Sunday Morning Walk

I suspect it takes more than two repetitions to declare  that a behaviour is a habit,  but I have on two occasions gone for a walk in the park of a Sunday morning, and am hoping to make it a habit. Who knows? Maybe I'll throw in Saturday as well...
The fact is, that early morning is the only time of day I can bear to be outside.
If you look closely, you will see that even at 8 am, the air is heavy with
humidity, but since the temperature is merely in the mid to high

twenties, and since I don't have to look presentable upon arrival, I can handle the heat.

Anyway, today I went right instead of left when I hit the park and came upon this fairytale pond in front of a hotel. Presumably, a little later in the day, someone will be here renting these paddle boats.

Something that I like about the tropics is seeing what I consider to be house plants growing in the wild.

After walk, water. Ah.

You call that a hurricane?

Last week Hurricane Danny blew itself out before it reached Hispaniola, but this week I got another chance to experience a tropical storm as Erica approached. It got exciting when the Canadian government sent me an email warning. When I got to school, I learned that the public schools had never opened that day, the government having issued a school closure notice at 5 am. Oops. We opened. At nine, we sent our students home, and by ten, when the last of the chauffeurs had driven off with their precious cargo, teachers got to leave as well. The bus took us home, and we all hunkered down.

At 1, the power went off. Just as advertised, the inverter kicked in, and the apartment started running on the four car batteries in the laundry room. How long would they last, I wondered. Answer? At least nine hours because it came back on just as I was getting into bed.

However, the cause was a bit of a mystery. It was blowy, all right, and some rain fell, but nothing like what you imagine would be required to pull the plug on a city of 5 million. Year round, gets dark here around 6:30, so I got a chance to light some candles. (I didn't want to have more than one bulb on at any one time so as to conserve the aforementioned car batteries. One bulb, one fan, and the fridge.) Cooking was no problem because the stove is propane.

This was the storm at its stormiest. Palm trees are such drama queens.

The next day, I learned that the BC lower mainland had been hit by a storm that knocked the power out to 440,000 people, toppling trees that crushed cars and causing all kinds of havoc. And those people didn't even have to leave home!

Here comes Erika!

Last week, Hurricane Danny diminished to a tropical storm, and then veered to miss the island entirely. I must admit to having been a bit disappointed. This morning, we dismissed students almost upon arrival because of the imminence of Hurricane Erika. (Public schools were closed by fiat late last night, an example we should have followed IMHO.) Anyway, our students have all left, and an email just arrived saying teachers could now leave.

Two days ago, Erika was a tropical depression. Yesterday, she was upgraded to a tropical storm. Now she's a hurricane, although no cyclone is predicted. People are hoping it really just means lots of rain for Hispaniola. 

Here is the message from our Security Department: 

The Government of the Dominican Republic has issued a Tropical Storm Warning for the south coast of the Dominican Republic west of Isla Saona because of Tropical Storm Erika.

Maximum sustained winds are near 50 mph (85 km/h) with higher gusts.
Some weakening is forecast today as Erika moves over land, followed by little change in strength through Saturday.

Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 150 miles (240 km) to the north and east of the center. A Weatherflow station in Las Mareas, Puerto Rico, recently reported a wind of 52 mph (84 km/h).

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/hurricane/resources/TropicalCyclones11.pdf

I'm going home!

A look at the Secondary Library

As you enter

On the left

24 computers

English fiction

Lounge area and stairs to 2nd floor

Spanish circulation desk

Lots of meetings happen upstairs

English non-fiction is also on the 2nd floor

A peek at Carol Morgan School

Manila palm on my way to school

It must be lost

Art building

PE teacher modelling life-long fitness

Part of my building

I love the gardens

Entrance to the secondary school library

Garden hangout

3-D art room

Zen Garden

Typical hallway

Bamboo garden

Admin building

Entrance way with croton garden

The kindness of strangers

A strange thing is happening to me. Every morning, I wake up before my alarm. Even today, when there was no alarm, I woke up early and kept making myself go back to sleep. When I eventually got out of bed, it was only 8:25. Before breakfast, I went for a good walk in Mirador Sur Park, and missed my dog a lot. 

It wasn't until I was back and showered, that I noticed that there was water on the entire length of the floor of my main room, over two feet wide. Since there was no dampness on the walls or ceiling, I have to assume that rain water blew in through the living room window overnight. (Note to self: Close windows before going to bed. The slightly cooler air is not worth it.)

I had neither the tools nor the strength to deal with it, so I made good on an offer from my upstairs neighbour, Coronel Rodriquez, to ask for help whenever I need it. His maid came down and had the whole place clean and dry in about fifteen minutes. She filled the floor bucket twice, so there were close to five gallons of water on the floor. I took a couple of shots of her broad, capable footprints before they dried. Muchas gracías, Antonia.

Layers and layers of bad idea

So I'm stuck in traffic on my way to a second mall where I will fail to find a shopping trolley - beloved object in Istanbul, so much better for the carless than lugging home groceries, and apparently unknown here. I have a lead, though, and I'm hot on it. Hot is the operative word, of course. 36 degrees and 52% humidity of hot. 

What we have here is a woman jay-walking while not looking where she is going, a man without a helmet carrying a load of God knows what on the back of a motorcycle, while in the background, a man leans a ladder directly against electric lines - please note, the ladder has no other means of support - while he attempts to affect some sort of repair to those same cables.

When I got home, sans grocery trolley, my hydro had been off for 26 minutes. Coincidence? I think not.