10/31/2012

   What a great night - almost everything is working!  The power and the water have been off today but when we got home from the temple they were both back on.   As we pulled out to go to the temple we ran into Joel (the repairman) who had come to pay the back payments on the apartment owners bill so we could have gas - and promised to send someone up to get power back in our kitchen.  We may have everything working at the same time.  That hasn't happened for a long time.
  We certainly shouldn't complain when we see the mess the east coast is.
   "There is no parking in the gospel, either we are going forward or we are going backword."  Don't know where that quote came from but it was written on a card in my scriptures.  Probably a personal notice for me.....

10/30/2012

       Hallelujah!  The gas is back on.  Scott talked to the head lady this morning and told her they could have let us know they were shutting off the gas. so we could try to get ahold of the landlord.  So she reluctantly agreed to turn the gas on temporarily.   Now we have gas running into the stove but no electricity to start it.  Scott has been lighting it with a match - thus he no longer has hair on his hand!
We need one of those fireplace matches with the long stem.  We thought the power problem would be addressed by Joel today but no way - didn't hear from him at all.  Maybe tomorrow.....
We left for the Temple at 5:30.  I was so happy to see Sister ? was back.  She is the beautiful older woman who used to come every Tuesday but is handicapped and has been very ill.  She has the most serene countenance!  One of the male obreos is her son but I don't know if he brings her or just how she gets to the temple.
   As we drove out of the temple grounds to our apartment you could not help but feel the difference between the peace of the temple and the noise of the world.  What a blessing it is to be able to spend time in the temple.
   I hear Yturraldes in the kitchen.  They must have stopped by on their way home from the temple.  They live on the sixth floor up and by the time they get to our floor they are pooped so they stop for a break before climbing the last two floors.  It is great to have friends here!

10/29/2012

It's just 4:00 pm and we are supposed to be in Spanish class but here we are at home trying to straighten out yet another problem in our apartment.  Yesterday we couldn't get our stove to work and finally figured out that the gas wasn't getting through.  So now in the kitchen we have no power and no stove that we used to be able to light with a match if we didn't have power.  I wonder just what else could happen but don't want to find out!   Finally Danny came up and told us that the apartment owner had not paid the maintenance fee she owes the lady in charge of the apartments.  For five months - you would think they would have said something to us before they just up and turned off the gas.  We always get the threat of them shutting off the power because their electronic system somehow does not show them that the church has paid the bill.  That also happens with no notice.  One good thing happened in our apartment today - the water quit dripping from the ceiling in the bathroom.  Guess Joel was right about the water from the Hurricane causing a back up of water somehow.  Since we are on the 4th floor of an 11 story building and there are no open areas I just wonder how that happens.  The elevator is out for another six days so walking those flights of stairs has been good for us but not fun.
     All in all, I'm glad that night is here.  Maybe tomorrow we will get something or things fixed!  I don't know what has happened to Ekbert and his mother that we really enjoyed (they were in charge of this apartment) but for the last three months we haven't been able to get ahold of them at all.  Her phone is no longer in service and his is always full of messages.  I hope they are ok.
   

10/28/2012

     This early Sunday morning started with a shower in the shower!  It's not often you can stand in the shower and have water dripping down form the ceiling tiles.  It seems to be slowing down a bit though.  So we were off to pick up the kids for church.  When we got there Alta Gracie and her family were not there - they had no clean clothes.  I was just happy to hear they had no clean clothes instead if they had no clothes left.  We wanted to bring some of their clothes here to wash but alas - no water here.  So we ended up with only William's three kids.  Our students playing today were so far away we knew we couldn't get back to pick up the kids if we went.  First dent in our car in a land filled with dented cars.  Scott went to open the door to get out to go get the kids while a motorcycle was coming down the street with two men on, one setting on broom sticks.  Why they were driving so close to our car only they know but the broom sticks hit the car door which knocked the door into Scott's head.  Of course they just drove on as if nothing had happened. 
    No one had been in the church since the hurricane.  The Relief Society meets in the chapel - tile floors with no seating put up.  Eight or more of the sisters had mops and brooms and they were mopping and sweeping the water out of the room.  They don't have windows - just slats that open and close.  Plus they have a courtyard kind of like we used to have at the Rock Church.  It still had water standing on the cement entryway to the church and was going into the chapel under the door as well as through the windows.  The teacher had written on the chalkboard the lesson "Los Obreros de la Vina" - appropriate I thought.  It seemed strange to me that there were no men helping.  One of the sisters was opening the folding chairs, giving them a shove that sent them clear across the room on the wet floor!  I thought it was a great idea.   However as I was moving a couple of chairs a lizard scurried out in front of them. I was helping set up chairs and that was much better than walking across the slick floor to get them and carry them back.  But then the man who had looked in came back to help and was going to do it the right way.  It was hilarious when  chairs he had moved to set up slid and crashed noisily to the floor.  It was nice of him to come and help but was obvious these women know how to handle trying situations.  This was just those in the middle of the room!

When they realized I was taking a picture they wanted me to take another .

It was a great start to the day!

Guess what I saw at church today????  The first set of unpolished toenails I have seen.  If anyone, kids and all, are wearing shoes where their toes show, their toe nails are painted

.I can't seem to get the alignment to work!  We ended up with about 20 minutes for Relief Society. In every meeting as you are listening some vehicle goes by with sound things on top of their car and is either selling or looking for something or playing obnoxious music.  These people never bat an eye.

   After we located the kids for Sacrament meeting Scott told me he had volunteered me to play for them for Sacrament meeting since the one guy that plays was not there.  Keep in mind that playing for them is not like playing for someone in our home wards!  Plus you never know what they are singing.  Since it is October and they begin celebrating Christmas the last of September they chose a couple of Christmas songs. Just have to say it is kind of weird singing a Christmas song in October.

The good thing was we had a trunk full of keyboards so I got to play on something I play every day.

The kids and Scott sat up at the front with me and they were good.  Katty is fascinated by the music that comes from the keyboard. 

   We dropped them off and headed home to pick up a table, more books and teclados that we usually keep in the back seat.  We had 20 minutes to grab something to eat and get back on the road for Oriental.  Thank goodness the traffic was light and we got there fairly close to on time.

   When we get home at 7:00pm and climbed up the stairs with the equipment we were just grateful to be home. 

   I really appreciated being able to talk to most of my family - they are wonderful!  We are so blessed!





10/27/2012 End of the Storm!

  We were still mopping up water from the rain storm on Friday.  It would seem to settle down for a few minutes then would start blowing and then came the rain.  I doubt we will ever see rain like this again - certainly not at home.  There was some awesome thunder that shook the windows and blew out the power.  We still had the water problem in the bathroom then something went wrong outside and we lost our water in the kitchen.  So all in all we had power off and on most of the day but little water.  Joel, the repairman, (who we now know on a first name basis and is about part of the family because he spends so much time at our apartment) came by to check out the water leaking into the apartment below only to discover that water was leaking through our bathroom ceiling also.  He thought it had something to do with the hurricane winds and rain.  Doesn't make sense to me! When he comes he gives us both these great big hugs -
  I did get some pictures of the storm which I will put in this blog.
   The Shavers, the Ruckers, and Scott and I went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant that they had been to before.  It was delicious!  When it storms here the people stay home so the roads were not too congested.  All in all, it was a fun night.  AND we even had power when we got home.

   In this picture you can kind of see the sheets of rain.  They would come from the south and blow towards the north with unbelievable intensity.  You could barely see just across the street because the rain was so dense.
   The streets, even with their built in storm drains on both sides of the street, were flooded and running up on the sidewalks.

    There were trees blown down in some places.  Two trees were blown over and landed on the fence that surrounds the temple.  The ocean is a dirty grayish tan color about as far out as you can see from the stuff that runs into the river then into the ocean. 
    We were worried about our families down by the river and found the Alta Gracies house had flooded with over 4 feet of water.  She said two of her mattresses from  her house floated off and into the river.  She and her kids were with Williams family.  How they were ever going to take care of another family with how little they have was such a worry for us.  We got some food and things together and went down to William's  house.  I am amazed at how these people just take everything in stride.  They had no idea where their next meal was coming from.  Everything in their house was wet or destroyed or floating.

   The kids are always so happy to see you.  I am so grateful there are some kids for us to love here!
   We got home in time to go to Hainamosa for keyboard lessons.  The twins had played in church last Sunday and their family was so excited.  They all showed up at our lessons today.  This is the mom and her three daughters:

How blessed we are to be able to be here and work with the people here.
The day is ending much quieter than it started.  We seem to be back to the normal except now we don't have electricity in our kitchen for some reason.  I would ask what else could go wrong in this apartment but then something else would happen so we will just be grateful we have a roof over our heads and dry beds!

 

 

10/25/2012 Hurricane Sandy

Wind howling though our apartment, water in puddles under all of the windows - that has been the last couple of days and nights!  You can't sleep at night because the rain is pounding on the windows.  You know if you get up in the night you have to be careful because there is probably water on the tile floor and it is very slippery!  This storm has been worse than the last one that was so well prepared for and publicized for weeks before it came.  We didn't even know this one was coming and we get a newspaper every day.  It makes you sick for all those people who live in little makeshift houses that fill with water every time it storms like this.  Our friends, the Shavers, traveled to La Romana for a conference today.  Of course the weather was terrible but as they drove along the road by the ocean the waves were hitting the rock and going straight in the air then over onto the road.  They were grateful to get back in one piece.  Don't know how long this is supposed to last but it has calmed down tonight for awhile.
    Our neighbor came up this morning to tell us our water pipe was leaking into her bathroom and it was running down the drain into the apartment below her.  Great huh?  We couldn't get anyone to come look at it until tomorrow so had to shut off the water.  The elevator isn't working and William told us tonight that it would be out for 8 days.  For us on the 4th floor that isn't so bad but I really feel bad for those people on the 10th and 11th floors.  There is an 8 months pregnant woman on the 10th floor that the workers are worried about.  Just hope she doesn't have to leave until she is ready to deliver.
    Alysha sent us some pictures of the snow on the ranch.  Wow!  On was of Miya and Jared by a snowman.  We printed it off and stopped to show William on our way in tonight.  He had no idea what snow looked like and couldn't grasp that "snowman" concept at all.  It was pretty funny watching him scratch his head trying to figure out just what that was.  Even after Scott explained how you pack snow together to form body parts he had that puzzled look on his face. I'm sure the more educated people would know what snow is but these guys with no education are a different story.  William had on a jacket zipped up to his chin and was rubbing his arms saying he was "frio" freezing cold.  It's probably around 75 degrees out there; not exactly freezing weather!
   We braved the storm and went to Spanish classes.  We cancelled our music lesson at the Casa because only one of the students was even there.  Most of the temple people that have Mondays off come to the early class because they live right there in the building.

   I don't know if they are celebrating surviving the storm or what but the music across the street is loud and obnoxious.  It's cool enough we could leave the windows open and it would be nice, but you can't sleep when there is so much noise outside.
  This man wanders the streets most of the time.  If he stops in the little store across the way they kick him out but today they must have let him stay inside for a little while because he was soaked to the skin.  I looking out the window when he came out behind a guy that had lit up a cigarette.  The guy stopped and gave it to the vagrant.  I wondered if he had even ever smoked before because he certainly could never buy cigarettes.  But he was a happy camper for some time: