Water water everywhere......so why is my electric bill so much?

El Salvador has two very distinct seasons.....the dry season that lasts from about November until April and the wet season that drags on from May until October.

At the moment we are at the beginning of the wet season, and although the days are generally cooler they are also greyer, and there are more mosquitoes about.

The rainy season brings two main problems for me - Chiquitito is not able to have unlimited access to the garden (although we are looking forward to lots of puddle splashing in his wellington boots) and getting the washing dry can become difficult.

As the rainy season progresses the air seems to become damper and drying washing can be problematic - unless you get a good few hours of sun or you are lucky enough to have a tumble drier.

We brought a tumble drier a couple of years ago, but it rarely gets used, mainly because electricity here is very expensive.

In our last house our electric bill was $50-$60 per month. Here it was $120 when we moved in. We had our water pump fixed and the bill dropped to about $80 a month, then since Junior arrived it has been almost constantly $100.

So why is the bill so high?

We have two tv's, a laptop that is often in use and all the other usual appliances, like washing machine, tumble drier (seldom used), fridge freezer, microwave etc. We do not have air conditioning (happy memories of the days we did) but we do have a ceiling fan in the lounge and a couple of free standing bedroom fans.

Another problem is that our electric meter is apparently faulty. But despite our landlord calling in an electrician and submitting a request to the electric company - almost 2 months ago - we are still waiting for a replacement. That too will be another story to tell you!

I think the biggest sole consumer of our electricity is the electric water pump, also known as the bomba.

Why do we need a water pump?

We are lucky that we have a water tank (cisterna) underneath our garage. I'm not talking about a small water tank.....but one that is large enough to hold enough water for a month's use. How do I know this - well, that's another story!! This tank is what gives us the luxury of running water if the mains water is not working. We are lucky, I know of people whose water supply is only connected for a couple of hours every other day. They have to fill all available containers and the large sink (pilla) in the utility room to survive.

The mains water supply fills our tank and then the bomba pumps the water from the tank to the house. Not constantly - the tank has a header tank and a pressure gauge that is set to 40 psi, and once the pressure drops to 20 psi the pump kicks in to refill the header tank.

When we are showering, using the washing machine or watering the garden the pump uses a lot of electricity. Our monthly water bill is usually around the $3 mark (plus we spend around $7 per week on bottled drinking water), so it is the cost of the electric that makes using the water expensive.

A chance conversation with a friend this week led me to an amazing discovery that no-one has ever told me before.

She told me that her pump had broken and she was unwilling to spend the money that it would cost for a replacement.

However, she assured me that the water pressure was perfectly acceptable in the morning (when you most need showers and clothes washing) and was adequate in the afternoon.

So, today I unplugged my bomba and decided to see if this is really true.

Will the water still flow?

Nervously I started the washing machine and stood guard in case of a water shortage.

The pressure on the tank dropped slightly, but much slower than when the pump is plugged in.

At around 32psi, when the washer was almost full, I decided I did not need to keep watch.

On returning a while later I was surprised to see that the psi had risen to 36 psi and everything seemed to be working fine.

My first non-pumped washing cycle is almost complete and I am now keen to continue this experiment to see if I can make a saving on my electric bill.

Come back next month to see if this has made a difference, and if so - how big a difference!

"Ay orrrrrrr mi chiquititos"

This week I caught myself calling Chiquitito "pet", a north-east English expression that both my Grandmother and mother use, and after laughing at myself it made me stop and think how much my language has changed over the years, and more recently after five years of tropical living.

Papicito and I both originate from the UK, and whilst we can (and do) lapse into our local dialect, we had different childhood  influences and education and I do not think we sound that similar.

So what new words have worked their way into our every day vocabulary over the last five years?

Our first two years of expat living were spent in Malaysia, and whilst we learned a few pleasantries of Bahasa Malay we never picked up much of the language. As an ex British colony there was enough English spoken that we managed to get by.

The main word that we picked up in Malaysia, and still use today, is "ay-orrrr". I always thought this was a Chinese word, but a Malaysian friend has recently told me that it is a Malay word. And its meaning? Any time you need an expletive "ay-orrrr" will do the trick. If  your friend told you they had just had an unexpected windfall "ay-orrrr" is the perfect exclamation. If the car in front of you does something unexpected and you break sharply, why risk Junior learning a profanity when "ay-orrrr", with extra "orrrrrrrr" fits the bill perfectly.

Can I just add that Chiquitito, who is learning to talk in both Spanish and English has also mastered a fantastic "ay-orrrr" this week.

We have lived in El Salvador for approaching three years now, and as a former Spanish colony, where English is not spoken as much as I had hoped for, we have had to make an effort to learn basic Spanish.

Of course, in the house we speak English to each other, but there are some words of Spanish that have become part of our every day vocabulary, and I know that we will continue to use them even when we eventually move on to somewhere new.

"Si" ("yes") is the most common Spanish word that we use, then probably "gracias" ("thank you") and also "con" or "sin" to denote whether we want our cold drink "con hielo" or "sin hielo" - with or without ice.

One of the words that I use on a frequent basis is the Salvadoran word "dundo" or "dunda" depending whether it is a man or woman that I am berating. It is considered very impolite to call someone stupid in El Salvador (estupido/a), but "dundo/a" is an accepted slang form.

(The difference between the a or o at the end of a word is masculine and feminine - o for masculine, a for feminine).

So when I do or say something daft, or someone else does "dunda" is the perfect word, and always guaranteed to make the Salvadoran you're talking to laugh with surprise. Likewise, when someone makes your life difficult, like the shop assistant who over charges you then rolls her eyes when you complain - a 'dunda!" muttered under your breath (or out loud if you strongly about it) makes you feel better!!

I also use "chiquitito" and "chiquitita" a fair amount too, and it is our pet name for our young son. It is a term of endearment, so instead of calling someone "dear" or "darling", or when talking to a close friend, you would use the expression "mi chiquitito/a".

The other word that I will probably take away from El Salvador is "super". But hang on a minute, I know what you're thinking - surely "super" is an English word? Yes it is, but it is a word that gets used here all the time. Is something really good? "Super bien!" Very fast? "Super rapido!" Is someone very clever? "Super inteligente!"

If you want to learn more Salvadoran slang words then check out Jose Herrera's blog.

So, until next time, adios mi chiquititos.

PS - What's your favorite word that you use every day that is not from your native language? Share it with us in the comments box below!

Has anyone seen my cat?

So, the saga of car ownership in El Salvador continues.

After two trouble free years in Malaysia, where we long term rented a car - expensive but hassle free, we decided to buy a car when we arrived in El Salvador - mainly because car rental is exorbitantly expensive.

The first mistake we made was to buy a car unseen, before we had even arrived.

Before you start to think we were totally stupid, it was an expat guy who was leaving the company that Papicito works for. So we thought we could trust him! Wrong!!

The photograph he sent us showed an old if tidy looking Nissan Pathfinder. We asked around and people who had known the car said it was a good buy.

So we handed over our $3,000 and looked forward to being mobile on our arrival.

It didn't help that we arrived during the wet season, but the car had been parked in an underground car park, the inside was inches thick in green mould, the battery was flat and there was a huge dent in the rear passenger door, that was so bent out of shape that water poured in when it rained!

That started a long process of trying to make the best of a bad job by spending money keeping the car afloat, including a new engine (but that's another story).

Two years later, when the car was finally driveable, we decided that as we now had Junior and were going to be here for another couple of years that we would upgrade.

Once more we bought a car from a member of staff who was leaving, but this time we got it checked out by our mechanic, and handed over the cash.

Incidentally, we sold our old car to a bloke from Santa Ana for not much less than we paid for it!!)

We were now driving a slightly newer Mitsubishi Montero, and the difference was similar to upgrading from a Skoda to a Rolls Royce!!

We had the car serviced and everything went fine for a month or so. Then it started cutting out at junctions. The revs would drop, the brakes would go heavy and then......the engine would stall.

It went back to the garage and had a mountain of things fixed. Still it cut out at junctions.

And it sounded noisy - like driving a car with a hole in the exhaust.

"Don't worry!" said the mechanic. "There might be a small hole somewhere, but this noise is normal!"

By now I was beginning to doubt the expertise of my mechanic, and he spoke no English, which made explaining problems difficult. So I swapped to a highly recommended English speaking one.

He came, he checked the car, attaching all sorts of monitors, that were able to tell me, amongst other things, that the airbags had been disabled (presumably after the smash the car had been in said the mechanic, as he pointed out the slightly misaligned bonnet on the car).

He took the car away to fix it and it was like a dream. He emailed, sent videos and photos and I felt like I was there in the shop with my car, like an anxious parent at a sick child's hospital bedside.

The car returned and drove like a dream......for a day, then back to square one! The car went back to the shop to have every possible connection cleaned. It came back and drove like a dream....for a week.

So, there it was......I had spent the GDP of a small country on my car and it still died at junctions.

On a plus note, it was intermittent. I'd maybe get 3 weeks good driving then a day, or if I was unlucky a week of bad driving.

And this is how we continued for nine months or so.

Then the car needed servicing and suddenly it was impossible to drive, cutting out all the time, so I sent it back to the mechanic.

He serviced it, replaced numerous parts and brought it back last week. It seems to be working ok, but I am nervous, waiting for it to cut out.....which usually happens at a really inconvenient point, like half way around a busy roundabout in the morning rush hour traffic.

Today the mechanic came for his money, and to check it over.

And as we stood talking he said "Your exhaust is noisy because whoever had the car before removed the cat!" (for the non-technically minded amongst you he is referring to the catalytic converter).

So that's it! My car has spent the last ten months mourning the loss of its cat........if anyone finds a 20 year old metallic green cat purring at the door step...please don't take it in thinking its homeless.

Give me a call and maybe my car will run like a dream when its returned!

Has anyone seen this cat?

Amazon.com

A spot of light gardening.

Today the sky was blue, with little fluffy clouds, Junior went to bed for his nap early and I decided to do a spot of gardening before the rainy season kicks in properly.

I only do gardening when Junior is asleep as I don't want to encourage him to wreck the garden any more than he does already! If he sees Mamasita cutting branches and pulling up plants he'll think that's ok!

We're not too fussy about the garden, and I really don't mind when he pulls out lengths of bamboo to play with, and pulling off the occasional flower to present to me is cute - but I would like to keep the garden looking a bit respectable!!

We have a gardener who comes in every 3 or 4 weeks or so. He cuts the grass, weeds the borders and has a general tidy up. He's here for about an hour and he charges $5. He is the gardener in our residencia and the gardening jobs he does after his day job probably make his meagre wages liveable, so I feel like we can't not have him.

He came last Friday, and we were that impressed with how nice the garden looked post tidy up that it inspired us to do a bit more.

I bought some new flowers from my friend Sue, who sells plants and produce at local markets. Two lovely lily plants, with long slender leaves and dainty yellow flowers that open each morning and two buzy lizzies (impatiens). I can't believe that I bought buzy lizzies - they are native to this area and in our last house that was all we had, which meant that they soon lost their appeal.

Papacito dug the holes for the new plants at the weekend, and the plants took really well to their new home, which was even more of an inspiration this morning for me to do some pruning.

 new lily plant

A close up of the lily flowers when closed

 Buzy Lizzy

The main reason for me doing some gardening today however was to cut the thorns off the lime tree. You might think I am being over cautious, but believe me when I say they are nothing like rose thorns. I cut all the lower ones off a while back, but now Junior has grown and can reach higher they needed a new trim.

If you think I am exaggerating about the thorns, take a look at this picture

That is one serious looking thorn......and I must have cut off about fifty similar ones today! One less thing to worry about!

If you are interested to see what else is flowering in my Salvadoran garden right now, then take a look at Tropical Plant Pics: My Garden in April.

Since when was Mother's Day a public holiday?

Last week was mega stressful. The car was away at the repair shop - again - and we were without transport.

I re-arranged my week, cancelled plans and kept Junior home from kinder on Wednesday.

By Friday, and still sin carro, I decided that I would call a taxi to take us to kinder, and hope that the car would be back mid morning, as promised.

The taxi arrived and it was an amazingly new and small car. I strapped Junior in with the centre lap belt in the rear of the car, and climbed in next to him.

Back in the UK friends and family would  be horrified at travelling without the correct child restraints, but needs must, and I prayed for a safe journey!

Amazingly, the roads were empty - which is unheard of at 730 on a Friday morning!

I expressed my amazement to the taxi driver (as best as I could), something along the lines of  "no mucho trafico?" to which he replied with a huge spiel of Spanish, the gist of which I interpreted to mean "It's Mother's Day and everyone is at home with their children", but what he was probably thinking was "apart from the gringa who thinks kinder will be open, but hey, its a fare so I'll play along with her!"
So, we got to kinder, the gate was closed, I rang the bell, no-ones answered and I had to admit defeat and get back into the taxi.

Who would have ever thought that Mother's Day was a holiday? Surely the best present you could give most mother;s would be to keep her kids in school so that she does not have to spend the day entertaining them?

I managed to salvage the day by getting him to drop us off at the local mall so that Junior and I could have a Mother's Day breakfast together.

After we had breakfasted and shopped we needed to get a taxi home.

I hailed a taxi from the mall and was horrified to see that it was an old taxi with NO seatbelts at all.

So in good expat mum style, I took it all in my stride, hopped in the back, sat junior facing towards me and held on to him so tight I'm amazed he didn't turn blue!!

Just a normal day in the life of an expat mamasita in El Salvador!