Day 19: Rural Living In Costa Rica

WHAT THE HECK CHEWED UP MY SHIRT IN THE NIGHT?

We got up early and got ready to go take care of today's business. Every day requires us to take care of house-building-related business: choosing materials, picking up materials, "supervising" the work, etc... Grabbed a cup of coffee only because we knew they were going to put on the roof today and we wanted to be there to watch.

So we got up there around 7:30am I think. Pretty cool how they did it. One guy standing on the roof and doing most of the dangerous work while another one or two fed the panels of zinc (called "lamina") up to him. I asked if his shoes were specially made for standing on a steep slippery roof and he said no but they are good shoes that work well for this.

After awhile Jose told us he was going to go into town to pick up some materials and later he'd come back to take us into town to shop for a ceiling cover and lights and some other stuff. So we decided to come back home to eat breakfast and be ready for a day of shopping for house stuff in San Ramon later.

When we went home we went out on the screened-in back porch to get some clothes we had hanging to dry and we found a surprise.

The yellow plastic rope had been chewed causing the clothes to fall and one of the towels had been chewed as well!

I, being a city boy, said "What the hell would chew a rope and a towel?!" I looked around for evidence of something like a raccoon having entered but there were no holes in the screen and the screen was surprisingly tight with no loose places for an animal to have entered.

We decided we'd ask our resident Tico expert on all things Costa Rican later.

Then we also found one of my t-shirts had been chewed through at the bottom and I said "Why would an animal want to eat a tshirt and rope and a towel?"
Then I noted the trash bag full of food on the porch as well which had not been chewed into and I added "... and if it were a mouse or something, why would it have not gotten into the garbage bag?"

Later we went back up to the farm and did ask Diego and he said "I think it was a mouse!" Which is what I was afraid of, because...

Joanie is deathly afraid of mice. Most women hate them but Joanie hates them more than anyone I've ever known. She can't even look at them on tv or in a movie. She can't even look at a rubber one or a picture of one without acting as if she's just seen a horrible bloody accident or something.

She went into a kind of frozen state of shock when he said it was probably a mouse that was gathering material for a nest.

I told him of her extreme fear/hatred ouf mouse and he added, "But this is not a big problem. Put some poison and it will keep them away. Better yet, get a cat or two."

I told him, "But she hates cats, too!" In the past I have told her I like cats and want to get a couple when we live here but she always made a face (almost as bad as the one she makes when mice or rats are mentioned) and said "Okay but you have to take care of them and they can't come in the house!"

I would say, "But you'll like them if you just give them a chance!" to which she would make that face again and say, "No! No! I don't like them!"

But now in the face of the reality of having either cats or mice, she said, "Okay, get a cat then! Get TWO!"

We watched them install more laminas and then decided to come home and wait for Jose to call us to go shopping for stuff in town.

I made some banking and other business calls on Skype and called a friend, and so on while Joanie went on her tablet and called her niece on Skype and then took a short nap.

We went back up to the house around 4:30pm and they were finishing up the roof so now it covers almost the whole house. We watched them put on the last few panels of lamina as darkness descended but then Jose arrived just before dark when we were planning to drive back home so we decided to stay and talk with him.

He discussed some things with us regarding the garage and the bathroom and kitchen and lighting and now it was dark and we were walking around where string is strung and boards are laying around and holes are in the ground for drainage and etc and I felt this wasn't a good idea at all. But it was too late to turn back the darkness so we hung out a bit more until everyone left and it was now raining.

I got stuck locking the gate in the rain and then driving home in the dark on a very wet road. You have to understand that the roads are not marked at all up here - they're pure dirt, sometimes there are holes or ditches along the side that cut into the road, sometimes there are huge ditches or cliffs on the side and if you can't see well it's quite dangerous and scary to drive at night, especially in the rain and/or fog with even less visibility. My policy is "DO NOT DRIVE AT NIGHT under any circumstances!" but so far I am finding it very hard to follow my own rule. We have to work harder on this. Also I suppose once we get more accustomed to it and know the road better, the risk will decrease. But nevertheless I think it's a good policy that I should try to abide by.

We came home and ate spaghetti with cauliflower and fell asleep watching a dvd of Frasier on my laptop because the internet connection was too slow to watch Netflix.

In fact earlier it was too slow to even load my Google Photos. Ridiculous to pay good money for such a shitty connection but then it's ridiculous to pay $500 a month for this house too.

Anyway I woke up and showered and went to bed.

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