EL NUEVO ALBANIL

Yesterday at 8:30 Trini, the new mason, arrived with four other men and they worked until 5:30 with an hour off for lunch.  Here's what they accomplished:

They're using el sr J's new wheelbarrow:

The Coke that fuels their work:

An architect (required by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historía) also came by.  He will make the blueprints for INAH, derived from elaborate PowerPoint designs made by el sr J, who must have been an architect in a previous life.  We had to choose among three different types of roofs: the traditional one, 10 centimeters thick, made of reinforced concrete; a cheaper one, 25 centimeters thick, made with concrete-encased beams that would probably show cracks around the interior edges (!); and a more expensive one, also 25 centimeters thick, made of reinforced concrete beams tied into the walls with steel plates and with styrofoam insulation to keep out traffic noise and the sound of footsteps on the roof (cat burglars?).  We chose the first, traditional option.  The roof will have a terrace on top.  Let's hope we don't fall through.  We don't care if we hear footsteps up there.

SEMILLAS

Look what we smuggled brought into the country.  They're from Seed Savers in Iowa:

We bought these seeds at Wal-Mart here:

These zinnia seeds are from my sister in CA:

Tomatoes and peppers planted:

El sr J is digging up the back yard to make a raised bed:

He's piling up the grass with his new wheelbarrow.  Then he'll cover it with black plastic to kill it:

The lettuce seeds can go in anytime now, I think.

EL DRAMA DE LOS DOS PATRONES

The plumber, Sergio, arranged for an albañil (cement guy), Alejandro, to do the tear down and build up of the falling-apart building at the rear of our property.  Alejandro is the guy who installed the mother of all doors and the utility sink.  Alejandro was an on-again, off-again kind of worker.  We wondered what he'd be like as a guy in charge of a job.  We had to stay home a lot waiting for him to get here.  The week before we left for Chacala, he had this pile of grava delivered.  As you can see, it filled the sidewalk, part of the street, and pushed the front door open.  That same day, Luis, one of Alejandro's cohorts, spent the whole day, from 9 to 7, hauling it to the back of the property.  About 11 a.m. I asked him if he wanted a Coke, the fuel that drives Mexican workers.  He did.  Around 2 p.m. I asked him if he wanted lunch.  He did, so I went up the street and got him a take-out lunch.  Alejandro came over at 5 and upbraided him for not working fast enough.  Alejandro shoveled one load of stone into the wheelbarrow to show him how to do it.

On Friday before we left we convinced Alejandro to take a key to the house, hoping most of the dirty work would be done when we returned.  He said he hoped it would be done.  Below is what we came home to.

The sand delivered:

A lot of 2-foot deep holes dug around the building:

The dirt and stone from the holes:

The roof almost gone:

The door gone, but the walls still there:

The back yard a mess of debris, empty food containers, and plastic coke bottles:

Sergio, the plumber/patrón came by at 9:30 the next morning.  He looked at the work and was not pleased.  He said he had come by twice the week we were gone and found not enough men working, a man without tools (he had to give him his own tools), and Alejandro nowhere to be found.  It was clear to me that Alejandro thought he was the patrón, ordering truckloads of stuff and telling his tool-less peon, Luis, what to do.  He had even asked me if we wanted to deal with him or Sergio.  Sergio, on the other hand, had told me that he paid Alejandro and was definitely his patrón.  We were in the middle of all this.

Anyway, Sergio called Alejandro and told him to get over here right away.  We were uncomfortable hearing their conversation.  At the end we paid Alejandro for 3 days (for Luis) and for 2 truckloads of debris that was hauled away.  Nothing for Alejandro.  He didn't work, said Sergio.  (Of course he didn't.  He was patrón for 2 weeks).  Sergio summarily fired Alejandro and called later and brought over a new albañil who will start Monday and who says it will take him 6 or 7 weeks to get the job done.  We will pay him by the week.

Alejandro was fired, but he had to come back and get his few tools and his wheelbarrow.  He came that night.  He said nasty things about Sergio and told me Sergio said that I complained about his work.  Not true at all, I said.  Not publicly, anyway.  I paid him for a little more than a day's work because I felt sorry for him.  But it was good for him to be gone if we were every going to get the building finished.

The pecking order here is as bad as in Britain.  Or Spain.  Or countless other places where there exist patrónes by any other name.

ALGUNOS MOMENTOS

There were sappy sentiments like the following on the walls of our beach house.  This one says that we don't remember the days, we remember the moments:

So here are several memorable moments from Chacala.

The family knows that Pete is very talented at blending in socially.  However, when he announced on the second day of our vacation that he was going to go down to the pier and see if the fishermen would let him go with them on a boat, I said no way.  First of all, he doesn't speak Spanish.  Second, these were working fishermen.  Why would they want to take a tourist with them.  So I bet him 100 pesos that he couldn't do it.  He accepted the bet.  Donna bet another 100 pesos on his side.  I lost 200 pesos.  Moreover, the rest of the week guys were knocking at our door, asking if Pete could come out to play help them mend their nets.  Here's the pier at 7:00 in the morning, with trucks lined up to load the catch of the day:

Whale watching.  Pretty close.

Pete and Yarrow went fishing.  We all had a bite or two of their catch:

One of the highlights of the vacation was a meal of sarandeado (spelled in a variety of ways).  We had it a couple of years ago with our son and his wife and we ordered it again for this group.  It's a very big, large-boned, meaty fish, cooked on a mesquite grill.  Very tasty:

Kristi, Michael and el sr J dig in:

Donna and Pete contemplated eating the eyeballs, a la Anthony Bourdain, but after feeling them for a bit, they decided against it:

Francisco Cárdenas (who has spent time in Madison, WI) gave my sister a massage and made her feel like a new woman.  In fact, we worried that she wasn't going to open her eyes after he manipulated her aura:

Every night we had to pack up the food outside and put it into our bedrooms because of the night raiding coatimundi.  Apparently his favorite food is avocados, one of which he nabbed on our first night there, but on our last night he had to be satisfied with some tortillas we forgot to bring in.  They were a poolside snack for him:

Where will we go and what animal behavior will we encounter next year?

COMPORTAMIENTO ANIMAL

Animal behavior.  Let's start with the metaphorical.  This is the stairway to the Palapa View Deck (covered roof terrace) in our beach house.  This type of stairway is called a "caracol" or snail stair.  Its only behavior might be to trip you up on your way up or down:

The view is worth the trip:

This guy lives downstairs near the pool.  Yarrow made a friend of him and hand feeds him bananas:

This is a moth that made friends with Pete:

He held on until Pete went to bed:

This is a toad that tried to make friends with el sr J, but you know el sr J.  He doesn't like slimy friends in his shoes.  Mary, the cleaning woman, says these sapos excrete a white substance that causes warts, but no warts so far:

A sand sculpture made by some young artists on the beach:

The worst animal behavior of all.  Pooping on the beach.  Don't do it.  It's not something you think people would need to be told:

CHACALA

We're vacationing with family at Casa de Tortugas:

There's a pool:

And a beach:

Our niece, Kristi, and her son, Yarrow:

Eating and drinking on the deck with my sister Donna, her husband Pete, and el Sr. J:

 Langostinos are in season, we were told, so we decided to have some for dinner.  Pete claimed that Pacific lobsters have no claws.  After he suffered much doubt and derision from the rest of the family, I bet him 100 pesos that the lobsters would have claws.  I lost:  

When it came time to throw the live lobsters in the pot, four people disappeared into their rooms.  But they came out to eat:

Michael, Kristi's partner, pouring water:

Kristi's so cute and photogenic:

Sunsets are special here:

When we're not on the beach or whale watching or fishing, we're cooking and eating:

Yarrow climbed a tree and got some coconuts.  Then he had to find a guy with a machete to cut off the tops.  Mission accomplished:

Working on the coconuts:

Sisters:

Big fat cow mouth (a term of endearment; or, what we called each other when we were kids):

The whales are migrating.  We can see them from our deck:

Tune in tomorrow for the second lost bet of 100 pesos.  By the way, we cancelled the CableCom television contract before we left.  They have no shame.  Or technical support/service.