When you cannot sleep it is forced reflection situation. One starts to think about loved ones here and passed.
The office in our
apartment faces an abandoned construction site. It was "designed" to
be a hotel with commercial spaces on the first floor. Only two times has there
been any humans on the site but at 3:45 AM I see a guard walking around the
first floor with a torch. I wonder if there are more or if this is a solo
assignment.
There is another "hotel" being built out our
"river" view side that has had work ongoing every day since our
arrival. Our view is mostly of the back side (away from the street and river).
The past few days two men have been putting a coat of "stucco" on the
facia, each room has an air-conditioner installed and a swimming pool in the
courtyard looks like it is ready to be filled, nice Caribbean blue, can't tell
if it is tiled or painted that color. This is only one of many
"hotels" being built here. It is uncertain who will occupy any of the
rooms. I think it is a reaction by this "President" because a
National Geographic article was very critical of the country and the lack of
amenities for travelers so now there must be five or six of these thousand-room
mega buildings going up along the two to three mile boulevard. I believe that
this corrupt leader can skim more of the cream from these big projects than he
can a "chapel" project. The government "red tape" makes a
simple chapel project a twelve-year marathon. The chapels being built, five are
now in process, are using a "pod" configuration so they can be built
under the residential codes instead of commercial. Instead of one large chapel
there are three or four pods, one a large open building to be used as a chapel
with two or three buildings for classrooms, kitchen, etc. It isn't easy either
but they have fewer "agencies" with their hands out (or is it under
the table) trying to get a little more "grease" for the
"President's" Swiss bank account.
The day begins in an hour and I don't know how I will fare with
so little sleep in the tank.
I am intrigued by a fig tree that can be seen from apartment. In
the six months we have been here this tree has twice lost all of its leaves and
within days, new leaves are breaking out all over the tree. It is so out of the
cycle of plant growth we are used to so it is quite a sight to see this tree
one day dropping all of its leaves and within a week a new "crop" of
leaves.
There are two seasons - wet and dry. We are in the wet period. it
is not a rain-forest ecology because much of the growing things in the beds
around our deck are also dying mainly because there isn't enough moisture in
the soil. The "soil" is mostly sand which doesn't help things grow. Produce like tomatoes, cabbage, potatoes, courgette (a
lightbulb-shaped zucchini like vegetable), bananas and onions are available all
the time. We spent $6 for a head of Belgian butter lettuce yesterday and you
say - wow, what are we thinking - but it looks so good. We have discovered that
"good" meat is available at a market called Extra. After eating
canned tuna and eggs as our main sources of protein we decided to give their
meat a try. We have tried meat from other stores and were not too pleased with
the results but this time the meat is good. We bought some "stew"
beef, a hunk of bone with some meat around it, and made beef stew for Sunday
dinner, a great dish.
Mark loves marzipan and while shopping in a store called Hasson
et Frรจres he found a 250g block
of the genuine thing for $3.50, that may sound expensive but it is about the
same as $6.50 a pound and it is delicious. Other finds; hot fudge sauce for
$.50 a bottle also high quality, a French baguette as good as anything in
Paris, and Mark's favorite pastry called a religieuse (named after a chubby nun)
which he labeled even better than the ones he had while serving his first
mission in France and a great baguette to boot. The bakery is called Eric
Kayser and can be found in many large cities around the world. We left the
restaurant after eating a religieuse and a molten chocolate torte suffering
from chocolate overdose; next time we will restrict ourselves to only one
dessert divided.
We have two favorite produce sources where we find excellent
tomatoes, apples, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, potatoes, sweet potatoes (white
flesh), carrots, bananas. There is a store called City Market where Mark's
friend Amer is a manager.
 |
| Mark and Amer on the day he gave us a pickup load of food for the orphanage |
Amer is from Lebanon and went to Boston College. He has developed a
promotional department where he puts items that are near expiration at deeply
discounted prices. We have found many luxury products there like Nutella,
Ocean Spray cranberry juice, Crisco sticks, honey, Betty Crocker cake mixes, Lay’s
Potato chips, Raisin Bran cereal, Heinz ketchup, pickled onions, Ortega salsa,
Orangina, canned chow mein noodles, and the list could go on. It gives us more
choices of what we can eat and how we prepare it and brings in a little bit of
home.
We have heard disturbing accounts of bad choices among the
members. One person was caught selling fuel used to power the generator.
Another was a sister going into the expats houses and stealing money from
purses. One Canadian sister whose husband is here on assignment told us that
they cannot stock cleaning supplies in the chapels. After supplies arrive the
custodian closet is empty by the next week. Hymnbooks have to be gathered by
deacons as the congregation leaves or they would disappear as quickly. Each
ward (our chapel has two wards) has their own set of hymnbooks and guards them
carefully. The Gospel Doctrine teacher left a projector in the Relief Society
Room where the class is held and he went right back to retrieve it. It was gone
not to be seen since. I guess things like this happen all over the church, but
it is disappointing nonetheless.
