Our weekend started off nicely – we got a few things checked off that never-ending to do list – like cleaning the entire house, including mopping, dusting & bathrooms. Another chore around here is to do a monthly check of the batteries that run our inverter – which is our back up power supply. It’s important to keep the water levels up in them so they can keep a full charge, so Steve got to use his handy-dandy ladder that we got to do that, as well as change a light bulb in one of the outdoor lights.
Once we got done with that, we headed over to our neighbor’s house. Tony and Linda had decided to put in an alarm system and asked if we would help them. Tony’s good with putting up the sensors, but not so much with the programming of the system. And Linda, well, she’s a dear lady but let’s just say that her talents lie in baking and making good coffee! (Oh, and she used to be a hairdresser – she’s going to give me my first DR haircut!!). We got them up and running in about 4 hours – then came back home to enjoy some pool time.
Mañana domingo (Sunday morning), we decided to go out to breakfast. There’s a small restaurant/bar in “downtown” Sosua called the Britannia. I think Steve’s decided that he needs to give them lessons on how to make good French toast, but my meal was quite good! After that, we were off to the grocery store before heading home to do some more “to do” things.
When Michael left on Friday, he was ready to run the conduit for the casita’s electricity to the pool house – but needed a trench dug to bury it. Steve told him that if he had time, he would do it. So we again borrowed Al’s pick axe (I’m remembering what Steve did to the waterline the last time he wielded a pick axe!) and he went about digging the trench between the casita and the pool house. While he worked on that, I finished putting the primer coat on the casita. Raphael had done all but the two sides closest to the fence and a bit on the side with the windows.
Let me tell you – both Steve and I were hot and tired after we got done with our trabajo (work). Steve had to fight with the palm tree roots the whole way (but didn’t hit any water – or worse – sewer lines this time!). And I had about 18 inches between the fence/palm trees and the wall to paint. That was quite the balancing act, plus that new concrete soaked up the pintura (paint) like crazy. I was covered with paint splatters when I finished and we were both ready for showers!!Fortunately we got those done because at around 3, the power went out. So we decided to take advantage of the situation and relax on our lounge chairs by the pool…and snuck in a siesta. What didn’t work well was our plan to bake brownies to take up and share with Al and Glenda, but we were hopeful that the power would be on later that evening.
Mind you, power outages here are not an unusual occurrence. They can last for a few minutes or sometimes a few hours. Little did we know that this one was going to last a LOT longer!!
Around 10 p.m. on Sunday, our back up batteries went dead. Apparently the fact that Steve had just checked them & filled up the water worked against us as they didn’t have sufficient time to build up the charge. So we settled in for a long, warm night with no fans. Note: we have acclimated enough that we rarely run the A/C any more, but having the air moving via fan is almost a requirement since any breeze we might have tends to die down at night.
Needless to say, neither of us slept well and Monday morning we got up to find that the power still was not on. This was the first time it had been out for this long since we got here. Both Steve and I were worried because we both had work (for our companies) to do and no power means no internet, no computers. We were frantically trying to come up with an alternative.
In the meantime, we and all of our neighbors either called the power company or went to their office in Sosua to report the outage. Unfortunately it wasn’t up by the time I needed to do my call, so I was finally able to get a hold of our friends in town. They had power and I was at least able to jump on their internet and cancel the call…not my preferred option, but at that point, it was the only one I had. In the meantime, everyone was hopeful that the power would be restored sometime yet that day.
Having no electricity also means no running water for us since our pump runs off electricity! We still had dishes in the sink from dinner the previous night, so we used our bottled water and heated it on the grill to get those cleaned up. When we ran into town to cancel my call, we stopped at one of the roadside bbq places and got some grilled chicken and yucca (pronounced uke-a) for lunch so we wouldn’t have to open the fridge. The yucca has a texture like a potato. I think we’ll ask for some of their special sauce next time…or maybe a little butter!
Finally, late Monday afternoon, a truck from Edenorte, the power company, arrived. Next thing we knew, we had power again…for about 1 minute then we heard a “boom” and it was out again. We went outside to see what had happened. A transformer had blown…the one that supplies the electricity to our entire neighborhood! They weren’t certain if it was just a connection – or the entire transformer.
I’ll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that we then became caught between the developer and the power company – neither of which would take responsibility and/or ownership of the transformer (thus the cost to repair it). What was incredibly frustrating was that there are other transformers in our development that are not in use – but the developer would not authorize swapping them out so we could at least have power until the issue was resolved! So in the meantime, all 7 houses in our neighborhood were in the dark…for another sweltering and sleepless night.
The next morning dawned and we began to scramble to figure out how we could get our jobs done (yes, we are only semi-retired) and hopefully salvage some of our food in the refrigerator. We bought bags of ice and put it into Ziploc bags and placed some in the freezer and some in the refrigerator. We’d also been told that our refrigerator would stay cold if we didn’t open the door too often, so we made sure we knew everything we needed and opened the door just once each day. We used our small cooler to keep just what we needed access to cold for that day.
Now…for our work. Even though there are many restaurant/bars in town that offer free wi/fi for their customers, that is not exactly a great locale for running a web-based training session. Can you imagine what the trainee’s on the other end would hear for background noise!? So we wracked our brains to come up with another idea.
Then Steve remembered that we had brought our car inverters with us. They plug into the car cigarette lighter and you can plug things, like a laptop, into them. So we took it one step further (I really should have taken a picture of this, but it wasn’t too funny at the time). We ran an extension cord from the inverter in the car through the car window into the house and back to our office so we could plug in not only a laptop, but also the router for our internet service. Mind you – poor Zuki had to be running in the driveway during this time, so we made sure we had the doors locked so no one would decide to take her and the inverter (and maybe even our cord) for a joy ride!
That worked pretty well for the two online sessions I had to do that day, since they were relatively short, but the inverter was very hot – as was the inside of the car when I got done. We decided that it would probably be best to try and find another alternative, if needed, for Wednesday since I had several calls back-to-back, with one block lasting over 2 hours. And if Zuki and the inverter were that hot after two shorter sessions, it would not be good to try 2 hours!!
After I got done with the training, we heard voices outside…could they be here to finally fix the transformer?? We went out and walked down the street where there was one of the developer’s contractors standing by the transformer – talking to our neighbor, Charles (think speedo). He’d brought a couple of guys with him, who were poking and banging in the transformer. In case you don’t know how this works, a transformer takes VERY high voltage electricity and basically steps or breaks it down into lower voltage…so it’s not something you want to treat carelessly.
This went on for a while – then they decided, yep, it’s broke. (DUH???!!!) So Charles asks again – can they swap one of the others? The contractor calls Pablo (the developer’s stooge) and he says no. Charles, by the way, is a very demonstrative French man. He also gets, shall we say, aggravated quickly. So when the contractor tells us that Pablo said no, he said “well, I’ll just go talk to Pablo in person then!” He turned around and stormed toward his house. We told him we’d go too. So we locked up the house and jumped in his car…off to the Century 21/Juan Perdomo office (oh – did I tell you that is the developer’s management company?).
We walk in (and oh, does it feel wonderful – air conditioning!!) and the receptionist smiles nicely and asks “may I help you?” Charles says “Where’s Pablo?!” She tells us that he’s not there at the moment and won’t be back for at least 2 hours, but asks if there’s anything she can do. That’s when I lost it. I told her that we’d been without power since 2 p.m. on Sunday and that we expected Century 21 to do something to resolve the issue – immediately! And if Pablo couldn’t take care of it, we wanted to talk to someone who could – even if it was the president of the company.
She quickly called Pablo on his cell phone. I’m not sure if she called us angry gringos – but that’s certainly what we were! He agreed to come back to the office to meet with us in an hour. So we jumped back in Charles’ car and drove to the Edenorte office to see if we could talk to the manager there. Lo and behold, she too was out – and would be back in an hour. So we went home and sweated until it was time to go back to meet with Pablo and the contractor.
They usher us into a conference room (oh, does it feel good in there!) and Pablo proceeds to tell us that it is absolutely Edenorte’s issue. We explain that Edenorte’s technicians have told us that it is a private transformer – thus Century 21’s issue. And in the meantime, we are caught in the middle and not getting any happier about it! He instructs the contractor to call the manager at Edenorte – who he puts on speaker phone. I could understand some of the conversation – and ultimately what was decided was that the Edenorte manager would send a tech out again to double-check because supposedly there is a code or a tag on the transformer if it is theirs. She would call the contractor when the tech was headed over so he could meet him to see for himself – and they would let us know.
Well…funny that none of us ever saw either Edenorte OR the contractor show up, but about an hour and a half later, Pablo calls Charles and tells him that Edenorte still says it’s not theirs, but Pablo is certain it is. He suggests that we all go to the Edenorte office in Puerto Plata to file a complaint. They have a government oversight group – we think it’s something like the Public Utilities Commission in the States – that supposedly advocates for the customers. First of all – it’s now 4:45 and there’s no way we can get to Puerto Plata before they close for the day. Second, if they are anything like the PUC in the States, it could be weeks, even months, before a decision is made…and none of us are willing to wait that long! But we were again faced with another night without power and water.
We decided we had better cook a large package of burger that had been in the fridge since we knew it would be at least one more day before we had power. Thank goodness we have the grill, because the electric stove that the morons we bought the house put in isn’t worth a thing when the power goes out! And thankfully Steve had insisted on bringing the cast iron skillets – which can be used on the grill. He cooked the burger and we took enough out to make tacos (so we could use the rest of our cheese before it went bad), then we put the rest back in the fridge – under a bag of ice.
On Wednesday morning, we decided we couldn’t go another day without a shower. So we carried buckets of water from our cistern (our fresh water supply) and poured them in the tub. The cool water actually felt pretty darn good – and it was oh so nice to get cleaned up! If you’re wondering, we used buckets of water from the pool to flush the toilets this whole time. We were glad we had water…even if it wasn’t running water!!
I called our friend Pam to see if I could impose on them and use their internet to do my calls/training. They manage a rental up in a very nice area of Sosua and it just happened to be empty. She offered to drop off the keys so we could go there.
They had offered the use of the villa to us on Monday night – but it had just been vacated and not cleaned yet – and apparently the guy who used it is quite the slob. Between that and not wanting to leave the dogs here all night – and the house empty with no lights – as tempting as that sounded, we had declined (call us crazy!).
In the meantime, Steve, Charles and Al had once again set off for Pablo’s office. They again ran into a dead end. So they headed to find an attorney that we could hire to represent the residents. There was a specific firm that Al had heard about – who is not afraid to go up against a company like Edenorte, nor the Century 21/Perdomo conglomerate, but he wasn’t certain where their offices were. Steve said the three of them (tres loco gringos) were wandering around “downtown” Sosua (it’s not a very big place) trying to find a sign for the office. Several locals offered to help them…for a few pesos, of course.
Finally, somehow, they found the office and were able to consult with the attorney (or solicitor as they call them here). They also ran into Al’s friend Jerry (the guy we had dinner with a couple weeks ago) and he sells generators. Steve talked to him about what he had available – something we may explore investing in! They then came home to wait for a call to find out how much they would charge and what they recommended as next steps.
Tony, the other neighbor, had stopped by our house to get an update since he had another commitment that morning and couldn’t go with the other hombres from the neighborhood. Then Pam and Dennis came with the keys to the villa. We chatted for a few minutes, then I had to leave so I’d have time to get up there and set up for the call. Steve didn’t want to be rude and kick them all out of the house so he could go with me, so he stayed behind. Apparently he eventually did politely mention that he needed to get some work done – at least for as long as his computer batteries would hold out – and they went on their way.
The villa was still a mess from the guy that had rented it, but fortunately the living room wasn’t too bad and I was able to set up shop there. I turned on the ceiling fans (moving air – what a concept!) and started to open the windows to get a cross breeze…only to have the groundskeepers start up the lawn mower right outside! Since I didn’t want to have too much background noise (I could have gone to a bar for that!) so I left the windows closed and settled in to do my calls. Fortunately, other than a brief blip in the power there that knocked me off the phone, the calls went as planned.
As I was packing up to head home, Al called to let us know how much the solicitor would cost – to make sure we were ok with paying our part. The solicitor had already set an appointment with the Edenorte manager for 10 a.m. on Thursday. I agreed that we were in, then headed back to the house.
When I arrived, Tony, Linda, Steve and Charles were all standing out in front of our house. I walked up and one of them said, “you didn’t see anything...that’s what you need to say if asked”. I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about until one of them glanced down the street (toward all of the vacant lots) and here were 3 or 4 guys working on removing a transformer. It was someone Tony had worked with at another project. He had called Challo (don’t know if that’s how it’s spelled) and asked him to come and swap them out – Pablo and Century 21 be damned!
This guy had offered to do the swap on Monday night (and we all agreed to pay for his labor), but when Pablo said no, we had decided to try and play the game the “right” way – thinking the issue would be resolved by Tuesday. But when it was late on Wednesday and we had no relief in sight, Tony took matters in his own hands.
All was good until the guys went back up to the other end of the neighborhood to put the good transformer in where the bad one was. The guard headed down and was immediately on the phone – to Century 21. Tony headed down the street as well. I’m not 100% sure what all transpired, but Challo talked to Pablo, Tony talked to Pablo, and when all was said and done, Pablo agreed to the swap. He even offered to pay his share of the labor (yeah – we’ll see if that happens!). In the meantime, Linda and I ran to the store for another round of ice…and cold beers…just in case this didn’t work for some reason.
We also cooked dinner on the grill again – spaghetti this time! Yep, used a cast iron pan to heat up the rest of the burger and threw in a can of sauce I picked up at the store. And another sauce pan to heat the water to cook the noodles. It wasn’t gourmet, but it was good.
Right around 7 p.m. we heard the tell-tale beep of our UPS, a light came on, then everything went down again. This happened several times – then there was nothing. I was trying not to break down in tears…we were SO close to being out of this hell we’d been in since Sunday night. Then…beep, lights, water pump, pool pump, fans…they came on – and stayed on!!! We were ecstatic!!! We all ran out into the street and gave Challo and his crew the thumbs up (if they’d have been closer, I’d have given them all a big, sweaty hug!). Apparently once they got the transformer hooked up, they discovered another problem out at the pole and had to change a fuse there which was why the power had come on then gone off a few times before they got the fuse changed.
So we were back in business – fans back on, pool circulating (trying to keep the algae that was forming due to no circulation from getting worse), and yes, back on our computers – connected to the world again. We spent the rest of the evening going through the refrigerator and freezer – deciding what had to be tossed and what could be salvaged, then catching up on our personal emails.
Oh – and during this whole escapade, our electrician couldn’t finish the casita because he needed electricity!! We had called him on Tuesday to let him know we were still dead in the water. He had another job on Wednesday so he told us he’d come on Thursday.
It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for a person! Both Steve and I awoke feeling so much better and were ready to face the day. Steve caught up on some work stuff before heading the meeting with the neighbors, the solicitor, and Edenorte. In the meantime, I divided my time between work, laundry, and cooking the various meat that was in our freezer that had partially thawed, so couldn’t be refrozen if uncooked. I threw some chicken in the crockpot and cooked all of the burger – then put it all in containers to be frozen for future use.
When Steve returned from the meeting, I could tell it hadn’t gone well by the look on his face. Basically the whole meeting was a waste of time and money because someone (we still have yet to confirm 100% who) had told Edenorte that the transformer WAS private, so Edenorte was not interested in discussing it any further.
Of the possible “suspects” who made this claim, only one – Pablo – had the right to assume responsibility for it, but after our earlier discussions with him, we would be surprised if it was him. We may never know for sure who it was, but now any cost of repair will be divided amongst the owners of the development. And if Pablo stays true to form, he’ll find a way to try and pin the bulk of the cost on those of us who have a casa – but not those who own the vacant lots. Somehow he doesn’t seem to understand that having working utilities in the development is to the benefit of ALL owners – not just those who live or rent here. Funny…one of the houses (still under construction) is owned by him! Might be a little tough to sell it if it doesn’t have electricity??
Speaking of electricity…the good news was that Michael was finally finished and we have power in the casita, as well as a timer on our pool pump, so we can come and go as we want and not worry about needing to be back to turn it on/off. We’re also one step closer to being able to move things into the casita from our dining room and our spare bedroom closet!! One more coat of paint inside, a door and the windows and we’ll be ready to rock. Oh – and we talked to him about the generator. He told us what we need to get in order to run things that now run on the inverter, as well as the water and pool pumps. We’ll be making that call on Monday!!Thursday evening we finished cooking our freezer contents – Steve was a grilling fool and I cooked more burger and some bacon. I also had some shrimp that needed to be cooked, so rather than boil it, I took the less healthy route and plopped it in the bacon grease…boy, was it yummy!!
We also got to Skype with our friends, Dave and Sharon, and catch up with them on everything. Typically we email several times a week, so that many days with minimal contact (e.g. an email saying “we don’t have power – will let you know when we do”) had put me and Sharon into severe withdrawals!! Skype is a wonderful thing!!
Friday – more work and just getting re-organized. It was very frustrating to know that we had things to do (remember that to do list), but everything needed either electricity or water. We could have painted, but would have had no way to wash the brushes or ourselves. Dusty and Sierra both need haircuts – but we couldn’t use the trimmers and we’d have no way to wash the dog hair off of us. So we did get a few siestas in – to make up for the bad nights – and lots of reading and crossword puzzles. And Friday night, we were finally able to bake those brownies!
Steve had a rough night Friday into Saturday. We’re not sure if it was something he ate that bothered him or if he’d just caught a bug. We both had eaten almost exactly the same things, with just a couple of exceptions, and I felt fine, so if nothing else, we’ve narrowed it down to what food may have caused it.
We had planned to get a relatively early start on Saturday since we needed to go into Puerto Plata to pick up a couple of packages and now, get groceries to restock. But with Steve not feeling great, he rested while I vacuumed the pool and got ready to go. We did go ahead and go, but you could tell by the time we were almost done at La Sirena that he’d done about all he could. So when we got home, he laid down to take a siesta while I fixed myself some lunch.
Of course our trips to POP are the best times to capture pictures of the local flavor…
Another interesting load on a moto – this time a bike, some chairs and two passengers!
Here’s a family of 5 (count the feet on the left and there’s another little girl in front of the driver).
And finally, one of the fruit trucks that sits on the side of the road. Selling fruit is hard work - time for a siesta!
Needless to say – this has been a very challenging week, but as I mentioned, we know have a better idea of what we need to do should we be faced with something like this again. We’re definitely going to invest in the generator and likely replacing the electric stove with gas will become a higher priority. We still like it here – and no where is without its ups and downs. You just learn to roll with the punches and when life hands you lemons (or as is the case here, limes) you make limeade!!
Hopefully your week wasn’t as grueling and you’re enjoying a long, 4th of July weekend! Be safe, have fun and we’ll be in touch again soon!!
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