Ups and Downs

The hikes around the hills in the barrio this week have been very nice and interesting.  We have also met some more of the people from the neighborhood.  Hernan, the older gentleman that goes by everyday on his horse and waves stopped yesterday and introduced himself.  He was telling us all about his surgery today to remove a large cyst from his calf and how he was worried about falling behind with all the work he has pending.  He did not know how long he would be convalescing, but hopefully not too long.

We are still dealing with major water shortages.  After going for over a week without being able to do laundry because of low water supply, I decided it was time to get inspired by the ladies in the barrio on my Mexican telenovela that wash laundry by hand in a communal cement sink (batea).  I scrubbed all the clothes with some soap then rinsed them all in a big plastic bin and then threw them into the washer on the spin cycle.  The operation went rather well, and I even managed to get a bit of a workout doing it.  Mother nature can do the rest now that I have three loads of laundry hanging outside in the sunshine.  Even though it was a lot of work to get all of washing done, I realized I am fortunate since I had tunes blasting from my bluetooth speaker in the laundry room and I had the washer spin cycle to extract all the water from the laundry before hanging it to dry.  It is all about seeing the glass half full.

Last night just as my telenovela was getting interesting on my IPad the Internet connection died...what the heck?  Since it was almost 9:00 pm I figured I would just go to sleep so I removed my headphones only to hear one of the neighbors shout out to another that the power was out and we still don't have water!  Ay, caramba!  At least the power went out after bedtime for the rest of the bunch in my house.  By now, though the dog wanted to go out to lift a leg on the grass, so I got up, found a flashlight and my flip flops.  As we arrived at the backdoor, I turned the flashlight toward the floor only to see a monster black scorpion waiting for someone to step on him...tail curled up in the air and big black pinchers.  I quickly proceeded to do my "zapateado dance" (Spanish Flamenco) on the critter...it was not pretty or rythmic, but I accomplished the task of dispatching him to a better place.   I have attached a picture I took of it this morning. About an hour later, I heard the rumblings of the highline truck cruising the street and sure enough, a few minutes later the power was restored.

Oh, yes, how could I forget the toilet problems.  One morning A few days ago, I was reading a disappointing article about the lack of sewage treatment plants in Costa Rica.    The percentage of raw sewage that goes into the rivers and ocean is way too high.  About a half hour after reading the article, my hubby proceeds to inform me that we have a big problem with our one and only toilet.  We have major cloggage going on and we are going to have to plunge some nasty doo doo floating in the bowl down as carefully as possible.  We got the plunger, latex gloves,  and got busy.  I was designated operator of the plunger...nothing like poop flying all over first thing in the morning as an appetite suppresant.  We did, however, manage to get the mess down the drain, but things are still not flowing smoothly so fortunately, the plumber is arriving in the next few minutes to hopefully alleviate the issue.