Tamera's Take: Household Hints - Arroz to Zapatas, Cats and You Thought You Had Problems

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Tamera's Take is about being here.
Are you ready?  I am.

Wood table made by a local carpenter

My name is Tamera.

I am a list-aholic (aka copious note taker).  "Hi Tamera."

I have been keeping a boring-as-dirt list of household type items to talk about in one of my future blogs.  The list is finally so long that it is time.  Otherwise it is never going to go away, and I have too many other fun things to talk about.  I feel like that kid who cannot go outside until the chores are done.

I will do my best to make this as fun AND informational as I can.

Wish me luck.

If you have the kind of disposable income that allows you to hire a housekeeper, then I am happy for you.  That was our intention during the planning stages of our move to Ecuador.  It is an affordable luxury.  But we do not have that much "disposable" income.

Like building a house, plan for at least 10% to 20% in cost overages.  Our overages came in the form of government and attorney fees to extend our tourist visa (from a T-3 to a 12-IX) and application for resident visas. Not to mention that those Ecuadorian Government fees for Immigrant and Non-Immigrant Visas unexpectedly increased in 2016.

Air-tight plastic containers. No ants in these babies!

We are finally starting to recover from those overages.  Just in time for planned visits from friends and family. Maybe next year we can hire some help.  Until then, it is all on us baby!

This has not necessarily been a bad thing.  We have learned a lot about beach living.  I am not talking about the good stuff like going swimming, fishing, laying in the sun, beach-combing, getting tanned, having cocktails and watching sunsets. Yes, we do those things.  I am talking about the aftermath of all that fun; and some normal housekeeping things that you will not read on many blogs or websites about coming to Ecuador.

Backyard. Outdoor shower, sink, laundry room.....

Dirt.

Where the heck is all that dirt coming from?  Let me just tell you now that if you have a house or condo near the beach, be prepared to sweep every day.  Thankfully, carpet is rare around these parts. Floors are either concrete, tile, wood, or a combination of those materials. Our house is completely tiled with the exception of the concrete roof top terrace.

Oh, and one other exception.

More concrete. Part of the courtyard.

We have a large courtyard in the front of the house - made entirely of concrete. There is a reason for that.  The cistern is under the concrete.  The breezeway on the side of the house is concrete.  I suppose that makes sense too because the breezeway is covered.  Nothing would grow there anyway.

The area behind the house is concrete. This also makes sense because the garaje (garage), outdoor after-beach shower, tiled counter with sink, laundry room and the water pump are all located behind the house.

Concrete is your friend.  Until it is not.  Make sense or not, concrete is my enemy right now.  Yes it is easy to sweep.  But concrete dust is constant. Concrete is not the only the little dirt maker around here.

Let me break it down for you like a fraction.

Take off your shoes. Wipe your feet.

You go to the beach.  What is on the beach?   Sand.  What comes back with you from the beach? Sand.

It gets better.  Very few roads are paved in Crucita or any other beach village.  The short walk from our house to the beach is on a dirt alley.

So far we have concrete dust, beach sand and alley dirt.

Wait for it.  There is more.

The mountains all around us get a bit dusty.  The ocean winds carry that dust here and there.  Here and there all over the house.  Remember that the houses here are pretty open.  Not all windows have screens.  Not all windows have glass.  I have not seen a screen door yet.


But hey.  It is beach life. The houses are open to take advantage of the ocean breeze, because most people do not have air conditioners.  Ceiling fans seem to be an "American" thing. More and more houses have them now.  But basically, floor fans are king.

Cinderella and her brooms.

My advice.  Invest in a few brooms, dust pans with tall handles, and a lot of doormats.  Take your shoes off before you come in the house.

Salt and Rice (sal y arroz)

Every Floridian knows that you put grains of rice in your salt shaker to keep the salt from clumping. You can scratch that right off your list of helpful hints.  We have awesome sea salt made right here in Crucita.

You should store it in an airtight plastic container. Do not bother with salt and pepper shakers.  If you decide to get them, make sure they are NOT made of any type of metal; and make sure they have air tight lids.

"Would you like paper or plastic?"

We are all familiar with that phrase from the grocery store.  Take it a step further.  Paper, plastic, wood or metal.

Bamboo floor lamp. Cool wood chair.

Let's talk about metal.

The answer is simple.  No.  Never.  Nunca!  Why?  Corrosion.  Salt air corrosion.  Obviously there has to be some metal in a house.  All that concrete needs rebar.  Wood doors and windows have to be nailed or screwed into place.  Door handles, locks and hinges are metal. All that metal is painted or sealed. And still, in time, some of it rusts away.

Pots and pans are metal.  Try to use enamel coated ones. When you wash dishes, wipe off anything metal.  Do not air dry them.

Let's talk about wood.

If you are going to get outdoor patio furniture, save yourself some aggravation and buy plastic, rattan/wicker or wood.

Artisan in Montecristi making furniture.

Wicker and Rattan furniture are very popular here.  The very best place to buy this furniture is in the town of Montecristi, Ecuador.

The artisans custom make every piece of furniture.

You can show them a picture of what you want and they will make it. If you are not sure, most of them have catalogs of the work they have completed for other customers.

You can browse them and choose something that will work for you.  In a few weeks you will have your own custom furniture.

If you need cushions, there are upholsterers in Montecristi who will make them to fit your new furniture.

I found this huge oyster shell. It is my soap dish.

Trivia Time!!   Panama Hats are not from Panama.  Panama Hats originated in Montecristi.  They are still made in Montecristi.  The price depends on the weave and craftsmanship of the hat.  They are called Panama Hats because they were sent to Panama for the workers building the Panama Canal. The weave of a good Panama Hat is so tight that it will keep your head and face from being sunburned. Yet the material is so light that it breathes.


Back to wood.

If wood is more your style, you are in luck.  There are carpenters in every town.  Much like the furniture makers in Montecristi, you can meet with a carpenter, discuss what you are looking for and they will make it.  Tables, chairs, sofas, shelves, windows, doors....anything made of wood.

A word of warning about outdoor furniture.  As I have said before, the sun is very intense here. Outdoor furniture should be kept under some type of covered area or brought inside when not in use.

No caption required

Let's talk about plastic and paper.

If you do not have a covered patio area, I would suggest buying inexpensive plastic outdoor furniture. If you do not use it often, then bring it in out of the weather.  Just common sense.

I know they are not attractive, but plastic canister sets with tight, screw on plastic lids are the best. You will need a lot of them. Why?  Ants.  Not big fire ants, or medium stingy ants, or little get into everything ants.  I am talking about ants so small that you can barely see them.  So small that if one crawls on you, you cannot feel it.  So fast that if you drop one grain of sugar on your counter, you will have a colony of them on that grain of sugar in one minute.  There are two choices for food storage.  Refrigerator or plastic airtight containers.

The other necessary plastic is trash bags.  I know it is not the most ecological item, but manufacturers are getting better at making them bio-degradable.  So this brings me to the bathroom section of my blog.  When you get trash cans for your bathroom, make sure you get the ones with lids.  The little swinging lids work best.  Use your grocery bags in the bathroom trash cans.  The trash can in your kitchen should have a lid too.

Why lids on the bathroom trash can?  Two reasons - to reduce odor and insects.

Shells, an old mayo jar and wire. Decoration for my driftwood table.

 The septic systems in Ecuador cannot handle paper of ANY kind.  It does not matter how modern your house is, or how nice your condo is.  NO PAPER IN THE TOILETS!  You will find this is the same rule if you go to a mall, hotel, restaurant, etc.  In many public restrooms, you get your allotment of toilet paper before you go into the stall.  There are no rolls of toilet paper in the stalls.  There are plastic trash cans.  Now you know why.

Mess on the Malecon

I know this is a little off topic, but living here has taught me to have a little more respect for the environment.  Some things I have learned...

Conserve water use.  Reduce trash when possible.  Find new uses for things that are normally thrown away without another thought. I think they call that re-purposing.  If you can do it with pallets, you can do it with glass jars, plastic containers, wire, bags - well you get the idea.

The trash has to go somewhere.  And it is going somewhere.

It is going into your oceans, lakes, rivers, and seeping into the aquifer.

That was never more evident than what I saw on the Malecon a few days ago.

Yesterday's driftwood. Today's scratch post.

The tides right now are unusually high.  So high that they wash right over the Malecon (beach road) twice a day.

At first glance, you might just think, wow look at all that stuff washed up on the road from the super high tide.

Then you get a closer look at what it is. Mixed in with the beach sand, driftwood, rocks, shells, fish, buoys and nets, is trash.

Not trash left by people enjoying the beach.

Trash that was probably dumped out to sea from some gigantic barge from who knows where. Trash that flowed down the Portoviejo River because no one is quite sure how to handle it. Or because people think it is someone else's problem.


They are right.  It is someone else's problem.

It is my problem, your problem, his problem, her problem, their problem.  Our problem.

It is happening everywhere.  Fix it or lose it.

Peace.

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Tamera's Take: Cast Away, Cats and Blue Bottle Diablos

I would first like to say !Bienvenidos! (welcome) to our new readers in Ecuador, Ukraine, Germany, Romania and the United Kingdom.

Tamera's Take is about being here.
Are you ready?  I am.

In the beginning, we considered going the shipping container route to bring most of our belongings.  Then we considered airline cargo (basically a lot of checked luggage) to bring some of our belongings.  In the end there were just too many complications with trying to bring all that stuff.

Some things we gave away to family

If you read my husband Jason's most recent post, Familia y Los Amigos - They Love You.  Always and Forever, then you know that we sold or gave away almost everything we owned in order to move to Ecuador.

We arrived in Ecuador with four checked bags weighing a total of 200 pounds, and four carry-on bags consisting of a laptop bag, a small suitcase on wheels, and two carry on pet carriers containing two cats each.

Yes we traveled with pets.  Four pets to be exact - in case you did not do the math.

We rented a fully furnished house about 75 yards (68 metres) from the beach.   Except for a toaster and a frying pan, the house has everything needed.



I think you get the picture.  No.  Not that picture.  The other one.

Yes we brought our CATS!!

There will be a future post on container shipping, air cargo, what we brought and what we wish we had brought.

I will mention one item I wish we had brought. Benedryl.

Sea Glass

Something I notice, now that I live so close to the beach (playa), is the array of things that I find on the shore.

Some things discarded by the many fisherman as they sort out their catch, some things that come directly from the ocean, and some things that wash up with the tides from another place.


My home state of Florida has nearly 1200 miles of coastline, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Florida Straits.

Drift wood? Drift tree!

This is not a geography lesson.

Treasure hunters with their metal detectors, beach combers picking up shells, sea glass, drift wood, conservationist protecting sea turtle nests and native plants of the dunes; these sights are second nature to me.  Just like spending summers at my grandmother's beach cottage in St. Augustine, going to Anastasia Park with friends as a teenager and as an adult taking my own daughter to the these beaches.

But I never lived at the beach.  Never lived anywhere with the shore and the ocean just steps away from my front door.


A lot of things get discarded in a natural process or otherwise.

Fishermen discard some things

Some things make that transition from shore to ocean and back to the shore again.  Maybe not the same shore, but a shore.  Somewhere.

I learned from an early age to keep an eye out for one of those things that wash up on shore in the natural process - jellyfish.  Why?  Because if jellyfish are on the shore, you can bet they are in the water close to the shore.

If you have never experienced a jellyfish sting, I am glad.



I was not so lucky.  It is inevitable when you spend so much time at the beach.  No matter how well you checked out the shore before you got into the water.  As a kid though, you are sometimes willing to take that risk.

Little Sting Ray

I have not been stung by a jellyfish since I was a child.  I suppose I learned my lesson.  I still scan the shore before I jump into the ocean.

That did not matter two days ago.  Jason and I went down to the beach for the specific purpose of swimming in the ocean.
I bugged him about it all day.  I really wanted to go swimming.  Even though Jason was a bit tired - we had both been up since 5:00 am and he had been very busy all day - he recognized that pouting face of mine and with a smile, took me down to the beach to go swimming.

That is what you do for the person you love.  At least that is the kind of thing my husband does for me.  All the time.  He do what he do.



I think I had been in the surf for about one minute when it happened.  Really.  One minute.

Photo by Vlad Minin                              Courtesy of National Geographic

As I swung my left arm behind me to get past the next wave swell coming up, I feel something brush up against me.  My upper left arm.  I stop swimming immediately and float, trying to figure out if a fish or sting ray had nudged me.  Right at that moment, there was pain.  "No a shark."  I say to myself.  Again pain.  This time on my right arm, although, I look to my left because the pain has not stopped there.  I just know what I am going to see.  Instead, I see something else.  It is blue and very small.  Floating just below the surface of the water.  Maybe three inches below the water.  It was about 1 inch in size.  It.

Now the pain has completely surrounded my upper body and my mind goes back to the shark idea.  Completely confused and suddenly frozen, I say to Jason, "something just bit me".  He says to me, "get out of the water".  Not panicked but concerned.  I can see it in his face.

I cannot move.  Not out of fear.  I am just unable to move.  I realize that there is something wrapped completely around me.  Fishing line?  Uh no.  Not fishing line.  Clear and stringy though.

This hurt. A lot.

Excruciating pain.  Jason realizes that I cannot move.  I am not even sure if he is saying anything to me now.  I sort of get mad.  Not at Jason.  But at whatever just bit me and is still trying to bite me.

Meanwhile in the back of my mind, "It was a jellyfish.  But, it was blue.  Jellyfish are not blue.  At least not the ones I know of.  I scanned the shore.  I know I did."


I realize I am being dragged back to shore by Jason.  Then I am being washed up on the shore by a wave. I am in the sand.  Grateful for the rough sand.

"What was it?"  Jason says.

"It was BLUE!"  I say.  Barely able to speak and still grateful for the rough sand.  A blue devil is what I think to myself.  Lucky for me, we are only steps from our front door.  It felt like a mile.  As soon as we get home, Jason starts to apply a series of remedies that most everyone who grows up near the ocean knows.
1. Remove stingers (tentacles).
2. Rinse the affected area with vinegar.

The stingers were pretty much already gone.  Probably into my skin.  So we moved to step two.  Vinegar.  That does nothing to help.  Jason gets on the internet to look up remedies.  We are in Ecuador, not Florida.  Maybe there is something else that we should be doing.  As I am heading upstairs to start step three of the remedies;
3. Shower in hot water.

Jason asks me what they (IT) looked like.  I say, "It was BLUE and very small".  (Except for that long stringy thing that wrapped around me about one hundred times.  Okay.  It was just once but it felt like one hundred.

Step number three helps a little.  I come back downstairs and Jason is looking up "blue jellyfish in Ecuador".  Meanwhile I move to the last step of remedies that we know.
4. Take an over the counter pain reliever.
 

A little better on day two

I swear the pain is actually getting worse. Jason finds a number of pictures and websites (a lot of blogs) that show or discuss this horrible blue jelly creature.  National Geographic website had the most in depth information.

Not a jellyfish.  A Portuguese Man o' War.

Affectionately known in South America (and Australia) as a, "Bluebottle". That is what it was.

A Bluebottle.

BlueBottle Diablo is a better description.

Remember that Benedryl I mentioned earlier?  Apparently vinegar does nothing but make the stinger release more venom.  Anti-allergy medication is what I needed.

You can get Benedryl in Ecuador.

You just can not get it at that moment.  The moment you need it the most.  The moment when you think you have never felt this much pain in all your life.  Of course this is not true.  It just feels that way at the time.

So now we have the remedy checklist.
1. Remove stingers (tentacles)  Check!
2. Hot shower  Check!
3. Anti-allergy medication - like Benedryl  Check!

If I ever get stung again, I am ready.

Ready or not, I hope I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, get ATTACKED by one of those Blue Bottle (diablos) again.

Never.

Wilson!!!

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