In Construction

Every house here seems to be in construction. And its not because of a real estate bubble! But, everywhere you walk you see the iron rods sticking up through the concrete another story over which the building actually exists.

It turns out that the families stay in these homes for generations. So, when you take over the home, or you have a child, or just when you can afford to do so, you add onto the house...which almost always means building up. The lots all share boundries. So you share the walls on each side of you with the neighbors, and the wall in the back to the people on the next street. There are no alleys....but without many cars, this isn´t a problem. The one problem it does create is what I like to call the New York City syndrom...trash goes out on the streets. But it doesn´t sit and wait here like it does in NY, because of the dogs. Ohhh the dogs. There are a ton of them, they rule the streets in packs, every block has its own- kind of scary. So, if you leave your trash out the dogs rip it to pieces...now you have a nice mess. So, the trash man comes 2-3 times a week, and rings a bell and shouts to bring out your trash...which everyone does.

There are several of these men who come through the streets selling or collecting things alarming residents with bells, whistles, or ...my persoanl favorite...the loudspeaker. They kind of remind me of the charactor in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who admists the black plauge, pushes a wheelbarrel through town ringing a bell to ´bring out your dead´.

Anyway, its funny because people always have bricks stacked up on top of there houses complete with sand and contrete mix. People go to the store a buy more bricks. 10-20-50 bricks at a time! Then they just sit up there! I just want to finish them all!