Author Archives: Jeffrey A. Carver

Settling In—Without Running Water. 

The harshest immediate reality is that there’s no city water to the house. It was turned off after “Veronica” left, and the bureaucratic obstacles to getting it turned back on are formidable. We’ve arrived on a weekend, and Monday is (we learn to our unhappy surprise) a government holiday—something to do with the eighteenth day of Christmas, I think. And so on Tuesday at 7 a.m., we drive downtown and queue up outside the water department building to be 20^th or so in line for service. The paperwork requires a letter of authorization from Allysen’s mom back in Massachusetts, passports and IDs for both Allysen and her mom, a death certificate for her father, her father’s will, and a hasty phone call to get her mom’s Social Security number. I’m not making this up, and I’m probably forgetting a few items. Presto, done!

The following day, some men arrive to turn the water back on at the meter pictured above—but don’t, because of a missing rubber gasket. They don’t say that, of course. They say that water is off for the entire hill. Freddie, bless him, calls someone he knows in the agua (water) department, who comes to our rescue.  Finally, we have water. We don’t necessarily have a clear sewer line, but that we won’t discover for another day or so. Here’s one tiny section of the serpentine maze of water pipes that Freddie, fortunately, understands.

During all of this, we are utterly reliant on the amazing graces of our next-door neighbors Frances and Che, who take care of us like family. They feed us, give us the use of their showers, and line up carpenters, brick-repairers, electricians, fence-builders, and tree removal specialists for us. They are astounding neighbors, and blessed with an exceptional ability to make things happen in a culture where much depends on whom you know. Frances, as I think about it, could have stepped right out of the pages of Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan novels. Perhaps a blend of Miles’s mother Cordelia and his Aunt Alys (Ivan’s mother). Just add a Latin flair, and you have Frances.

Internet—T-Mobile to the rescue

Folks like us can hardly be expected to survive two weeks without internet and email, can we? Actually, that’s not just pampered person’s luxury; much of the research we need to do here, as well as maintaining some semblance of connection to the world back home, requires getting online. Trouble is, getting two weeks’ worth of internet to the house will cost about $200. Excessive.

The answer comes at the mall, where I stop into a T-Mobile store to ask about getting a replacement for Jayce’s failing phone. There I learn that there’s an app on all of our phones that allows us to use the data connection on the phone to essentially turn our phones into home routers (wifi hotspots). To my surprise, it not only works, but works pretty well. Sucks a lot of power, as does the GPS when we’re driving, but that’s what chargers are for. We’re connected!

(Coming in Part 3, time starts to blur.)

[To read The Ponce Chronicles in order, start here.]

 

January 9-26, 2016.

I have just returned from another dimension. That’s the way it feels, returning to Boston.

I have been in Puerto Rico for the last two and a half weeks with one wife and one daughter, frolicking in the sun and surf. Oops—no, sorry!—that’s what normal people do when they “vacation” in Puerto Rico. We have been engaged in something rather different. We have been “camping” in the beautiful house that Allysen’s parents built decades ago, when her dad was brought here by General Electric to help set up some industrial plants. The house remains Fay’s (Allysen’s mom), though she moved up to be closer to us a couple of years after Allysen’s dad died. The house has been largely empty for a few years, except for some dedicated caretakers and neighbors—and one rather, er, exceptional tenant. The elements have not been kind to the house, and the tenant has left a swath of deconstruction.

We have come to pick up the pieces. What follows is a chronicle of that mission. All characterizations of the tenant, and of the house, are mine and do not necessarily represent the views of the owner (my mother-in-law).

Arrival

We fly to Ponce, Puerto Rico, courtesy of JetBlue. This means we arrive at 4-something in the morning. (All flights between Ponce and Boston are red-eyes, via New York or Orlando. This is one of the charms of traveling to Puerto Rico. Another, an actual charm, is the applause that invariably erupts from the passengers upon safe touchdown. Whether it’s applause for arrival back on the homeland, or for the pilot for getting us down in one piece, I do not know.)

Our plan is to rescue and restore the beautiful Palmer homestead on a hillside above the city, both from the depredations of the tenant and from years of the elements, insufficient maintenance, and some squirrelly electrical work (none of it unsafe!) from Allysen’s dad’s later years, when his once-exacting standards were somewhat in decline.

Members of the mission team: Allysen, Jayce (the-daughter-formerly-known-as-Julia), and Jeff. Mission site: an empty house, devoid of all furnishings except a huge stack that the tenant left behind, and a few essentials provided by kindly friends. Goal: to repair and restore, and make suitable for short-term rental or sale.

As always, we are picked up at Ponce Airport and brought to the house by Freddie, the tireless, fearless, loyal, and there-when-you-need-him moonlighting policeman. We notice at once the broken steps, the defunct lighting, the lack of running water (except precious gallons from the gravity-fed cistern), and the condition of the once-gorgeous pool (now slime green). The place actually looks better than we expected, thanks to Freddie’s hours of work in cleaning and carrying out eight 30-gallon trash-bags full of junk left by the tenant, whom we will call, um… Veronica. It was Veronica who failed to maintain the pool, didn’t report broken steps and decking, and who removed light fixtures from the walls with abandon—oh, and installed an obscenely ugly faux fireplace in the living room where once there had been lovely cabinet doors. When we last saw the house, about three years ago, it needed some work, but nothing like this. It‘s all quite a shock.

The pool as we last saw it, in 2013…

The pool that greets us now…

Another little jolt is the tarantula I spot on the side of the pool, right above the carpet of algae. We discuss what to name it. Edith? Ethel? We settle on Ethel. The next day Ethel is gone, and we don’t see it again.

(Coming up in Part 2, settling in with no running water.)

[To read all of The Ponce Chronicles in order, start here.]