answered prayers*

Yesterday afternoon I was jolted awake from my siesta by the disco cranking up to test its speakers. It went on for about an hour, then quit for awhile, then started up again, then quit. During this last silence we hurried down for dinner at Puesto El Barcel, basically "Snack Shop", Fernando's enterprise. It was a beautiful, mild evening, quiet and calm. The puesto is almost in front of the disco but we lucked out. Dinner was delicious; Chuy was cooking so what did we expect?

We stayed until sunset, then headed home, still without any sound from the disco.

Around 8:30 the music cranked up and blasted away for 45 minutes. Then all the power went out. Blessed silence but pitch black. I had been reading in the living room. I turned off what lights I thought had been on and went to bed. At 10 PM the music suddenly blasted on again; I could feel the vibrations in bed! 60 seconds later it went off. An hour later it came on again for 30 seconds and went off. This kept going two or three more times; 1:45 AM was the last time. It was down for the count. Every year I pray for either torrential rain or a gigantic electrical outage. See, prayer works.

This morning there were three MexElectric trucks around the electric pole across the street. Unfortunately they seemed to have fixed what was wrong because now, at 1:30 in the afternoon the disco is blaring at full throttle and polluting the lovely day. After tonight I will go down and sleep at friends' house for the next three or four nights.

Today was the Big Pour at the casa. This truck pulled up at 8:30 followed close on by a cement truck.

They raised the hose up toward the roof.

Meanwhile, the cement truck was pouring its contents into the trough in the the back of the hose truck.

Then the fun started when the hose truck driver flipped the switch and the cement shot up through the hose and onto the roof. They started at the southeast end and worked their way backwards to join up with the new roof.

And here's where my camera battery died. But here's what happened. Within 45 minutes three cement trucks had been emptied and a dozen guys had shoveled and troweled the cement into a smooth, even surface. Beautiful to watch. The hose truck folded its arm down, shoved into gear and drove away. Now the surface has to set for 6 or 7 days, undisturbed. Work on the insides of the apartments will start tomorrow. Then the third piece of roof, that part over Jack's apartment, will be demolished beginning on Monday. In another week or so there will be another small pour so I'll be sure to have the battery charged for that.


*With thanks to to Truman Capote