Lots of pictures

I regret that I have not posted anything for a while. One of the reasons for this is our cell phone / camera died. So I could not get the pictures off of it and upload them to the internet.

Being busy with the house made it difficult to take it around to the shops that fix cell phones. When I finally got a chance, I decided the cost was too high and that we would get another used cell phone / camera.

That took a little while as I had a low buy price, but, eventually we found another razr cell phone for the price I was willing to pay. But the new phone quickly displayed a problem. It was unable to charge it's battery. I was able to determine that two of the battery contacts were bent wrong. I opened up the old cell phone to see how they should be bent, repaired the new phone and was astonished when the old broken phone began functioning again.

Perhaps we needed two cell phones. The old one is still dodgy, it shuts itself off now and then for no reason.

At some point Rebecca took over the house project.

There is an esoteric idea along the lines of maleness originating the idea and femaleness bringing the idea into material reality.

Also, being in charge is good for her, probably good for our workers who are likely unused to working for a female boss, and I needed a break.

Tonight I downloaded pictures from both phones. Here are some of them.



I have already introduced Enki, our new dog. Enki and Enlil do NOT like each other. Enki has the idea that he should be the dominant dog, he is able to bully Canelo around. He snarls and grows and Enlil, who simply has no fear whatsoever, happily invades Enki's personal space.

Enki then tries to bite Enlil. This is a mistake. Enlil has the characteristic square head, powerful neck, and massive shoulders of a breed of dog that shall not be named. With a direct attack from Enki, Enlil stops wagging his tail, knocks his attacker down and goes into attack mode.

Enki was not seriously hurt. Both dogs bled from their mouths. I don't know if they bit each others mouths or if they bit their own tongues. Enlil is very powerful and with four feet on the ground he is unmovable if he chooses to be. I had to pick him up and carry him to a neutral corner.

Enki gets some attention from Johnny.



Christopher and I returned to Belmopan to collect our new passports. We dropped them off at the Belizean Dept. of Immigration to get our permanent residency stamps transferred to our new passports and returned several weeks later to collect them from there.

At the house work continued on the septic tank system and plastering.




This is the bathroom area and the plaster needs to be able to withstand the high humidity and splashing from the showers, so this plaster is white marl mixed with sand and a small amount of portland cement. This is the standard plaster locally, unless someone is short on cash, then they use white marl alone. In the picture there are several layers of plaster, the last one being a finishing coat applied and smoothed with a sponge.

Elsewhere in the house we are plastering with a different mix. We are using white lime mixed with white marl. I was told this would not work, that I should use some cement. I disregarded that advise and proceeded to mix up and test a small batch.



Among the people I know, use of white lime mixed with marl for plaster is unknown. That is a shame. It may have been unknown to my friends, but it was not unknown to their ancestors, nor mine. It was the plaster of the ancients both in the old world and here.


After a few days of watching to see if it would just slough off or turn to powder, or leave white when touched, the new/ancient plaster formulation was embraced by the workers. I had used one part lime to three parts marl, and when they started mixing up a batch without asking the ratio I asked them how much they were using of each. They had used between 3 and 4 parts marl to one of lime. Close enough to my guess work to make me hopeful that we have instinctively hit upon the right ratio.

I have cautioned them that I do not know the ratio that was used either in this part of the world or elsewhere, that tidbit of information being largely lost, and that this may require replastering in a short time.

Also this plaster behaves differently than regular plaster. It dries slower, and if done right I think we should keep it damp as long as possible. It shrinks and we will have to use more than one layer of plaster. But the experiment seems good, so far.

Just because it is the third world, doesn't mean you can't have a canopy bed.



Hearing us mention that mosquito repellent was essentially useless, one of our workers looked at us with a mixture of awe and pity and suggested we use a mosquito net over our bed at night.

Doh!

This works exceedingly well. At one point I crawled out from the net to go smoke, and was immediately assaulted by swarm of hungry and frustrated mosquitoes.

With some confidence that the lime marl plaster would work, plastering commenced in general.



During the plastering process any gaps in the tesiste are filled up with smaller pieces of tesiste chopped to fit the gap. Here is a picture from the outside of the house showing the plaster fill between the tesiste sticks.



There were days when it rained.



And there were rainbows.



I got a haircut, and so did Christopher.



There was a birthday in Xaibe, complete with a pinata.



The septic tank / bio methane generator experiment advanced.







A section was plastered on the outside of the house to see how the lime marl plaster withstands driven rain. The workers now converted, are optimistic, however hard driven rain may be a bit much for this kind of plaster.



About this time Rebecca took over. I arrived to do security one night and found she had purchased materials, arranged a truck and gotten everything delivered.



Here Canelo and Enki secure my sleeping area from any threats.



There are some more pictures and more to tell, but Rebecca insists that she post all of that.