day 25

just another morning up here in sabalito. as per the typical tico time, we are now on the 25th day without a road to tilaran. the 10 man+ crew is down there most days (and some nights) with cranes, tractors, shovels, giant plastic pipes....because they have to dig out earth in order to bury these giant pipes in the ground for the river water, the hole has only gotten BIGGER so far. there have been days where there are 20 guys in orange vests standing around smoking and 2 guys down in the hole with shovels, digging thoughtfully. it reminds me of a family vacation to cozumel mexico in 1989 right after a major hurricane had struck. there was mucho rubble surrounding our hotel building and the view from my window every morning was of an elderly mexican man slooooooowly moving rubble with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. his job i think was to transport it from one pile to another. after 5 days i still couldn't tell which pile he was moving the rubble TO.

last week they started one of those quick fix bridges called i think "bayleen" bridges. well, here's a picture of it so far. they SAY it will be ready tomorrow. however, in spanish the word mañana also means "anytime in the future". someday...

so every morning the school kids and all commuters are still bussing down the hill to the edge of the the ginormous hole, walking the trail down down down and up up up to the other side to catch the bus waiting to take them to town. it's rainy season and this is a dirty muddy business, let me assure you. this morning robin "fell" into a giant mud puddle down in the hole. oops. no confirmation yet on whether this was a) an attempt to get laughs from his buddies b) the losing end of a bet or c) a genuine accident. however, after successfully getting robin out the door to meet his 6am bus (sigh), i was NOT happy to see him return home 20 minutes later (he caught a ride up the hill in the back of somebody's pick up truck) covered in soft orange mud up to the knees. sorry no picture of that. yay, more laundry.

thankfully, no there were no injuries or delays, and robin is now clean and back on his way to school via the 930am bus.

and here's another photo of our cowboy and cow neighbors in their early morning round up. yah!