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| HURRICANE DEAN AND A LITTLE BIT MORE A Short Story |
Hurricane Dean Update, 21 Aug 2007:
There is little or no damage on the Yucatan Peninsula from the latitude of Tulum and North. Both Cancun and Merida airports are operating
as usual, and there is no road damage in the area around Uxmal. We are operating as usual, as are Merida, Vallodolid, Cancun, Playa and
Tulum areas, all of which are largely unaffected by the passing of Hurricane Dean to the South. Campeche City has some cosmetic damages
but hotels there are operating as usual also.
Hurricane Dean and a Little Bit More - a Short Story
23 August 2007, Santa Elena, Yucatan, Mexico
This actually started out as a note to a recent guest, but kept growing in my mind until it became a short story. Since it also answers questions I
am frequently asked, I thought some of you might enjoy reading it also.
The aircon in Hu'u is fixed Neal. It was indeed a loose screw vibrating around, and nothing to do with the motor at all, just like Santiago thought.
He had it out and back in and operating normally within two hours, so much for the two "experts" who have come out and supposedly fixed it
before. It still isn't the quietest kind in the world, but the new ones will be.
Dean was here, with his lovely family of four ladies, just after the hurricane came through, watching us clean up. We had the worst done by the end
of the second day. Others were not so lucky.
The two days before it hit, we took everyone off the two new rooms we are building, and topped trees, put up plastic and boarded up the main
house windows, for the first time ever. Gas tanks came inside, and every chair, table, pot, planter and art object that could be smashed or fly away
was stored. Furniture and bedding was moved to the most protected corners of the rooms and covered. The trees had to be topped by climbing
up, tarzan style, rope in one hand, machete in the other. Yes, machete. The branches are tied off with rope and someone on the ground pulls
this rope, hopefully strong enough so that the limb will not hit the guy swinging the machete... It's probably more nerve wracking to watch than
seeing the tree fall!
By nightfall of D day, we were all exhausted, but as prepared as we could be, our Danish family guests safely tucked away in Chel House, the main
house feeling like a plastic bubble. Most of the art work was stored away inside, and Santiago and I had moved down from the upstairs room,
seemingly too vulnerable up there, to inhabit the suite for the duration. Hurricane lamps and candles, flashlights were ready, spare gas bought
and stored, food supplies put in. Then all there was to do was wait. You hear it coming long before it really hits, a low roar that just keeps growing
louder. And you wonder what will be left when it is all over, and if your nerves will stand it.
We got lucky this time, and our preparation paid off. We lost only two trees, and the rest just looked like a giant shredder machine had been in
action. We are almost back to normal two days after Dean. The hurricane went south of us by just enough to take us out of the danger zone,
instead of being directly in its path, as was predicted.
In conversation with the guests who arrived just afterward, and those staying with us during the storm, many of the following questions and
subjects came up, and that is where this story comes from.
When I went to college, and not many of my fellow students did, there were really only two acceptable career choices for women, according to my
father and my grandmother: teaching or nursing. Since I couldn't imagine sticking anyone with a needle, much less cutting them open, I opted for
teaching. Although I showed a high aptitude for mechanics in high school, I wasn't allowed to take mechanical drawing, and god forbid we girls
would look under an engine hood. Boys didn't take home ec, and girls didn't do mechanical stuff. They would never cook, and we would never
repair cars, or so it was thought.
But along the line my four sisters and I were given metal erector sets, motors, chain saws (ladies model of course) and taught to drive a stick - no
automatics for us until we could. We were allowed to ride horses into the hills for hours, build forts and amazing towns in the dirt, and encouraged
to do elaborate science projects. We also had a mother who thought up every imaginable art project under the sun, from ceramics to rock
polishing to sewing to making plaster molds from sand castings and shells.
However in college, I was not allowed to study architecture, so I went the teaching route. Somewhere along the line someone noticed that I could
draw, think three dimensionally, and design and build things, and in my third year I was strongly pushed into art. To satisfy my father and my
grandmother (who was paying the bills for my schooling), I graduated with a math/science degree, a teaching certificate, and an art concentration.
I lasted two years in the public schools as a teacher, and dove headfirst into the art world, designing and making jewelry and creating fabric pieces
on the side. I pursued this for 22 years before deciding to move to the Yucatan. By then I knew rudimentary welding, had torn apart and
remodelled three houses, helped design and build furniture, and knew how to operate any number of tools. (But I didn't know any Spanish. That
came later). What you need to survive and be happy down here is the ability and the willingness to do something of everything, and to "punt", as a
friend puts it.
I didn't plan on getting remarried, but I found a great person who is very like me: Santiago. He has learned plumbing, electrical wiring and repair,
welding, and now, how to fix air conditioners! (It is he who got our lights and fans back on hours before anyone else on the street had power, after
the hurricane. I didn't ask how, I just said Thanks!)
It seems that anything I can draw, Santiago can construct out of wrought iron, and his cousin Julio can build out of concrete, and like this we have
built everything here from the house and rooms to the furniture, windows, mirrors and beds. And every small business owner I know down here
has done almost everything themselves also. You have to. So all of us who have been affected by this hurricane, or storms in the past, and will
be in the future, will pick up sticks and stones, and start putting them back together again. And go on. We are much like the Mayan people in that
respect. We get busy and work together and go on with life.
And we thank everyone of you who come to stay with all of us and who appreciate our efforts, creating new places for you to stay and enjoy, out
off the beaten path.
Kristine,
Flycatcher Inn, Santa Elena,
15 minutes southeast of Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico
There is little or no damage on the Yucatan Peninsula from the latitude of Tulum and North. Both Cancun and Merida airports are operating
as usual, and there is no road damage in the area around Uxmal. We are operating as usual, as are Merida, Vallodolid, Cancun, Playa and
Tulum areas, all of which are largely unaffected by the passing of Hurricane Dean to the South. Campeche City has some cosmetic damages
but hotels there are operating as usual also.
Hurricane Dean and a Little Bit More - a Short Story
23 August 2007, Santa Elena, Yucatan, Mexico
This actually started out as a note to a recent guest, but kept growing in my mind until it became a short story. Since it also answers questions I
am frequently asked, I thought some of you might enjoy reading it also.
The aircon in Hu'u is fixed Neal. It was indeed a loose screw vibrating around, and nothing to do with the motor at all, just like Santiago thought.
He had it out and back in and operating normally within two hours, so much for the two "experts" who have come out and supposedly fixed it
before. It still isn't the quietest kind in the world, but the new ones will be.
Dean was here, with his lovely family of four ladies, just after the hurricane came through, watching us clean up. We had the worst done by the end
of the second day. Others were not so lucky.
The two days before it hit, we took everyone off the two new rooms we are building, and topped trees, put up plastic and boarded up the main
house windows, for the first time ever. Gas tanks came inside, and every chair, table, pot, planter and art object that could be smashed or fly away
was stored. Furniture and bedding was moved to the most protected corners of the rooms and covered. The trees had to be topped by climbing
up, tarzan style, rope in one hand, machete in the other. Yes, machete. The branches are tied off with rope and someone on the ground pulls
this rope, hopefully strong enough so that the limb will not hit the guy swinging the machete... It's probably more nerve wracking to watch than
seeing the tree fall!
By nightfall of D day, we were all exhausted, but as prepared as we could be, our Danish family guests safely tucked away in Chel House, the main
house feeling like a plastic bubble. Most of the art work was stored away inside, and Santiago and I had moved down from the upstairs room,
seemingly too vulnerable up there, to inhabit the suite for the duration. Hurricane lamps and candles, flashlights were ready, spare gas bought
and stored, food supplies put in. Then all there was to do was wait. You hear it coming long before it really hits, a low roar that just keeps growing
louder. And you wonder what will be left when it is all over, and if your nerves will stand it.
We got lucky this time, and our preparation paid off. We lost only two trees, and the rest just looked like a giant shredder machine had been in
action. We are almost back to normal two days after Dean. The hurricane went south of us by just enough to take us out of the danger zone,
instead of being directly in its path, as was predicted.
In conversation with the guests who arrived just afterward, and those staying with us during the storm, many of the following questions and
subjects came up, and that is where this story comes from.
When I went to college, and not many of my fellow students did, there were really only two acceptable career choices for women, according to my
father and my grandmother: teaching or nursing. Since I couldn't imagine sticking anyone with a needle, much less cutting them open, I opted for
teaching. Although I showed a high aptitude for mechanics in high school, I wasn't allowed to take mechanical drawing, and god forbid we girls
would look under an engine hood. Boys didn't take home ec, and girls didn't do mechanical stuff. They would never cook, and we would never
repair cars, or so it was thought.
But along the line my four sisters and I were given metal erector sets, motors, chain saws (ladies model of course) and taught to drive a stick - no
automatics for us until we could. We were allowed to ride horses into the hills for hours, build forts and amazing towns in the dirt, and encouraged
to do elaborate science projects. We also had a mother who thought up every imaginable art project under the sun, from ceramics to rock
polishing to sewing to making plaster molds from sand castings and shells.
However in college, I was not allowed to study architecture, so I went the teaching route. Somewhere along the line someone noticed that I could
draw, think three dimensionally, and design and build things, and in my third year I was strongly pushed into art. To satisfy my father and my
grandmother (who was paying the bills for my schooling), I graduated with a math/science degree, a teaching certificate, and an art concentration.
I lasted two years in the public schools as a teacher, and dove headfirst into the art world, designing and making jewelry and creating fabric pieces
on the side. I pursued this for 22 years before deciding to move to the Yucatan. By then I knew rudimentary welding, had torn apart and
remodelled three houses, helped design and build furniture, and knew how to operate any number of tools. (But I didn't know any Spanish. That
came later). What you need to survive and be happy down here is the ability and the willingness to do something of everything, and to "punt", as a
friend puts it.
I didn't plan on getting remarried, but I found a great person who is very like me: Santiago. He has learned plumbing, electrical wiring and repair,
welding, and now, how to fix air conditioners! (It is he who got our lights and fans back on hours before anyone else on the street had power, after
the hurricane. I didn't ask how, I just said Thanks!)
It seems that anything I can draw, Santiago can construct out of wrought iron, and his cousin Julio can build out of concrete, and like this we have
built everything here from the house and rooms to the furniture, windows, mirrors and beds. And every small business owner I know down here
has done almost everything themselves also. You have to. So all of us who have been affected by this hurricane, or storms in the past, and will
be in the future, will pick up sticks and stones, and start putting them back together again. And go on. We are much like the Mayan people in that
respect. We get busy and work together and go on with life.
And we thank everyone of you who come to stay with all of us and who appreciate our efforts, creating new places for you to stay and enjoy, out
off the beaten path.
Kristine,
Flycatcher Inn, Santa Elena,
15 minutes southeast of Uxmal in Yucatan, Mexico
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