Before I even got out of bed, I heard machinery in the road. Looked out to see a large truck with a replacement length of plastic culvert. Oh nooo … the definition of insanity and all that.

But wait! It’s smaller (40 cm vs. 50 cm)! It’s got sufficient cover not to be crushed by the weight of a truck!

And it’s …

… done!

Thought the street is still a muddy mess, we got a surprise today when a backhoe appeared and installed plastic culverts, potentially (there remain a few unresolved upstream/upstreet issues) creating a workable drainage system. Whether the plastic culvert, with only a shallow covering, will sustain the weight of trucks full of bricks or tankers from the barimétricos (septic pumpers) remains to be seen.

At the far (downhill) end, you can see the ripples indicating that real flow is going on. The swamp is draining. Given caveats, this represents a great improvement over the last “repairs,” during which the weight of the grader broke the concrete culvert, over which it then spread a fresh load of tosca (pulverized rock), which of course completely blocked the culvert, preventing any drainage. Yours truly opened that up and restored drainage, at the cost of presenting a slight danger to motorists.

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It‘s really funny to look at these photos. This place looks so third-worldy. I had the same reaction when I took perhaps my favorite photo in Mexico, without the benefit of being able to see what I was taking a picture of (to not scare momma-or-pappa bird).

Seven years ago. Wow.

 

Here we go again…fresh tosca (rock dust, for lack of a better description) and the grader.

Making a mess.

As if to taunt their efforts, rain comes in torrents, turning the road once again into a river, because the “repair” has done nothing to address the crucial issue, that the drainage system is broken.

Can this end well? Stay tuned.