.

okay, all of that was to say this.
our neighbors are moving. they bought a house on tuesday and are moving today. well, at least that was their plan. except they went to the capitol this weekend and still haven't packed a single box. besides the point, that is.

when they came home from the capitol, they came with the whole family to help. because dominicans aren't just good with sickness, they're good at helping people move, too.

what does this have to do with my post-partum story?
they showed up with 4 adults and about 20 kids. really? you have not one box packed and you want your house filled with every kid from the campo? and on top of it, they left their 3 year old daughter home from school today. TO HELP.

i love kids. i love to have kids around. and my house usually has at least one borrowed child. doing crafts, singing, dancing. playing.

but to have all those kids around during times when something really needs to get done? i don't think i could handle it.

is it me? am i wrong?

nothing really of interest.

santiago, apparently, is replacing some old water mains this weekend. which would be fine and dandy if it didn't mean they had to turn off the water in the.entire.city.

and, because we live in the cloistered community of what is a latin american apartment complex where nobody talks to anybody else, it was only by casuality that i knew there would be no water.

except i forgot to tell amalio. and he used every last drop of water in the bucket i filled up for his shower. and good old hugo spent the night, so between his shower and isaias' shower, they used up that whole bucket.

let me tell you. a day with kids who like to play in, and eat, dirt and no water is a little stressful.

right now my mom is saying "you never have water, what's the difference?" the difference is, that yes, we usually do have water. little. infrequent. but water nonetheless. today there was not even one drop.

and at 9:00 last night, they turned on the water pump, and like the idiots they have proven themselves to be ohsomany times, empted the cistern by running the pump for two hours! instead of using only half of the water and so, this morning the city graciously turned the water back on long enough for us to shower and fill up buckets and hopefully refill that cistern.

it's going to be a long one. at least it's not hot out!

overwhelmed.

we've been looking to move for awhile. the water situation, the neighbor's association, crazy neighbors... it takes its toll after awhile.

but we've got this problem where i work from home and amalio works half way across the city. and if we move further from his work his head might spin around and around until it explodes during rush hour one day. and if we move too far away from where we are now, i lose my work - and my income.

we pay an incredibly small rent on our apartment - only 500 pesos more than when we moved in four years ago. it's unheard of. and i guess we should have figured it wouldn't last forever.

the owners of our apartment came today to tell us they'd like their apartment back. they're not sure if they're going to sell or if they're going to move their two spinster sisters in, but the point is, we need to kick it into gear and find a place that is suitable for both of us.

i'm really not all that picky - it needs to be a safe neighborhood, preferably fairly close to where we are now, with good (comparably) water service and electricity. i'd like a house, or an apartment in a duplex with a little backyard, but apartments don't bother me if they have a balcony. oh, and we can't pay too much more than what we're already paying, especially since who knows what will happen with my students depending on where we move.

all of this with the expense of the busted up rav-4, our babysitter's brother passing away and the kids being a little under the weather has me on edge. hopefully we'll find a place soon to take that weight off our shoulders!

GO, TEAM, GO!

continued.

the cancer walk was at the botanical gardens in santo domingo. i had been once when i first moved to the country and, well, it was atrocious. nothing like the morris arboretum or even the chicago botanic gardens where you could go and spend a few hours looking at beautiful, interesting things.

mostly "el botanico", for me, is really just a showcase of fancy landscaping. most of the plants are dominican and grow wildly - they don't need to be cultivated and i could easily go to the nearest mountainside campo and see the same stuff.

apparently, though, there is a beautiful presentation of all different breeds of orquids and "helechos" in the spring that i think might be worth a visit. but only if we had something else to do in santo domingo. there's also a beautiful japanese style garden. it doesn't have any japonese plants, but the landscaping is such that it reminds me of karate kid. or japan. (though when i was in japan, i didn't really see too many of those "typical" japanese gardens, unless they were touristy... i saw more of them stateside).

that said. amalio and our neighbors went to the walk. but instead of taking part in the 5k they found some shade and set up camp for the babies. i think they had more fun than the kids though, taking pictures and being ridiculous.

Samil playing on the cobblestone. we thought he'd tear up his knees, but he just decided to crawl around on his feet and hands instead.
you see a lot of these types of pictures in dominican photo albums. even dominicans think they're hilarious. here's iberlin and her brother german posing like boyfriend and girlfriend in a traditional dominican pose. there's something about holding onto a leaf of the tree that i just can't understand.
maybe you'd think he was a botanist giving a lecture about a certain type of plant. but no.

samil wasn't too happy taking pictures with papi because he'd rather be playing.
i love this picture. in fact, i have a whole bunch that i took before i started the walk and we've been playing around with them trying to find the one we like best.

responsibility.

so the neighbor's called a meeting. against the neighbor's association.

i had to teach so i showed up late to the meeting. imagine my surprise when i show up and the same old thief is ranting and raving about all the stuff he's done and what a great man he is. what happened?

well, nobody wanted to knock him down. this small group of neighbors who sits and complains and conspires behind his back didn't have the guts to tell it to his face. i stood up and took over the meeting, only to be verbally attacked by the man's wife and when all was said and done, we're in the same situation.

the thief (as i'll refer to him from here on) turned over the "records" for me. only because i threathened to call the police. normally here that wouldn't be a threat, but thief man knows that we know some of the higher-ups in the police department. the records look like those of a 4th grade student council and not a real adult organization. there are no receipts for anything he's ever told me (for example, how much the employees make, who has paid or hasn't or the supposed purchases of things for the complex) and no real proof of, well, anything.

so, i spent friday on the phone with some lawyers who would be in charge of coming to collect money and pay the bills. they charge 10% of all income, but after the meeting where everyone who swore they were "in this" stayed quiet, i think it's necessary to put this in someone else's hands.

i don't have the time to do it. nor do i have the face to knock on people's doors asking for money. that's not me. and the fact is we're still living without streetlamps or waterpumps. i'm just hoping that the owners of these "condos" - those who actually live here - will get their mess together to get a contract with the electric company soon. if not, we're giving it a month and looking for a house to rent.

super hero.

i've still not got any pictures to post, sorry, i'm such a slacker. samil is sitting on the floor eating peanut butter crackers, and i'm thinking about all the things i want to do today. none of which include teaching or doing laundry. both of which i need to do.

yesterday, our little group of "concerned neighbors" went with the lawyers to tell the neighbors association that they're out of business. but what? what was that? no neighbors association? we get to the president's house and he tells us that he gave it up a long time ago and only the a** that is doing the collection now is in charge. the lawyers are pissed. apparently it's illegal for him to collect money if there isn't a formal association, bla bla bla. so the coup d'etat was much easier than i thought it would be.

it might help though that our scary neighbor went with us. c and e always thought was like like in the dominican cia. he's huge and burly and once i started talking to him realized, uncharacteristically intelligent. his job in the coup?

he was the muscle. he stood there, pistol in holster (not an uncommon sight around these parts) and stared the man down. yep, just stood there and scared him out of his wits. i thought he was going to pee in his pants.

it turns out he stole more money than anyone imagined but there's no way to track it down since the "old" president of the association closed the official bank account more than a year ago. we'll start from scratch with a general meeting next week letting people know what's going on.

i don't know if i can wait that long for the water to come back.

non-stop.

we still are fighting the neighbors association for the electricity problem - we had to kick the guy out of our apartment last night because he wouldn't shut up and, well, i told amalio that if he stood up to look down on me one more time i was going to punch him in the face.

we have since de-bunked all of his lies - the non-existant debt with edenorte (the electric company), the non-existant rule that we must have a proven income of $30,000 pesos a month in order to sign a contract and some things he said about the lawyers office who used to be in charge of the collection of maintenance fees.

so, me and some other neighbors are planning a coup d'etat. to say its difficult is an understatement - especially since we're dealing with (grand generalization to follow) a culture who is overwhelmingly afraid of confrontation. but, i think we're going to do it... and that it will be a proud moment for a lot of the "housewives" who are involved and have expressed concern that they "don't really do anything meaningful with their lives."

other than that, i've been crazy planning and promoting the institute.
i got offered a stellar job (with a stellar paycheck) at a bilingual school as the director of their elementary program - but i'm not ready just yet to leave samil with someone else... and i won't give up the institute to balance the time. so i told them no, sadly, since it's a job i think i would really like. (and obviously a really good opportunity)

we'll be up and running soon - especially now that we're all back into a routine, one that so far seems to be working much better than the semi-routine we had before i left for the states... but we'll see how it continues once i start teaching again...

i hope you all are having a great week, and i promise some pictures coming up - i just put the camera battery in the charger so i can get a video of one of samils new tricks. stay tuned.

back.

i'm finally back in santiago - i say finally, but i've been here for 5 days now, but i guess i'm just finally getting settled in.

i arrived to a bizarre "this only happens in the 2/3rds world" situation. apparently the neighbors association cut off the general light to our apartment complex, so while we have our own electric in the house, there are no street lights - and worse - there is no central water pump pushing water through to our house. we have water, but not enough to push through for a real shower and doing laundry takes hours. i've been trying to figure out exactly what is going on, but everyone has a different take - but i figure that the lawyer from the association is basically robbing all of the "maintenance fees" and then blaming us for not paying. it's weird. and kind of funny. it should be resolved soon, i hope, but until then we're filling buckets.

our upstairs neighbrs had their roof repaired - which meant, i think, pouring sand and cement down into our windows, i mean onto the roof and then covering it with a new cap. and while i've been dusting since i got back, i'm glad it's finally done because when their roof leaked we got the residual effects of it and our walls leaked. not fun. but, it's rained everyday so far since thursday and we've got no water coming in!

so, the house is finally as dust free as it can be, our clothes are washed and put away - the only thing left is to organize samil's room - that for some reason is less than organized. i start classes again today in the house and am organizing and promoting the institute all this week in hopes to get some students. i haven't talked to the owners of the school i'm renting to see if our first "promotion" reaped a harvest, but hopefully i'll see her today to hammer out some details.

*** samil is trying to stick his entire fist in his mouth to get one little cheerio that is stuck to the back of his hand. i wish my camera battery were charged.

my funny neighbor...

i happen to think this little girl is a little bit old for things like... playing with 5 year
olds, drinking from a bottle and sucking a pacifier. but she does it all. she's 10 now, and we had a little chat with her mom about the bottle thing -- we were told that she needs to drink milk and won't do it from a cup. unfortunately this is a huge problem... parents need their kids to drink milk, but they lack parenting skills to make their kids drink from a cup. she also told us that this girl won't sleep without the bobo. so go figure. 10 years old.

this picture is when she dressed her dog up and strapped him into a stroller... for fun.