Day 42

Amy, Kurt and Bobbie went to Samana, I took the kids to school. We ran out of money for the first time. Kurt attempted to figure out the Casa Marina network, to no avail, although it was fascinating to watch Kurt analyze all the available network connections, as he is a Berkeley grad, well-versed in unix, and worked on the original military internet in the early 1980’s. He was able to open all the available networks, communicate with them, and almost figure out what was set up. I say almost because when we got down to the base network at Casa Marina, it wasn’t telling us what it was doing.


Arturo is working at Casa Marina.


On the way back to the comedore, where we told them we’d return, we ran into Raphael, a man we had met on the gua-gua one day who helped Amy find her missing cell phone. Raphael is convinced we are looking for a Spanish teacher, and every time I see him he tells me how he will get a teacher for the children and me, even though I’ve never told him we are looking for such a person. Me being the nice person I hide inside, I’ve not taken the opportunity to tell him no, I’m not looking. I guess I forget the persistence of someone down here who smells the possibility of making a buck. So tonight, on our way to the comedor, we run into Raphael, who tells us (me) to meet him at his house, where he will have the Spanish teacher I have been looking for. Realizing I have failed to nip this in the bud, I go, trying to figure out how to tell him ‘no’ diplomatically. As I enter his office, I meet another two gentlemen, one who speaks good English, the other who doesn’t. The one who does introduces himself as Jonathan, and says the other man is a builder who works around here. I think nothing of this until he says “so I hear you’re looking for land here. I have much land, and he (the non-speaker) will be able to build something for you. As I begin to regain my senses, I say “I’m sorry, but we never said we were looking for land or a house.” I said this at least 10 times, as Lane and Amy both told me to stop saying I’m sorry. Raphael returned with the Spanish teacher, who turns out to be Arturo’s brother, who we’ve met before. He is very nice, although he speaks poor English, and I’m relieved – this is a person we know, who won’t be pressuring us into yet another business situation. We explain that we aren’t looking for a Spanish teacher for the kids, and that I might be interested in Spanish lessons AND looking at property, but not tonight, so I leave it that I will stop by some other time.

I realized today that there is an interesting paradox here – you have to wait for things to happen – what we call ‘Dominican Time’ – yet take advantage of any opportunity as it occurs, for worry that it won’t occur again. Maybe that’s not such a paradox.

We went to the comedor – it’s a nice place, and several ex-pat friends have told us it’s the best local food in town. It isn’t the most seats in town, though. There wasn’t enough room for the 6 of us, so we ended up getting the good, inexpensive food to go, taking it home. When we got home, Sonya was there to give Lane dancing lessons, which took place while the rest of us ate. After dinner, we all danced, then went out for ice cream at the pharmacy, which was playing Guns ‘n’ Roses, we think. On the way home, Gris-Gris was playing some Lou Rawls.

Sonya is Daniel’s, the man who owns this house, girlfriend. Daniel is a French musician of some note – he was in a French band called Johnny Hallyday, which he told me was a famous rock band. It seems he made some money in the biz, as he built the house we’re living in, plus the two bungalows next door, and is now building a large house down the street. He told us he has plans to build a commercial building on the site next to Juan y Lolo’s property, between our houses and the town center.

Sonya is Dominican, a former dancer in a band Daniel had here, called Daniel’s Brown Girls. She is from Santo Domingo, in the neighborhood they razed for the gigantic Tomb of Columbus (“Faron de Colon”). She has become a regular visitor, partly, I think, because Amy speaks Spanish and partly, I think, because she is lonely. Sonya is a little taller than Lane, slight, and with dark skin. She has told Amy that she has 3 children back in Santo Domingo of which the oldest, 15, is watching over the other two. She has told Amy that she needs money to help her children with medical problems but she is afraid that, if she goes back to Santo Domingo, Daniel will “find another girlfriend.”

THE ELECTRIC BILL – Last week we received our first electric bill. The electric bill is separate from our rent and we pay monthly, based on usage. Juan told us it was $150. We had two reactions – a) is this real? b) if so, how do we cut it down? Fortunately or not, Amy also mentioned this to Sonya, who told Daniel, who contacted Juan / Jean about it being so high. I felt bad that Juan / Jean might interpret this as us going around him – I only wanted to talk with him about the particulars and how it could be reduced. (Would this blow our cover of passing as rich Americans?) While Kurt was here, he and Amy checked our meter and tried to calculate how many kilowatt hours we had used. We spent an afternoon with one person posted at the meter while others shut off and turned on various appliances - lights, the refrigerator, etc. – to see what affected the meter’s movement. We decided that all of the meter’s influences were ours – there didn’t seem to be any other activity (we have heard all kinds of stories here about people siphoning off electricity from unsuspecting tourist-type neighbors) when everything was disconnected.

When I spoke with Juan / Jean, he told me that all 3 houses – our large one and the two neighboring bungalows – were on the same meter, and he based our bill on what he knew to be the bungalows’ usage – as they were occupied fulltime – subtracted from the entire bill. Based on our experiment I didn’t think there was any trickery involved, and Juan / Jean has been pretty straight with us to this point. When I asked him what appliances / items were using up the most electricity, he mentioned the hot water heater, which we use sparingly, the refrigerator, which is a concern, and the water pump, which was the bulls-eye. We have been washing dishes with the faucet running, and the pump was running while we ran the faucet. Since receiving the electric bill we have started washing dishes in a pot, and rinsing them quickly. We’ll see. We also have wanted to leave the lawn lights – ground lights out in the yard – off at night, but the night guard has disagreed with us, turning them back on after we turn them off. We asked him to leave them off, and he acquiesced, but Juan / Jean came by today and said someone had tripped on the front sidewalk because it wasn’t lit, and he would like to keep the light on.

He also came by the day after I spoke with him about the electrical bill. He brought the bills with him to show us how the totals changed, depending on which houses of the three were occupied. Again, no trickery seemed to be involved – he had to estimate from one bill covering all three properties. He said he would knock a little off of ours.

When he stopped by to tell me about leaving the lawn light on, he also mentioned that the night guard told him about us leaving the side kitchen door open while we were gone one night. The guard made it clear to us that that was a problem also. We think the guard is a little frustrated with us for disagreeing with having the lawn lights on. The first couple times we turned them off he made it clear to us he wanted them on. He went to Juan / Jean this time about the open door – he may be worried that, if something ends up missing from the house, he will take the blame.