Good times and good money spent

Dec 15, 2008,

Good times and good money.

Both are going by quickly at this point. The building project continues, though nothing looks dramatically different than a week ago. Much work has gone down the toilet, so to speak, as the excavation for the septic tank has become a huge effort. I wrote about the backhoe scraping over rocks as it excavated in my last post; it turned out that that one huge rock never moved and took up much of the floor of the intended fosa septica, which is basically a concrete box, open to the soil at the bottom, which doubles as a septic tank and leach field in local practice. The large rock down there will essentially plug part of the 'drainfield' but the thinking is there will still be plenty of drain for a small house. As a backup plan we are putting in a pipe outlet for a real drainfield which will be capped for now but available if it is ever needed.

Aside from that big hole and the continued covering of the outside below-grade walls with fine (cement + water only) stucco, the biggest changes to report are the start of the plumber's work and the connection to the water pipe in the street that happened this morning. That has been a long process, involving Alejandro and Rosa Maria having to get a contract in place ($2200), a trip to determine the needed hardware ($500+), digging a trench to the pipe in the street, and meeting Alejandro and the water guy this morning to do the connection ($550). All that for water service 3 times aweek for a few hours (hence the need for a cistern) and which apparently cost all of $50 a month (all figures pesos, divided by about 10 for $Can or 13 for $US). Also this morning the plumber realized he needed more fittings so I took him to the hardware store for another $80 of stuff.

At least he is working today. On Saturday he gave Derek and I a list of what he needed, and we took that to the hardware store. Just ordering it all took 45 minutes and then they would deliver it in an hour. Well that became about 2 1/2 hours, so it got there after everyone had left for the week Saturday afternoon. The plumber wss going to work Sunday so I took the bag of fittings I hadn't wanted to leave sitting around over there but they were not touched until today.

To route a pipe in a block wall the plumber just chips blocks and mortar out of the way. I saw today he did have an electric tool, the first seen on site, and that he ran an extension cord over to the neighbors to run it. It is just a heater to do the pipe connections, nothing like a drill, saw, or grinder to actually make cutting channels for pipes easier.

Aside from house stuff, we've had a nice few days. Last night we went to the traveling circus. There was terror and balancing and flashing lights aplenty, and that was just in the stands. We were in the 50-peso cheap seats, which were 1x8 planks held up on steel frameworks, with wide gaps between planks so it was easy to imagine small kids falling through the cracks. The start was delayed 20 minutes to bore kids and goad their parents into buying various flashing LED toys to whirl around in the dark tent. When it got going there was a juggler, a balancing act, various unfortunate animals (Camel, primates, lions, llamas, ponies, huge horses), fairly lame clown acts, and motorcycles spinning around in a 12-foot spherical cage, all with loud piped music and a crown of cheering kids and their parents. Not exactly Barnum & Bailey but fun was had by all.