Here in the DR of course the weather does not change too much, however Easter is a large holiday that starts the Wednesday before Good Friday and Easter. It is a time the country shuts down. The cities are very quiet as everyone either: 1- Heads to a Beach 2- Heads to a River 3- stays home and often sets up an inflatable swimming pool or enjoys one at someone else's home. Apparently swimming is a part of the celebration. But no doubt it is very quiet in town. Traditionally the time was treated very reverently with some almost walking softly on Good Friday and music required to be very low and not bother others. Things aren't quite like that now, the music plays louder, but at many places that typically blast (and I mean BLAST) the music policemen are stationed to ensure that things stay a little quieter than normal.
So there is a nice break here in the DR this time of the year away from typical routines, reflecting on Easter or enjoying a break.
Trucks are not allowed on the roads starting the Thursday morning before Easter, so commercial traffic comes to a halt. At the jobsite we also slowed down and little work happened the days leading to Easter. We did however get the trucking done during the time allowed so we completed another set of lifts and now have 31cm to go. We are catching the parking area up with the clinic footprint so that we will have the fill material under the drives and parking areas in fron and beside the clinic.
Last week we had a string of bad luck with equipment - bolts missing from the dozer, the vibrating compactor not vibrating, and the grader having issues. These caused some delays of course, but everything is back in order as of today, so truck are again bringing fill to the site.
To date we've had over 1,500 truckloads come from the mine. By the end of the week we should be down to needing 31cm of fill over the entire area, this should take about 3 to 4 weeks. We keep stringing this completion date out but we are getting more done because we have the equipment on-hand so hopefully we won't need this equipment in the future to finish these other areas. The CAT dealer here has just been amazing with their support - I've said it before and I'll say it again - they are just super supportive. I actually received an email just the other day that included a comment about their continued support and how happy they are to help us. Very generous.
I also must tell you I had the most super fun special week with Stacy in the big Miami - back to my home town. It was really fun and a very nice break. I've never sat on a beach doing nothing for so long - and enjoyed it so much! So coming back was good and bad, hard to say goodbye again to my best friend.
Thats all for now.
Thanks for your support!!
Some random pictures from times here ....
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| The Reservoir is quite low, but we are at the end of the dry season. |
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| A friend looking for worms when I was digging out the Septic. |
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| Turns out Eduard our Engineer is also a pretty good Duck-Stew chef! |
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| Compacting the bottom of the Septic Tank hole. |
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| Look closely - two critters taking a ride ... not sure the destination will turn out real good for them. |
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| My heros at IMCA the CAT dealer. Here they are in Santo Domingo taking a part off of a rental so I could take the part back to San Juan. Serving Others - defined. |
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