7:10

We have been wilting for lack of good dairy.  Good cheese, yogurt, ice cream - we miss it terribly.  As for milk, the heat and the blackouts make it difficult to keep milk for much more than a day and we don't love the taste of it anyway.  Even the ultra-pasteurized doesn't seem to last despite its weird chemical taste. 

We had long heard tales of fresh milk, straight from the cow, that could be purchased daily.  But we had also heard tale that it could only be purchased in the morning.  Different places had different times but it seemed they all ended by 8am.

We're not morning people. 

But we recently resolved to overcome our laziness in hopes of having some cereal for breakfast. 

So I ascertained that the nearest milk vendor (at the nearby market in town) sold milk from 7-10am but usually sold out early.  After dropping the kids off at school (at 8am) we stopped by the market and spoke to the milkman who, sure enough, was out of milk by the time we got there but said he would be there early the next day.

With not a small amount of determination, I got up early the next day and was at the market at 6:40.  No milkman.  Someone took pity on me and asked what I was in search of.  Milk.  Palatable milk.  "Oh.  He comes at 7:10, the bus comes in at 7:10." 

I had misunderstood.  He wasn't there 7am TO 10am.  He was there exactly at 7:10.  An easy mistake to make in a country where NOTHING is on time (my Spanish partner frequently comes 45-75min late to our meetings without a thought).  But no.  The milkman is punctual.  And sought after.  I got my bag of milk (yep, he poured it into a 1 liter plastic sandwich bag).  I had the gall to ask for another one and he flat-out refused.  Turned out I had only ordered one bag. 

He was sold out by 7:18.

The guy driving a motorcycle while holding crutches

He's got somewhere to go.  And walking there on crutches is going to take forever. 


Yesterday I was elected to go find the town welder.  No one knew his name or number but a guy we know told us that the guy who owns one of the bars along the beach has been woken in the morning recently by people doing work on a nearby business and they are definitely having some welding done so go to that place and see if you can find him. 

Where is it?

Do you know where the restaurant ChaChaCha is?  Go to that block (I think it is parallel to the street along the ocean, about 3 blocks back) then look east at the corner and look for someone doing some welding.

I am fantastic at directions but manage to find the corner but not the welder so I go back to bar owner and ask him specifics.  I get the name of the business.  At the same time I also decide to find out the word for welding. I had the forethought of looking up "steel", "iron", and "holes" but had forgotten to look up weld/welder. 

I find the business. At first it seems I am going to be turned away but then I get across that I am not trying to take the welder away from the job he is on now and the owner allows me to speak to the guy and get his name and number.  I check with him that he can weld steel and/or iron and he looks at me as if  I am crazy.  Duh. What else does a welder weld? 

So we've got ourselves a welder.  He starts next Wednesday. But that may mean next month.  Why do we need a welder?  That's another post. 

The rooster crows at dawn and other myths...

We decided to try living in the town of San Juan del Sur instead of in the quiet outskirts.  This is our new view.  The inside of this place is not much to look at but who needs to be inside???  The seal on the fridge is terrible, there is not counter space, we don't currently have a broom or any hand towels and dogs bark and roosters crow periodically at night.  But it is wonderfully breezy, we have a view of the ocean and we can walk anywhere we need to.  Of course, it takes a while because we have a 3 year old to prod along  But it was so nice to go to the beach in town in the afternoon and walk home at dusk-  we ran into to a family whose boy is in Ari's class, some guy just handed us a few mangos and we generally just felt more a part of the town,

Have I mentioned that going to school is a bit of a crapshoot?  I never know who will actually be attending school (and until what hour) until I drop them off.  The 'regular' hours are 8-11am for Calhoun and 8-12 for Ari.  But AT LEAST once a week one of them does not have class.  And at least once a week each of them needs to be picked up early.  Usually at 10am or 10:30am.  So that's handy.

It's beautiful here.

RAIN

It rained tonight. This is remarkable because it has only rained ONCE before in the 2 months plus that we've been here. I had mentioned to a friend at the library that it seemed like it was going to rain and asked if she thought it would. She said no, that the thickness of the air and the fact that it was overcast had to do with fire. But it did. And what a relief. I love heat but it has been pretty unbearable the last couple of days with unrelenting heat and no wind. It feels a little like NOLA or the Philippines- I was sweaty after the effort of... brushing Ari's hair at 7:30 this morning.

But back to the sweaty present:

Almost immediately after the rain started, the power went off. This is not particularly unusual. But then I saw light in the distance and showers of sparks. Visible from at least a mile. So... just for good measure, I shut off the breakers too. But now the rain is gone and although I can see clearly now (except for it being pitch black) it is hot hot hot and there's no power for the fans fans fans.