Water - or lack of it

Water is something I have always taken for granted. You turn on the tap and out it comes - always. In my previous house here we had a well, and unless the electricity was off and the pump didn't work, there was always water. OK it was a bit smelly at times, such as when a cat fell in the well and we didn't discover it for a week, but there was always water.

In this house we have proper water from

the street, which is a lot more hygienic. I assume it comes from a reservoir somewhere. It comes into a cistern which is in the back garden and from there comes into the house, and some of it somehow goes up to a big black tank on the roof which is known as a tinaco. The idea is that if, for any reason the street water goes off then the tinaco should be full and will come out of the taps easily as it is on the roof. Up until a couple of weeks ago the system had worked perfectly and the landlord had told us that the street water hardly ever went off. Hmmm. The street water did go off a lot, in fact every week for 2 or 3 days

and once for 2 weeks at a time when I was told they were scrubbing the main tanks with bleach to get rid of cholera - a comforting thought.

Most houses have a tinaco on the roof and the only issue with ours was that it didnt seem able to stop itself filling with water so when you could see it overflowing you had to turn a knob on the feeder pipe to stop any more water going into it.

One day I noticed that even when I turned the knob it was still leaking water and mentioned it to my husband. He, like many Dominicans is not 'a stitch in time saves nine' sort of person. So he ignored me. I phoned the landlord and said "the tinaco is leaking", and he ignored me too.

A week later, we had no water. None at all, so I called

the landlord and he came round. "The tinaco is empty as it is leaking", I said. He said he would connect an electric pump which would pump street water up to the tinaco. I told him it was a waste of time as the tinaco was leaking. He ignored me.

He spent all day on the pump and set it working. It pumped for a couple of hours and then we checked the water. Nada, nothing. He came back the next day to look. "The tinaco is leaking", he said.

The next day he returns with PVC glue stuff in a tube and mends the tinaco, and pumps water and hey presto the tinaco starts to fill up.

Whilst we were without water we could fill buckets up from the cistern, but as there was no street water the cistern was going down and down, and in the end I had to hold onto my husband's legs to stop him falling in as he was filling up buckets and pans.

It is certainly not the same showering with a saucepan, and fingers crossed the tinaco will stay full, and I won't be taking water for granted again.

A day at the river

Dominicans love going to the river, and last Saturday we were invited by some of our neighbours to join them for a river outing. Some of them piled into an old Nissan and the rest squished into my jeep and off we set. The journey didnt take long, although the road became worse and worse the closer we got. In fact on two occasions the passengers had to get out of the car and walk while it struggled up the hilly bits. My old jeep coped admirably though. Eventually we parked, took out all of the supplies, ice box, chickens, big cooking pans, and set off on what they told me would be a short walk.

The hill in front of us was the destination, to

where the river actually began. We were going to trek to the other side. So much for a short walk! I was wearing flip flops as I had no idea we had to walk so far, and anyway I have no 'tenis' as they call trainers here.

We walked upwards through jungles, crossed the river 5 or 6 times, precariously balancing on rocks. The water was beautiful and clear and also very fast moving and often came well above our knees. I felt like I was in a war film carrying my rifle above my head. More than once I had a piggy back courtesy of my husband. All of the

Dominicans took off their tenis so as not to get them wet or dirty and did the whole trek bare foot. No idea how.

We eventually arrived at a beautiful clear pool with the water cascading down into it. It really was gorgeous.

The fire was built, the men stripped down to their underpants and the preparation of the food began. It was discovered that the lady in charge of the food had forgotten the salt. I said it didn't matter but I was informed that water will not

boil without salt in it and therefore the rice would not cook. I didn't bother arguing and so one of the lads was sent back down the trail to find some salt. He returned an hour later.

In the meantime, the bottle of rum came out and everyone had a slurp and jumped in the river - the women fully clothed as is usual. Some of the boys climbed the rocks at the side, including my husband, and they went off to explore, returning with arms full of wood to light the fire. It was like being a girl guide again.

The food was great: chicken and vegetables with

fluffy salty rice! All washed down with copious amounts of rum and cranberry.

After lunch it was time for the obligatory sleep - I

have no idea how Dominicans can sleep anywhere and at any time!

Eventually as the sun disappeared behind the top of the hill, it was time to pack up and wend our way back down the track and home.

A great day, full of fun and rum and laughter.

Come on Irene (and Silly Boy)

Hurricane Irene arrived last Monday, well very early Tuesday morning. The track moved dramatically in the last 36 hours. Originally she was due south of the the Dominican Republic, then a direct hit on the capital, Santo Domingo, then a direct hit on us, and she finally ran around 50 miles off the North coast.

When there is a hurricane en route I spend a lot of time checking where it is going, where it might go and how strong it is. There are lots of excellent sites on the internet and they tell you exactly at

at what time it will arrive at your location, so that you can plan accordingly and prepare. As we have no glass in the house there is no need to board up anything, we just make sure the mobile phones are charged, the car has petrol in it, and all loose items in the garden are moved inside. I moved the car away from trees and warned number two son that if it was bad he would have the dogs sleeping with him. The Dominicans, however, totally ignore it! I tell them a hurricane is coming and they smile and say "it won't come here".

This time they were right. I was woken up at 3am with wind and rain which lasted until about lunchtime, but there was no damage. Once again we had managed to miss a direct hit.

However, as often happens when there is a lot of rain the rivers overflow and all of the settlements near the river are flooded out.

This picture was sent to me by a friend in San Pedro de Macoris. She said that there were even fish swimming inside the houses. But as usual the Dominicans take it in their stride. Often the police and emergency services try to persuade people to leave, but they are concerned that their possessions will be stolen and so they stay put.

At least there are no soggy carpets and most people manage to dry things out quite quickly.

The local vet - the one who also stuffs animals - called a month or so ago and asked us to take an English mastiff who had been kept in Santiago zoo in a small cage for his whole life. His name was Mammoth, pronounced Mamoo, and he was terribly thin and covered with sores. He is slowly improving and here he is with my Great Dane, Tyson. I used to think Tyson was big until I saw Mamoo. We changed his name to Sumo and that is sort of his name, but we discovered he is blind and walks into things all the time, so he now usually called SillyBoy as that is what we end up saying to him all of the time

.

As you can imagine he is causing quite a stir and we have a fairly constant stream of people with their female dogs wanting him to mate with them. This entails locking up our other dogs and then hoping Silly Boy does his thing. Personally I think he should have some privacy but this being the DR we always have a crowd of around 50 at the gate yelling encouragement and giving him advice. None of it works. So far although everything appears to be in working order, he has been unable to actually get it in so as to speak. He is just too large for the females and even though the owners of the females have made them stand on boxes and tables he is unable to aim correctly. Still he is enjoying trying I think.

New Beginnings

It was 5 years ago this week, July 22nd 2006, at 10.30 at night this tiny little .22 bullet was shot through my throat at close range by a couple of Haitians who I interrupted trying to rob the house. The bullet entered my throat, went through the top of my right lung and ended up stuck in my back, close to the surface. Local Dominicans and Haitians took me to hospital using a combination of carrying me, on the back of a motoconcho and a borrowed car, where the doctor did a tracheotomy - cutting in the wrong place so damaged my vocal chords - and I

then went in a clapped out ambulance to Santo Domingo where chest drains were inserted. I spent 12 days in hospital and then came home, and a couple of weeks later I was right as rain - apart from a dodgy voice. The bullet was moving around my back - you can see it in this picture and so it was cut out with a Gillette razor blade a few weeks later.

Being shot doesn't hurt, I didn't feel a thing until around 12 hours later when I felt like I had been run over by a bus. The chest drains actually hurt more. Your body seems to have this amazing ability to produce pain killers and something to stop you panicking - I was very calm. It was just uncomfortable not being able to breath as one lung had been punctured and the other was collapsing as the chest cavity filled with air and blood

When your lung is punctured the air has to go somewhere and it actually went under the skin and filled the top half of my body. My head swelled to double its size as did my arms and my boobs! And if you touched me where there was air, my skin squeaked! Interestingly although I never lost consciousness, I can only remember up to being in the car going to the local hospital and then nothing until just before the ambulance arrived at the hospital in Santo Domingo. At that point I was being bagged with oxygen - and the oxygen ran out. I remember then very clearly signalling to my husband that I was out of air, by slashing my hand across my throat, and I waved goodbye to him. Seconds later we arrived at the ER. Unfortunately they will not begin to treat you without a deposit, and luckily there is a cashpoint machine right outside the ER to make it easy for you to get cash. My husband got the deposit out and a few hours later I was pronounced out of danger. Total cost was around 700,000 pesos which was around14,000 pounds.

So here we are 5 years later and this week we are all working! Number 2 step son has opened a cafe, which sells hot dogs for 20 pesos (30 pence), freshly squeezed fruit juices, and fried chicken and plantain chips for 60 pesos (one pound). Unfortunately various items keep disappearing from the house and turning up in his cafe. Knives, chopping board, stereo, extension lead, and there you can see husband, Danilo, sitting on one of the bar stools from the house. The other one disappeared from the house today as well. Still, the cafe is doing well, taking around 40 to 60 pounds a day!

And I am now working for an American couple, researching on line, translating from Spanish to English, and sourcing things for them. One of the things they wanted was muslin bags, and not finding them here, I bought some muslin and gave it to the local tailor to sew. His sewing machine has come out of the ark, but it seems to work well! His name is Feo which means ugly, but he didn't look that bad to me. He sits in the main street outside his little shop, and has a box next to him where people drop in their clothes to be mended. It costs around 20 pesos to have a pair of trousers hemmed - so I doubt he will be rich soon!

The plantain

The humble plantain is known as a platano here in the Dominican Republic and is one of the staple foods. It sells at between 4 and 12 pesos depending on the size and the season - that is between 6 and 15 pence for one. They are usually sold green, but can also be used when they are ripe.

Once you have your plantain the first thing you have to do is to peel it which as not as easy as it sounds. You have to put cooking oil on your hands otherwise they turn black with some residue which is on the outside of the banana. Then you cut off the top and bottom and using a blunt knife, score down from top to bottom whilst at the same time sliding the knife under the skin. Repeat this around three times and then it is easy to just peel the skin off. It sounds easy, but even after 10 years I still end up gouging lumps out of my plantains.

One of the main ways of eating plantains is mashed. It is called mangu and we eat it most days at midday with fried salami, fried onions and fried eggs. For those who eat breakfast, it is the standard breakfast here. I mash my plantains with butter and milk, but they are usually just mashed with their cooking water.

A variation of mangu is called mofongo and in this instance the plantains are mashed with garlic and bacon. For some reason it is served in a big wooden egg cup. Mofongo is usually eaten with stewed beef or chicken, and it is delicious.

If you ask for it in a restaurant be careful not to confuse it with mondongo as that is tripe.

Another use for plantains is in a dish called pastellon which is delicious.

For this you use the ripe platanos, i.e. when they are yellow, and it is basically like a lasagne but without the cheese sauce and using platanos in place of the lasagne. Layers of tomato and minced beef, layers of cheese and layers of mashed plantains.

And finally tostones which are I suppose the Dominican equivalent of french fries or chips. These are fried plantain chips and are eaten usually with fried chicken or fried fish or fried chops. In fact with anything.

So many uses for one little banana. I must admit I was not particularly keen on plantains at first but now I am as addicted to them as Dominicans are.

In fact if people feel you have adapted well to this country they say you are aplatanado - like a plantain I suppose!

The colmado

Colmado in Spanish literally means full to the brim, and is the word used here for the equivalent of a corner shop. They are all over the place, and in my street alone there must be 7 or 8. Some are tiny, no more than a little shack, but most are the size you see here. They are all totally full of merchandise and are open from early in the morning, between 7 and 8, to between 8 and midnight at night. The ones here close for lunchtime between 12 and 2.

Colmados are not self service. You ask for what you want, well actually you demand it by screaming "dame", which means give me. It doesn't matter if anyone else is being

served, you just shout anyway. He or she who shouts loudest is served next.

You can buy just about anything you

need. Many things are sold loose, such as rice, flour, sugar, washing powder and things you might not expect like cornflakes, oil, vinegar, soya sauce. You just take a container in and they fill it up for you. There are always vegetables available such as plantains, yellow bananas, yucca, green peppers, onions and potatoes, tomatos and celery. As far as meat is concerned it is restricted to chicken, which is usually in a washing up bowl and

comes with feet and neck, smoked pork chops and of course salami.

A large percentage of people buy on credit and carry around a little piece of cardboard with what they owe on it, torn off a packet of something. Then when they get paid on the 15th or the 30th, or the 25th for government jobs, they take their piece of cardboard to the colmado and pay it all and then are given another torn off scrap of cardboard.

As well as being the main place for food, the colmado doubles up as a bar at night - and all day Sunday - and the main social centre of the neighbourhood. There is usually a television in one corner and the colmado fills up for baseball games and the daily soap opera programmes. At night everyone gathers and sits on the ubiquitous plastic chairs and drinks beer and rum.

There have been two key subjects in our colmado this week. Firstly the lack of street water, which has been turned off for over a week now whilst the tanks are cleaned apparently to stop the spread of cholera which has now hit this area. We have had a large tank in the street to use for water - how that is more healthy I am not really sure. The second topic has been the road which as you remember was full of mud. This morning a steam roller was driving up and down it, so we now have compacted mud and I was told that they are going to set fire to the road with petrol and then pour black stuff over it. I am not sure exactly how that is going to work, or if it is a Dominican way of tarmacking a road. I am sure that it will be a delightful experience as the whole street is set on fire.

Watch this space as they say.

Hurricane season

The hurricane season began on June 1st and ends on the last day of November. This is my 9th full season and so far, touch wood, I have only been in the tail end of a Category One hurricane and maybe 6 or 7 tropical storms. They were bad enough so I am not looking forward to being in anything any stronger.

It has been raining every day since the season started,and this is the road outside the house. Walking in flip flops has become next to impossible as they just

get stuck in the mud.

Where we live now we should be less affected by hurricanes as they tend to hit the south of the island more than the north. And the north has more earthquakes than the south - not sure which I would prefer given the choice

During hurricane season I check the various hurricane websites every day. You need to be aware in advance of what is happening, especially

The hurricane web sites will show the amount of Saharan dust in the air - a lot is good as for some reason it dissipates hurricanes. Also the sea temperature - the hotter the sea the easier for a hurricane to grow. They also show the wind direction. I am not sure why, but in the early season they tend to head for the Dominican Republic and then veer northwards towards the Bahamas before they get too close. Then later on in the season, they go in a

straight line into the Caribbean sea, and then turn northwards, which is when we could get a direct hit. The web sites are very accurate about timing

as well. I remember one tropical storm which we were not really expecting to be close. I happened to check the website and it said it would be a direct hit at 6.30pm. By now it was around 4.30. I called my husband and told him to come home as a storm was coming, and we ate early. He told me I was exaggerating, and we sat down to play dominoes on our patio. At 6.30 on the dot the storm arrived. You get no warning apart from the fact that everything is very still and the birds stop singing - there is not a sound, no crickets, no frogs. The domino table was blown over, the trees bent over and the wind and the rain was ferocious. All the the Haitians and Dominicans who lived in huts nearby came to us for shelter that night. We had over 100 people in the house.as the local news channels often are not, and my Dominican and Haitian friends rely on me for information.

And that was only a tropical storm.

Apart from the wind which destroys houses and downs power lines, the main problem is the water. Although this is a tropical island where heavy downpours are a way of life, there appears to be no efficient way to cope with the rains and flooding happens all of the time. As soon as a storm starts the authorities turn the electricity off to save hundreds being electrocuted as the wires are blown down. So not only do you have to cope with the wind and the water, you also have to do it in the dark.

The other thing to remember is the eye. The wind will come from one direction and then as the eye passes over, all is quiet. During Hurricane George which was the last Category 5 to hit, when the eye passed over there was bright sunlight and everyone went into the streets thinking it was over. An hour or so later it started again, this time with the wind coming from the opposite direction. Most of the injuries happen during the second half when people are in the open thinking it is all over, and they are hit by flying debris.

So, stay safe everyone this season.