Ramblings

This post may be a little "all over the place"...a jumble of bits I've been gathering, enjoy.

A story Wolf told us, probably the first day in Crucita, when he drove us to PortoViejo to the Supermaxi for groceries. "An American man in Ecuador fell in a hole in the sidewalk and broke his leg. He tried to sue the city, and when he got his court appearance, the judge sent him to an Optomitrist, when he returned with a clear bill of health from the Optomitrist the judge said, 'well if you're  not blind, you must be stupid, case closed'!" Seems like such a long time ago, June 2nd

Another thing I've been meaning to mention is the Ecuadorean's health. Now this is only observation because of the language barrier. Maybe 3% are obese, I would say there are some chunky ones  but not near what we have in the States! The diet is healthier, although one expat did say the children consumed a lot of sugar, but I can't imagine more than the kids in the US. Big city people of course are different from the coastal fishing villages, but we've spent some time in the big cities too, and by the looks of it, the Ecuadoreans are very well balanced and healthy. Teeth are good, beautiful hair, and not much gray. They seem not to gray until very old, very agile too, now it could be that the ones who are in bad shape don't get out of the house, that's possible...their labeling on food is very vitamin and mineral conscience. Where in the States the label tells you it's "low fat" theirs tell you it has vit A,D &E. And very small windows of time between when a packaged product is made and it's expiration date. Both are on the label, very little in the way of preservatives. Good and bad, good for obvious reasons, but bad because I've lost some stuff in the fridge by not eating it soon enough. The produce is fresh, so it doesn't last, but at 10cents instead of 79 cents I can let that cucumber go. (Neither of us have weighed ourselves since we left in May, we were waiting for our bathroom scale in the container)

This is one of the area street dogs, I've named him Patsy, he is a boy, but I named him after Patsy on the BBC show Ab Fab. Because he (and she) is blonde and nasty (he has bad skin, she is a horrible person). He started following us one day way down the road in San Clemente, probably followed us a mile, then just kind of trailed off. Then he followed us on the San Jacinto side of the Malecon, but then the day this picture was taken, Mike saw him on the beach with another couple. Because of his skin condition we don't pet him, or feed him, or encourage him, but he is kinda cute.

He can walk with us anytime, and when he's done, he's gone.

Some of the expats "adopt" the street dogs, but then they get on a Facebook wondering if anybody has seen the dog when he's off doing his "street dog stuff ". You can take the dog off the street, but you can't take the street out of the dog.

I'm starting a list of things I want from the States, either if/when we go, or when somebody comes to visit:

Qtips, maybe REAL Qtips, not $1 store ones even

Fly paper strips, not for flies so much as fruit flies, those gnatty things are all over my kitchen

   Hmmm, so far that's it, there will be more added to the list if we don't get our container...the fees are still mounting, it's just such a hurry up and wait deal here in Ecuador. Not much urgency in the bureaucratic departments. Donations are still needed, we've collected about $500, but at this point that's a drop in the bucket, storage fees are $1000 every two weeks, and it's been here now 2months. Every little bit adds up and helps, thanks in advance, this will be the last time I mention it. To donate go to the link below:

http://www.gofundme.com/Road2EC 

Ive told Catalina that this HAS to come to an end, we can't continue to live in this unfurnished house. It's either, get our container clear by the end of the month, or we have to start rebuilding. We can't sit and continue to watch the storage fees rise, ridiculous! But, in the meantime, we do this

A final rambling, my grandfather and grandmother bought an Airstream trailer, and after Grandpa's early retirement they attached that trailer to the back of their truck and took off. I'm not even sure where all they  went, up down and around the States, thru some of Mexico, maybe Canada, spent a couple years doing it I think. I remember Grandpa saying that "one should be retired when they were young and could enjoy it". THAT obviously stuck with me. I recently found out that Grandma didn't always like that time in the Airstream, she missed friends and family, but she had Grandpa and he was all she needed. Myrl went "home" to him and Jesus yesterday. A long chapter, full of life has ended. It was a good read.

Manta highs and lows

We went to Manta yesterday to get a bank account, sounds easy right? Wrong! But we did get a cell phone, and had a nice day between meetings, waitings, printing of emails, scanning of documents and driving. We catch the bus a little after 7am, goes thru Rocafuerte and gets into Manta bus terminal around 8:30. We decided to walk to the Internet cafe before calling Fernando, cause I thought it was close. It was about three blocks over and three blocks up, and we did find it with no problem. We also found this cute little park, and one of our favorites, the jacaranda tree. These bloom in May in California, and always remind us of our wedding, as they were in bloom then.

There was a public restroom, which we took advantage of, my side had an attendant, she offered TP, but I told her I had some. Should have taken hers, she charged me .20 cents when I left. Oh well, good to know.

This is a building under construction, and they put this pretty cover on it, so it wouldn't be an eyesore from the park. That's nice.

We called Fernando, and he came to help us at the cyber cafe. We had a signed copy of our rental  agreement and utility bill from the landlord. Had to get another bank statement, and copies of everybodies IDs. After we had all our stuff, we went to the bank, it was 9:30. The line at the bank was like a line at Disneyland! It was mind blowing, luckily we didn't have to wait in that line, we went upstairs. We took a number and waited. About an hour in, Fernando poked his head in the managers office, she had not recieved a call from Catalina, didn't know our situation and said we didn't have enough documentation to open the bank account. Hope dashed again.

I had only been talking to Catalina thru Facebook, and had neglected to get her #. So we had to leave the bank, go to free wifi (KFC by the way) log on to Facebook, and there was her #, and a message saying she had talked to her local branch! and for us to have this branch call that branch to get the story...ugh I had Fernando call her, and tell her what the bank manager said we still needed. She said it would be ok, to go back to the bank and have her talk to the bank lady on the cellphone. Back to the bank, more waiting. Got the bank lady to talk to Catalina, but she insisted we needed more. Catalina said to give her a couple hours, and she would have a letter of recommendation sent to my email. For us, it was time for lunch.

Fernando suggested smoothies and grilled cheese, and that sounded great. We went to the beach boardwalk area, 3 mixed berry smoothies and 2 grilled cheese=$6. The grilled cheese was white bread, (the first we've had) and queso fresco, slightly different, but very good. We walked the beach, talked of this and that, gave Fernando love and relationship advice (being an old married couple) and forgot our issues for awhile. Soon it was time to check email, we got to a cyber cafe, but no email. We did have a message on the cellphone, Catalina needed our full names, called her, but now it was going to be another hour before we would get the letter. What to do? Take advantage of our spanish speaking friend and Walk around the corner to the cell phone office and get ourselves a phone of our own. The rental house in Crucita supplies a phone with $10 on it for it's guests, as most US cell phones don't work here. But the Crucita phone will only be of use til the end of the month so we had to do it.

After we got the phone, $34.99 we went back to the cyber cafe...guess what, closed! We had crossed into that magic time of siesta, and they weren't going to reopen til 3pm. We decided to go back to KFC and wait in the free wifi, but time was ticking. We were paying Fernando for his time, and I just hated that this wasn't going to get finished today. We were just about giving up, when the email came. It was almost 3pm, we drove to another cyber cafe, printed the email and hightailed it back to the bank. There was only one person infront of us, it may happen today! 

But when it was our turn, and we handed over the folder with everything in it, she shoke her head, no. She wanted originals, at least the rental agreement notarized, the utility bill was not current enough, and the long awaited letter from Catalina did not elicit the intended response, she was not impressed. It was now after 3pm, and we could do no more. We had nothing left. We paid Fernando $60, less than his fee of $15 per hour, bless his heart, and had him drop us at the bus terminal. He was going to talk to Catalina that evening and they would hash out the next phase of the plan. For us, hope was dashed again.

While on the bus ride home, Mike and I unpacked the day. The good, bad and the ugly. We were closer, but not there yet. We had accomplished one thing, we got our phone, and we've decided accomplishing one thing a day is success. We are doing everything that we can and it's easy to worry about the things we can't change but worrying doesn't fix things. This is a process, moving is a process and we are moving forward everyday. I read an article yesterday that gave the top 5 reasons expats don't make it in their new land. #2 reason was expenses, not realizing all the start up costs. You've done the research, you can live comfortably on X amount, We have overlap, utilities are still on in the rentals, so they show at their best. Electric and water, mowing is being paid for at both properties. We expected these and had factored them in it was the container and surprise fees that did us in. 

So we've made a donation site, it's an opportunity for someone following our adventure to chip in and help us continue it. Any funds we get will go towards paying on this container business, customs fees, storage fees, bank bond, and anything else that may come up. 

The latest from the lawyer, is we should go to Cuenca, where she is, and has more pull. We meet with the landlord on Wednesday to get the rental agreement notarized and a more current utility bill. We could feasibly head to Cuenca that afternoon, it's about 6-8 hour bus ride, $8 each. Flying is much quicker, but $200 per person, and we need that money to pay for storage fees, we can take the bus. We've never been to that part of the country so we can see the sights. That would get us in to Cuenca late, but we could get to the bank first thing Thursday, instead of Friday. Heaven forbid it turn out to be a holiday! Better look into that!

That's it for today, stay tuned-the adventure does continue!