It has been nearly a week since I've heard or read anything about the twit-in-chief or any Kardashian. Such bliss! This morning the woman across the street was listening to news on her car radio. She just had to come tell me what she'd heard. Oh, goddess! Trump and a Kardashian in the same sentence! I feel violated; my mind is poisoned.
Damage update: We heard today that the lighthouse ruins are gone but the palm trees and the road at Playuela are fine.
We've also been told all the piers at Crashboat are gone. The long main pier is broken and all the three remaining mooring piers collapsed. The whole beach is underwater. The parking lot is full of sand. We've heard the bar next to the fish market is in the water and the fishermen's lorker area was destroyed. We haven't been there yet so no photos. Will update when we can.
There is a rumor there is another tropical storm heading for us. I sincerely hope not.
Evening - With no Internet ofr cell phones or tablets kids are having to learn to play. Communities and being formed and reformed.
Tonight we walked over to see Bradley Coates, the landscaper who trimmed our trees. He lives a couple of streets over from where we're staying. Bradley and several neighbors were sitting out, talking, enjoying the evening. Some neighbors joined us, some left only to return. Kids were riding bikes up and down the street and playing in the little park across the road.
One woman said, "We never do this! Why don't we do this?!?" Her young daughter rode her bike up to her mom, crying. "I don't want to go inside! There's nothing to do inside. I want to play outside." Her mother said, "Go! Play!"
The house we're staying in is part of the base housing when our airport was an Air Force base. (Hence calling it "up on the base," even though it hasn't been an Air Force base since 1973.) In typical military style the houses are very close together. It is the best and the worst of living close in the neighborhood.
The downside is it is like living in a fishbowl. The upside is the sense of community - kids out playing, neighbors talking to each other. Especially in the aftermath of the hurricane there is the sense that "we're all in this together." Nobody has light or water or gasoline. No one has TV. Even those who have generators are rationing their use because of the shortage of gasoline. So being "neighborly" is what there is to do.
This community gathering has turned into a morning ritual. The house we're in has a propane stove. Using water we stockpiled at home we can make - drum roll, please - coffee. It started out with sharing coffee with our friend Marie who lives right next door. By day three there were five of us. Some days there are people waiting for my coffee before we're even up. We've started calling it the Morning Coffee Clatch.
How to make an electric coffee pot a pour-through:
I don't know what they are all going to do when we move back down the mountain.
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