Never let anyone tell you that a large dog imparts a sense of security. What a large dog does is bark at every thing that moves, from the moon to the shadows of the moon to the little black beetle making its way over the ground. He does this in a manner that makes you feel your life is in danger, and his loyalty is on the line in alerting you. So you are constantly having to fend off fear of intruders you would never have even thought about did you not have a large dog. The other thing a large dog does is move around the house by stealth in the darkness, and suddenly manifest himself outside your window, making human scruffing noise among the bushes. He will then turn up on the opposite siding of the house scratching furtively at the door latch. And suddenly, he will be on the far end of the yard barking red alert at a bug. It is almost impossible to believe he could move so quickly, and indeed he never does in the daytime.
We have to travel for about an hour by bus to the nearest grocery store. We also have to travel for about an hour to request a water truck to come fill up our tank, or a gas truck etc. Water is a lot more difficult here. We have two underground tanks, and one smaller tank above ground that connects to the house. This has to be filled about once a day from the tanks under the ground. This involves the mysterious knowledge of priming the pump. I have not yet been initiated into this mystery. This is not for lack of teachers.
The washing machine takes about an hour and a half to fill up, and it has to do this twice - once for the rinse cycle. So a load of laundry is about a five hour job. Unless of course you are initiated into the mystery of priming the pump. Then you can connect it to some orange hose and connect the orange hose to something else and connect that to the washer and oversee the whole process much more speedily. Needless to say I am content with the time consuming process of not being involved.
The cabin has about one circuit. In order to turn on the microwave, we must turn off the heater. We don't pay for electricity though. There are no meters this high up.
There is no central heat or air; no carpets on the floors, and we are about as high up as Mexico City gets. It is very cold at nights....
It is very hot though, trudging a mile up from Santo Tomas Ajusco.
About a ten minute walk down the mountain you can get the best quesadillas perhaps in the city, and ride ponies. You should always keep your knees bent, walking down and up mountains. And walking down a steep mountain you should keep your feet at a 45. This will help you to fall in a more interesting manner.
Notice my tongue just beginning to fall from the enclosure of my mouth as someone snaps the picture of Ruben & I - I am not sure how these things happen. I suspect the influence of the dog. It is perhaps wise that we did not purchase a large male pig at the market on Tuesday.
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This sounds hard. Keep your chin up, HZ. You will solve the mystery of priming, and become a teacher of the skill in turn. Praying for you and Ruben.
I will buy myself a spanish/english dictionary and see what I can pick up from Ruben's blog.
Stay in touch!
Neil