One of these photos is the view from the table of my camp at the beach, and the other is of my camp at the beach, with me, Esparanza, Henia (on the right), Jasmine, and Carlito(yellow shirt), and my laundry. The ocean is about 15 fifteen behind Henia's back. Of course, I am now living in a house, but I miss the beach alot and like looking at these photos.
Had a nice Saturday morning in Chacala. I was kind of anxious last night because right after I went to bed I remembered I was helping Rodrigo (an American who sells real estate in this area and lives in Chacalilla) help some of the EBACH kids set up a Chacala blog this morning. Rod has been teaching this Saturday morning class most of the winter, I think.
Anyway, I got up again and set up stuff so that if the water, garbage, and Coke trucks came while I was gone, everything would be taken care of. And, hurrah, when I got home a few minutes ago, after a morning at the bibliotecha, all was well.
The water guy brought water at 7am while I was still home, which was handy. I had left the water jugs, with the pesos plus a little tip, on the patio wall so he could see I wanted three water jugs (full). He wanted to see the view from the new part of the house so he came in and was really impressed. When I was living on the beach he liked to sit for a minute at my camp and visit, but it's a little different here, in a regular house.
Then, when I walking down to the road, I realized the money I had left sitting on top the plastic garbage can I had set in the middle of the driveway was gone. And the garbage was gone too. Excellent. Then, when I got home from the Bibliotecha, the Coke truck was just pulling away, having found my empties with the cash clothes-pinned to one of the Coke bottles. A good morning.
Click here to look at the rough draft of the new Chacala website the kids are working on. It has some pictures, and more to come.
The American/Canadian population in Chacala has dropped again. Three visitors, four long-term residents, and possibly some people at Mar de Jade. Of course, I may have missed some visitors. Plus, I noticed a kind of fancy looking RV on the beach yesterday, which could be from the US.
While we were at the Bibliotecho this morning I got to see an incredible video of the days right after Hurricane Kenna, October 25, 2002. The destruction was really amazing. I was here in Chacala for about 10 minutes after a week later and things were still bad. But by mid-March, five months later, you had to really look to see signs of damages. They re-built really quickly.
The video scenes that really caught my eye (and heart) the most were the total destruction of Chico's. Even the remaining small building was only a shell, with the cement floor washed away. There was a lovely section with of Narcissa, owner of Chico's, and her son Francisco and his wife Angelica, sitting in plastic chairs, eating hotdogs, I think, in middle of total destruction. Narcissa had a lovely smile. They looked so everyday and normal.
Another sad scene was Jorge's Deposito (telephone calls, beer, and ice cream store), where all the walls were completely washed away. And the south end of the beach, but not as far as Mar de Jade, where all the homes were completely gone. Just piles of stuff, no buildings that I could see.
Quite a video. This morning when I was walking over to the Bibliotecha, I was noticing that I had not seen a scrap of litter all the way over, for maybe three blocks. What a huge change from only a year ago. It is really amazing to realize how fast this town has moved from a few palapas and stick houses at the end of a horrible road, to some nice houses and a "good" road (which is being destroyed daily by the huge trucks speeding/rolling into the gated "community"). Water to most of the houses at least a couple of times a week, electricity to most houses. Many families with vehicles and small businesses. TV and or phone at a number of houses. It's sort of confusing to me, but I guess it's progress.
I read somewhere lately that about 85% of people in Mexico do not have access at their homes to potable water. And in some cases the "potable" water is only potable by Mexican, not international, standards. That's very sad for a country with the incredible natural resources Mexico has. Of course, I don't know what that statistic is for the US.
Yesterday was pretty humid and it looked like it like rain last night, but no such luck. It's just another gorgeous day in paradisse/paraiso.
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