Building off the Grid

I came back from breakfast to see Stephen in front of his house with a wood delivery, about 10 sheets of 3/4" plywood ripped into 12" strips. These were to be used as concrete forms for his house off the grid. I helped him carry them through his house and load them onto his panga. He was going to take the boat over to his property where the process of creating piers for his house began this week. Although I intended to go with him, he informed me that he was returning with 10 workers and their tools in the same boat so I declined.

Stephen also had about 3 yards of gravel and 3 yards of sand in front of his house. He paid $50 for the 3 yards of sand and $150 for the three yards of grave. How is sand so cheap? Sad to say, I think it was poached off this island, Isla Colon. He found four turtle eggs in the sand. So much for conservation.

Pablo, a local laborer shovelled gravel into plastic woven bags and loaded about 1,700 pounds of gravel onto Steven's other panga, at the real estate office. Pablo came into the office as I was visiting Walter. We negotiated a day of tarpon fishing for $25 plus the gas. I said "when do you want to go?" Walter asked Pablo to show us his wallet, which proved to be empty. I guessed that tomorrow would be fine. Walter said, "but..... we are in BANANA COUNTRY." We agreed that I would go with Pablo to Stephen's at 1:00.

We headed out for lunch driving his little van the 300 yards to the restaurant. Walter loves touring in that thing. The shortest trip is via van with a side trip down every road in town at 5 miles and hour, waving to everybody and calling the girls over.




We stopped at some random location. "What the hell are we doing here?" "Pay attention, it is a little trick." Then we walked between two houses and entered the restaurant through the back door and the kitchen. Walter said "Now we are family, not customers." Sure, Walter, the obnoxious brothers.

We waited by the boat at the ferry landing. An old man came by and dropped his trousers to his knees and attempted to urinate while holding his machete. He dropped the machete about 3 times and picked it up. Then he started to shit on the beach and on his pants as he hadn't squatted far enough all the while struggling with his machete. Twenty minutes later the ordeal was over and he waddled away.

At 2:00 it started to rain and we gave up and I came back and wrote this.