Author: doug
Have tajamar, seek water
After yesterday’s pozo negro, our friendly backhoe (retroexcavadora) operator started in on the tajamar, or pond (background) in the local lingo, which we hope will fill with runoff water, for which here he’s digging a diversion channel from the road. ‘Tis an experiment; I’m not sure rainwater will be enough, but we always have the windmill, and by now a considerable length of hose, since I planted out fruit trees far from the house.
Last night he parked his backhoe at our neighbor’s, because someone lives there. He left on his moto, and I was wondering about the logistics of that.
Lo me encanta, I said as I watched him strap the moto into the bucket as he prepared to leave. I love it.
Uruguayo, he replied, beaming, of course pronouncing it ur-u-GUA-zho.
Pozo negro
“Black well,” or septic tank. The first part is three rings deep; the second one ring deep. It will receive water from the bottom of the first tank, and when it overflows go into a pipe 60 meters or so slightly downhill to a sewage lagoon, in which we’ll plant papyrus, and around which we’ll plant some willow or eucalyptus trees that love water.
The soil is completely impermeable. If you dig a hole 50 cm deep and fill it with water, it will still be full a week later. A septic field would be useless. A friend suggested a mound system, running perforated pipe through a mound of sand topped by soil.
Perforated pipe? They didn’t even sell that in Mexico. And I don’t feel like spending hours (or paying someone to spend hours) drilling holes in plastic pipe. This is what they do in the country, and it works.
Refrigerator redux
In addition to the powerful magnet that came out of a broken chargeable flashlight (upper left), our refrigerator is festooned with magnets handed out by local businesses. The little blue half-garafa (propane tank) I actually found in the street but thought pretty cool. Outside of paper ads, held in place by other merchants’ magnets, there is only one non-magnet on here. Can you guess?
The guys who fix refrigerators. They put on a sticker.
Living in a limited marketplace
People who move to Uruguay from consumer societies tend to get frustrated and complain about the lack of variety, and generally poor – no, make that piss-poor – quality of consumer goods. With reason.
We bought the refrigerator on the right new, the one on the left used from someone now a friend, who we now know spent a great deal of time and effort getting it repaired before selling it (he was leaving the country). Both are products of Bosch, a brand I had considered quality. No longer. Three of the door shelves have on the new one have broken, and it has been the object of a repair visit before.
Last night it stopped working. This morning it started working again, but not before we had brought the other from the casita (little house), and transferred all the contents. And called the repair people, fortunately not early responders so I was able to cancel.
But seeing them side-by-side reminds me of one of the oddities of this limited marketplace of 3.5 million people. Notice how both doors open to the right? So does virtually every other refrigerator sold in Uruguay. Can the hinge side be switched, as in North America? No. Same as with virtually every refrigerator sold in Uruguay. On ours, we could switch the hinge side, but without a way to move the handles, it would be just a bit awkward.
As a result, we designed our still-unfinished kitchen in the campo around a refrigerator whose door only could open to the right. Strange to imagine someone up north doing the same.
Hangin’ out
Mauro, back from over a year in New Zealand, surprised us with some intricate Beatles’ songs on the guitar Santi loaned me. Actually his sister’s, but hey.
His fraternal twin (mellizo) Rodrigo, lounging in front of the wood stove, got something interesting going on with Gita (full name: Doguita), the poorly drawn dog.
Then Santi apparently morphed into the equivalent of human catnip, and had the crazed cat Oscar going wild.
Mauro and Rodrigo had their horoscopes read earlier, our birthday gift to them, by our friend Hazel, who turns out to be an exceptional astrologer.
Then we talked about psychic protection, lucid dreaming, clairvoyance…such a treat to be around young, curious minds.
Awww…
Warm!
No sooner do I witness heavy frost and order a ton of firewood, than the temperature gets positively balmy outside. Remember, July 27 here is the equivalent of January 27 in the northern hemisphere.
Yes, I did polish our car’s scratched windshield with cleaning wax, as I mentioned earlier, and it worked! Reduced the glare probably 90%. Much safer now.
Finally, a real load of really dry firewood…
For the first time in several deliveries of firewood, it actually looks the full amount promised.
And, to my delight, almost all appeared to be under 20% water. The two observations have an important connection.
Strangely (especially for such a humid area), firewood is sold here by weight. So (keeping it simple) if all the wood were 20% water, you pay for 200 kg of water and 800 kg of combustible material. When I did some readings at woodlots a while back after a couple days of rain, some were showing 35% water. “Oh but don’t worry,” they told me, “it’s just because of the rain. It’s been dried, and it will dry out again in a few days.” Meanwhile please pay the same amount for 350 kg of water and only 650 kg of combustible material.
The logic of which either escapes, or doesn’t concern, them the least.
