TODAY IS MONDAY JANUARY 25, 2010

Today was the day we have been waiting for!!! After 4 years and 3 months of anticipation....after 4 years and 3 months of finding our land and buying our dream…today is the day we start construction on our project. Of course, the bodega does not count. I mean our REAL project. Today is Monday January 25th, 2010.

About 8 o’clock I said to Maurice, “WE HAVE TO GET GOING!!! WE HAVE WORKERS COMING TODAY!!! IT ALL BEGINS TODAY!!!”

We got a late start and on the way to the land, about 9:30, Maurice’s phone rang. We think it is the workers waiting for us. No, it was “some guy” saying he had some rock for us to look at and he would be at our place in an hour. We did not know why he was coming, but figured he must be meeting our crew there with this rock.

We were surprised when we pulled up to our “new” gate, where the barbed wire is already breaking because it was so old to begin with, and there was no one there yet!! 9:40!!! Why are they late?? Maurice said that Mondays are usually a slower day since everyone works on Saturday. O.K. We can get some stuff going while we wait to see the rock. Why do we need to see rock? What is it for?? We don’t really know but our engineer and contractor can tell us when they arrive.

Noon comes. HUH??!! Where is everyone??? Even the guy with the rock has not shown up yet. Maurice, what the heck??!!! Call back the number on your phone and see when the guy with the rock is coming. At 12:15 Maurice calls and the guy with the rock, which we still have no idea of “what rock”, says he will be there in 10 minutes. Soon a speeding white car, spinning on the dirt, comes barreling through our gate into the drive way. WHAT THE HECK!!!

Who is it!!!! It is Senor Backhoe Retro!!! He happily gets out of his car!!! HUH??!!! The first thing he says is that his mother’s palms are gone....O.K....Holas all around and the shaking of the hands....and I am thinking, why are you here?...just to tell us your mother’s palms are gone?? Or to tell us the details of the vacation your family had after you ripped us off for digging the holes for our pilas??

NO!!! He has 6 pieces of rock in his trunk for us to look at. Why do we need rock, we ask. No idea, he answers. Of the 6 pieces of rock 5 are the exact same, black glittery granite looking rock and one is roja…red. “What do you want?” I ask, “WHAT IS IT FOR“!!!! Maurice calls our engineer and leaves a message asking that question. Hopefully he will arrive with the answer, or at least call back while Senor Backhoe Retro is there.

Of course that phone call does not come and no one arrives. All I know is that I do not want glittery black rock, no matter what it is for. I want earth colored rock…which is all around us. “Can we come see what you have Senor Backhoe Retro?” No, he says. They, whoever they are, are up in the mountains digging it out for us. Again I think, WHAT THE HECK!!! So he calls and tells the people up in the mountains excavating rock for us for who-knows-what that we want café colored rock and off he goes.

Part two.

What you do not know is that we have finally gotten both our 5000 liter pilas placed inside their specially made, buried in the earth, concrete block homes, originally dug out by Senor Backhoe Retro and finished by our workers.

Last week Home Depot delivered our first pila. After Maurice and I, painstakingly lowered in into the ground we found out it was warped when the top did not fit on it. We let Home Depot know and since they were delivering us our second pila, we asked them to bring two new ones. Two days later they delivered the second one, taking the top of the first one so they could replace it for us. We were not there, since they came 4 days earlier than they told us they were coming, and when Maurice tried to explain to them on the phone that the top was not the problem, it was the pila itself that was warped they did not quite get it. So, impatient to finally get these tanks working we loaded the warped 5000 liter container into the back of our truck on Saturday and drove it the hour it takes to get to Cabo. Thank heavens we only had one in the ground or we would never have gotten it out. You can imagine the pulleys that needed to be rigged and the effort that needed to be exerted for Maurice, and his only helper, me, to get this warped 5000 liter pila out of its house, in the ground. It was easier to get it in, but not much easier! We finally did get it out and carefully tied it in numerous ways to secure it to the truck. We get to Home Depot, they replace it and back we go to the land. Between, ladders, ropes and Maurice’s ingenuity both 5000 liter pilas, which are 8 feet in diameter EACH, and just as tall,fit snuggly into their homes.


Today we ordered the water.

So after Senor Backhoe Retro leaves to go where he is going to get rocks for whatever we need them for the water truck comes. I took out my camera cause this is BIG! Maurice has his pilas in place so he can set up the water system for the bodega, but also for the place that will one day be our entire home, thus the need for such large pilas. He is anxious to play with the siphon and the pump to insure we can pump up the cliff. He is nervous. He is anxious to see if he can make everything work.

I am taking pictures as the water truck fills pila number one. Maurice waves for the photos. Bored, I leave and go to find a book as they begin to fill pila number two. About 3 minutes later Maurice comes around the corner. “That was quick”, I say. “There is a leak”, he mutters. “WHAT!!!!” “A leak”, he says.



“YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME”!!!!!!!!!!!!

I run back to the pilas and sure enough water is spraying out of the bottom of pila number two O.K. Let’s get the hoses out and at least use the water to drench the palm trees. We just paid for it we can’t let it go to waste!! So that is what we do. We water the palms and wonder what to do with the pila. How will we ever get it out!!!! Now that they are both in there, and one still has about 300 pounds of water in the bottom, how can we “lift” it out. That is problem number one. Problem number two is convincing Home Depot WE did not do it. The leak is in the one they delivered, but we did lower it. I know we did NOT cause the leak. It appears there is a flaw in the bottom. Anyway we call and they say, “bring it in tomorrow and we will look at it!” YA!!! RIGHT!!!!

Back to part one

It is 2:30 now. Our first day of construction has yet to begin. No phone calls from anyone....OH WAIT!!…the phone is ringing!!! Who is it?? It is Senor Backhoe Retro. He has new rock for us to see. WOW…that was a quick excavation. So we run out to meet him as Maurice wants to pick up some plumbing items. We connect with him and I like the color of rock, whatever it is for. “Bien“, I say, pulling the word from my huge Spanish vocabulary. Senor Backhoe Retro drives off, happy.

Totally confused and unsettled there is only one thing to do. Go have lunch. We call Keith, the friend of Maurice’s whose house we went to on New Years Eve. He had just gotten back from 3 weeks in his home in Vegas so he met us. A nice lunch and a Ballena beer later we go back to the land hoping for……I don’t know. Anything I guess. But no, there was nothing. No one. So we leave the plumbing things and stop at Keith’s house for a glass of wine.

Now we are home. Today was shocking really. But let’s look at the positives here, being a “glass half full” kind of girl…..

1. We got to see Senor Backhoe Retro again!! Even if his mother’s palms have been sold
2. We only have one pila that leaks
3. All our palm trees have been unexpectedly watered
4. We had a great lunch with a really nice guy
5. We watched a spectacular sunset from his deck on the ocean
6. He shared a fabulous bottle of wine with us
7. I am reading a really good book so I am heading into a bed with clean sheets to read (I love clean sheets!!)
8. I am here on this lovely earth to say good night

Good night XOX