Settling in Costa Rica Accomplishments

Our new home is pretty much finished. Saturday the electrician and his adorable son completed the electrical installations. Luckily, John borrowed an electric circuit tester and found one of the outlets was incorrectly wired. We told the electrician to use the plastic connectors on the wires instead of the more commonly used electrical tape. His interpretation of that was to use the plastic connectors on the fixture wires that connect directly to the junction boxes. All other wires inside the boxes were wrapped with several layers of tape. We heard a story of someone building a house that bought the plastic connectors for the electrician and asked that they be used instead of tape. After the house was complete the home owner found the unopened box of plastic connectors thrown in to the tall weeds on the other side of the fence. I'm glad we chose to get the cabina in shape to live in first so we will be aware of what to really watch for when construction begins on the big house.

The architect and a structural engineer came to the property to assess the big house. They agreed with the obvious, the house has a few problems. We look forward to receiving their recommendations in the near future. I kept busy at the property this week by varnishing the new front door and making curtains for the window. I am looking forward to moving into the cabina in about five weeks.

We have been to the property just about every day. I have seen a few birds there that I don't see in Ciudad Colon. The lizards are plentiful and much larger. Huge flocks of vultures circle above our land. I also saw a couple of different types of hawks. We hired someone to do the initial cutting of the overgrown grass around the house. I spent a few hours raking it up into huge heaps for the beginning of compost piles. We met our Tico neighbor from across the river. He is a taxi driver, has cows on his property, grows sugar cane and has a trapiche which is used to make sugar from the cane.

John received good news this week that his residency has been approved. We were told spouses are typically approved a few months later. Why? Who knows. I have stopped trying to figure out the way some things work here.