Saying "Goodbye!"

As we started to round out our final week in the Dominican Republic, we began to look back at our experience here.  Monday was a day dedicated to running some final errands and doing some last minute sight seeing. We traveled to the Zona Colonial in search of what seems to be the only post office in Santo Domingo.

The rain got caught up to us and we got drenched as we walked back to Olga's house after an exhausting day of guagua rides.The locals tell us that the rain they have received lately is uncommon. A lot of the city streets are reminiscent of a Venice, a place we hope to visit while on this trip. We'll let you know how it compares but the enormous amount of water flowing through the streets have made me want to invest in a boat. In the afternoon, we made a trip to Luis' office to give him an overview of our findings and experience. The meeting followed us to Outback Steak House where we had the pleasure of finally dining with his partner, Carlos Garcia. Carlos is in charge of the developing side of the business and is a realestate and financial guru. We shared some ideas and humbly suggested some strategies to improve labor relations.

With Luis in front of a finished house

Tuesday, we headed out with Luis to the jobsite to check the progress and say goodbye. Luis had us take pictures of every step of the housing construction in order to prepare a foam construction manual for his company. After some photos we headed to lunch with Luis and Cristian, then off to Cayacoa to visit the other foam community once again. Luis is being contracted to repair some foam houses and he is also starting a new project in the same town. We did some research and brought it back to Guayacanes. A round of goodbyes sent us on our way to the capital. In all honesty, we sure will miss the guys we worked with. We exchanged emails and phone numbers with some of our new friends and were on our way.

With Luis and Elvin

With Giovanni and Vladimir, two of the greatest guys we met here

Lunch with Luis and Cristian

We started brainstorming ideas for the manual back at the office, then Luis invited us to his place for a BBQ dinner and some Presidentes.  We sat around and talked with his wife, Ginna, and we met their daughter.  He grilled up sausage, steak, and ribs and we played dominoes in between. He and Carlos spanked us like we were a couple of babies.  They won 200 to 0 two games in a row.  It will take a few weeks before we have the confidence to play again...

With Luis and Carlos at the BBQ dinner

Wednesday morning we headed to the office eary, but got their on time because of the hour it took to drive through the flooded streets.  We worked on the manual for about 4 hours and Luis reviewed the first edition before making suggestions.  We will continue to work on this when we have access to a computer and we hope we can deliver a professional product for his use.  We shared a few memories and showed him pictures of the Dixie Chicken in College Station, said a few words, and went home to get ready to leave.

Dinner with the family and friends

That evening we wanted to share a nice night with the family and friends, so we decided to cook a dinner of our favorites and have everyone together one last time.  We spent a few ours in the kitchen preparing the meal, and the result was a surprising success.  We had chicken fried steak, chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, salad and bread, and sweet tea.  A few words of thanks were given and we recollected our trip.  Attendees were Olga (mom), Francisco (brother) and Karla (future sister-in-law), Paul (brother-in-law) and Laura (sister), Ivan (friend/brother), Luis (boss) and Ginna (his wife), and Cristian (friend/boss/secret agent).  Olga finished off our meal with some custard and we moved to the porch to end the night in cigars and Presidente.  

Last picture of the family (Karla had to leave early for work)

This morning we said goodbye to Olga and Francisco, wrote this blog, and soon we are headed to the airport to jump the pond over to Spain.

How to build a foam house...let us know if you want one

Beginning steps are to survey and fill the land, then place the concrete forms and install electrical and plumbing conduits.

After wire mat is placed, pour and finish the concrete slab.

Drill rebar where the walls will be placed.

Place the wall panels and cut out doors and window spaces. Place the roof panels as well.

Once the structure is inspected and electrical cut-outs are placed, spray the first layer of cement to bond the wires to the foam panel.

Plastic corners are added next to level and ensure uniform thickness of the stucco. These are placed at all edges and in all windows and doors.

Stucco is placed by hand and finished with a rough texture.

The roof slab is poured after the electrical elements are finished and the structure is fully covered in stucco.

Prime the structure with a cement paint then install windows, doors, and plumbing/electrical fixtures.

Finish the house with a coat of paint and plug into the electrical grid.

Benefits of foam housing:

• A house can be built with fewer workers in fewer days
• Strength stands up to hurricane winds and earthquake tremors
• If engineered correctly, there is very little waste from the project
• Foam panels can be designed to fit any shape or size and lock together easily
• Conduit pathways are burned through the foam, no exact measurements are needed
• If foam is damaged, it is covered by the stucco and does not affect the structural integrity
• Houses are cool in the summer and warm in the winter
• Walls can be finished with the stucco look or can be finished with drywall, wood panelling, siding, etc. to match any style desired.

Cons

• Foam factories are hard to come by in the U.S.
• Foam will not bio-degrade in the soil
• More expensive than building with cinder blocks. However, if built on a large-scale like this project, the method saves money because of faster installation.

A quiet weekend...

Our weekend started for us early, again, and we found ourselves in Santo Domingo late Thursday evening. As we stated in our last post, Friday was a holiday for the working class.  The holiday celebrates el Dia de la Mercedes which is the patron saint of the Dominican Republic. Religious services are held on this day throughout the country and homage is also paid by creating alters complete with flowers and portraits of the saint.

We spent the day indoors watching movies with Cristian and ordering in food. The weather has not cooperated at all this festive weekend. In fact, it has been raining for nearly three days straight on-and-off. The effects of the rain can be seen throughout the city by the large accumulations of water that make roads unpassable. The city streets are also empty but one can still see the clusters of people gathered around the neighborhood colmado.

On Saturday, we made another trip to the nuevo mercado where we did some shopping and Aldo bought an awesome fedora. As we walked through the mercado's streets and endless stands, Sayer spotted a stand dedicated to mamajuana. After receiving some insight from the vendor, Sayer purchased a stash for processing. The rain caught up to us again and after walking for what seemed like 30 kilometers, we made it home and dried off. That evening caught up with our host family and we out for some drinks with Cristian at an exclusive bar.

Paul, our host sister's husband, took us to the "pulga"(flea market) on Sunday. This rag-tag gathering of vendors sets up under the Ave. Luperon overpass to sell just about anything. Items include: pirated DVDs, computers, clothes, food, shoes, gaming systems and anything in between. As we left, a fight broke out that was instigated by an accusation of theft and Paul urged us to run to avoid being hit by hammers or glass bottles. I'm not sure what exactly transpired but we wasted no time getting out of there and to the safety of a colmade for a refreshing Bohemia Pilsner.

As we prepare to leave this country, we are grateful for all the new friends and hospitality. We will be packing and finalizing our affairs this week. The next leg of our trip will take us to Spain, where we hope to arrive on Thursday after a 10-hour flight.

Please stay posted.

Almost finished here...

Aldo with our informant

Once again we headed out of the house this past Monday to head to Guayacanes. This time we got out of town a bit earlier on a gua-gua and arrived close to 10 a.m. As we were getting of the bus, we were almost knocked over by a man on a motorcycle carrying a rooster. Aldo stopped him for some small talk and discovered that he was on his way to a cockfight, a quintessential Dominican tradition. We tagged along while he was explaining the rules and differences amongst regions. In this particular case, the roosters were to fight with dull barbs and results were based on a time limit as opposed to a fight to the death.

We sat at a colmado on a back street while people brought roosters from every direction. They decided amongst themselves which ones would fight and the bets started pouring in. I will spare the details for those who think they might disagree with the practice, but we stayed for 2 fights and continued on our way.

We started working just after noon and quickly slipped into the routine of our week. Luis decided that he wanted to put up more houses to get ahead, so all work stopped on the structural accessories and we moved to 4 new foundation and started erecting walls. This was a great opportunity for us to get it in the heads of the workers that they could build with little waste. Aldo and I split up amongst the crews to enforce our ideas. At first, the guys were not excited and we argued over the details, but eventually they realized that it was actually easier to build using spare parts and excess in place of whole panels. Over the course of the week we finally broke some ground and it looks like the remaining houses will be built as originally intended. The site is looking cleaner and it is almost a personal competition for each person to see how efficiently they can build. It took some elbow grease, but finally we saw some results of our case study!

Thursday, we took some time to watch another contractor pour some slabs for another batch of houses. There is also a new water tower in the works so we got to see the foundation elements be put into place.

Aldo surveying the water tower foundation

A crew pours a foundation

Four days straight of plantains and rice started getting to us, so we cut out early Thursday evening and made our way back to Santo Domingo. Friday was a religious holiday akin to Labor Day so the business class had the day off and everyone headed to the beach (Meanwhile the laborers were still out in the field laboring, funny how that works). Luis granted us the day off and we took advantage to rest up and run some final errands in preparation for our departure.

Overall, the last week was a good one to end on. We consider ourselves lucky to have worked with a wide array of people on the project. We learned a great deal, probably more about life than construction.

Us in front of a row of houses in the finishing stages 

Sayer carved this plane out of foam and used water bottle tops for the wheel and propellers

Aldo's Birthday Weekend

Our weekend began unofficially on Thursday evening. We were walking back after a long day with our friend Jordan and Aldo jokingly told him that it was his birthday. In actuality, his birthday was not until Saturday, but Jordan started telling everyone and pretty soon the whole block was under the impression that we had to celebrate.

We bought a bottle of rum and shared it with our friends into the early morning hours. Aldo was at the table talking about the ways of the world with the old-timers, and I spent my time in the street with the workers. I took 45 minutes to explain how big Texas was in comparison to the Domincan Republic. All the guys were arguing, so I told them San Antonio was the largest city and it has 28 million people in it haha. That is way off!

At the end of the night, Aldo called everyone around the table for a toast. He gave a speech about how important it is to work together to become a "United America," regardless of location on the two continents and in the surrounding seas. Together with the drinks and good company, the moment was nothing short of majestic. The guys gave Aldo a congratulatory speech and we split ways. In my opinion, that night sealed the deal to us becoming friends and members of their community.

Friday we had a little trouble getting up and Elvin brought us some soup. A quick clean-up and a stretch put us in good shape to catch a gua gua to La Romana, a town to the east of Guayacanes. We were going to tour Don Seijas' tobacco plant and spend time with Olga's extended family over the weekend. In La Romana we caught a motoconcho to the factory. A motoconcho is essentially a motorcycle that carries passengers. We both loaded up and survived the terrifying trip to the plant. We would have taken pictures, but we didn't want anyone to see how close we were sitting to each other...

A worker prepares the aged tobacco leaves to be rolled

At the factory we visited with Don Seijas and set off on a personalized tour. Tabacalera de Garcia is the largest hand-rolled cigar factory in the world, with over 4000 employees that work around the clock. They roll out up to 80,000 cigars a day and make brands such as Romeo y Julieta, Montecristo, Vega Fina, and other world-leaders. The tobacco is aged for at least 2 years before it is made into a cigar, and each completed stogey is cured for another 3 months before it is sent to market. The factory does everything by hand, including adding the labels and building the cigar boxes. A very informative tour!

Finishing touches being put on a cigar

The humidor, which holds thousands of aging cigars. It smelled divine

Jose's son Enrique picked us up and took us to Casa de Campo, an elite community equivalent to Beverly Hills. The "city inside the city" includes a private beach, a marina, a supermarket and movie theater, a police and fire station, and 5 golf courses. It is inhabited by Dominican royalty and such celebrities as Shakira, Enrique and Julio Iglesias, Vin Diesel, and Brad Pitt. Also in the facility is Altos de Chavon, a mock 16th century "city inside the city inside the city" that was built in the 70s as a birthday gift. We took a quick look then headed out.

After meeting up with Francisco, we once again returned to Altos de Chavon for an unexpected event. Jose Seijas was launching 3 of his very own signature cigars, something we wished we would have known. Everyone in attendance was dressed superbly, and we were hugging the outskirts in our shorts, matching T-shirts, and ferocious beards. We definitely did not fit in. Be on the lookout in the cigar market for Mi Dominicana, Vega Fina by Jose Seijas, and Jose Seijas Signature, 3 all-Dominican blends perfected by the master himself.

Us with Don Jose Seijas, one of the cigar world's best known aficionados. This is how we dressed for his cigar launch, he was in a nice Dominican suit. Embarrassing...

Saturday we journeyed with Francisco to a few different beaches along the South coast. Stopping by Bayahibe and La Romana, we made camp at Juan Dolio for an afternoon with Francisco's fiance and sister and brother-in-law. Back at the house we sat around and enjoyed some drinks and cigars to end up a relaxing birthday for Aldo.

Today was more Beteyah and a trip to Jumbo. Olga made tacos for dinner (of which I ate 11) and in place of a birthday cake she cooked up a delicious flan.

Aldo cutting into his flan as Olga looks on

Whew, that was a mouthful. Look for a post late next weekend, as we are headed back out into the field tomorrow. Wish us luck on our last full week of work. Thanks for checking in!

P.S.  Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes and to my parents especially. I love you Mom and Dad! You've done good!
-Aldo

Week 3...

The week began for us on a bit of a humiliating lull and it all started on Monday morning when we woke up to find that everyone had left to work and locked us inside.  Unable to get out we resorted to sleeping in and woke up drenched in sweat because the electricity had also been shut off and the ceiling fan were inoperable. Olga came home from work around 14:00 and let us out after having lunch.  We never would have thought it was impossible to get out of a house but the barricades and locks kept us prisoners.

After a walk in the blazing sun and a stop at the local ferrateria (hardware store) to buy some much needed tools of our trade, we hopped onto a guagua and made our way to Guayacanes.  This week's goal we established was  to construct the exterior and interior walls of a foam house without any waste.  Three days of hard work and some serious planning yielded what we intended all along. We reused the window cutouts and some of the leftovers from previously constructed houses. Our new "baby" was erected with minimal waste and a pile of foam and scraps that fit comfortably inside a wheel barrel. We jotted some notes down and quantified the exact measurements and materials expended. We concluded that with a little work and a few extra cuts, the homes could be constructed in a more economical and environmentally friendly way. We are currently preparing a review and executive summary of our finding for our boss, Luis.

Our lunch at the jobsite. This was a real treat, we only get to eat this on days that end in y!

The week ended for us on Thursday and in preparation for Aldo's birthday.  Stay posted for a recap of the weekend celebration and events.

Last weekend, sorry for the delay....

Not really much to report on our weekend. We learned how to play dominoes the Dominican way and spent some time in the street playing Beteyah. Beteyah is a cross between stickball and frisbee that is played with bottle tops off of Beteyah water bottles, the 5 gallon kind. When thrown, the Beteyah top floats like a frisbee and you can put spin or curve on the top. The batter gets 3 outs, which are counted by strikes or a hit that is caught or stopped before it quits moing on its natural path. You really only need 2 people to play, but 4 is best in order to have a cathcher and a fielder. Runs are generally east to score because the tops roll under cars and stop...

Sayer hitting what is most likely a stunning home run

Aldo striking out after a miraculous curving pitch

Saturday night we caught a few drinks with our friend Cristian, who is the project manager at the jobsite. He took us with him on Sunday to supervise a concrete pour on the top floor of a 9-story bank. It was amazing to watch the workers up there without fall protection or safety barriers. Sheesh.

After some errands and a few tours of the local malls, we called it a day and wrapped up the night on the porch with friends and family.

Week 2...

This week was another long and hot session out in the field. We spent the first three days finishing the structural elements of our house and the two on either side. Another post will be added explaining the process, so you will better understand what it is we actually did.

Luis came and visited the site on Wednesday and we had a chat with him about some ways he could reduce waste and save money. He had asked us to come up with ideas and we shared some of them. Each house is designed to utilize as few foam panels as possible. For example, each window cut-out can be used for the bottom portion of the next window. As it is, however, the guys are using full panels for every window and discarding the cut-out. If this continues, the project will run out of panels and Luis will take on extra costs to buy more and recycle the waste.

We have asked to build a structure completely on our own, which we will do next week. This way, we can identify exactly how many and what lengths of each element we need for each house. Instead of dumping a pile of materials in front of each house, the crews can now place exactly the amount needed and they must use the panels as the plans show. We realize that the main obstacle to this is supervision. Each man works at his own pace and with his own ideas, so there is no unification, therefore more waste. If we can figure this out, Luis will place someone to be in charge to make sure every house is meeting the specifications.

We also monitored the amount of cement used to cover an individual house, and we found the average of three houses. Doing so will allow Luis to know the amount of cement bags used for each house and the time it takes to coat each one. This experiment has a little more consistency because the spraying crew is the same for each house. Aldo came up with a  great way to keep the results consistent: Betting. He had the crew foreman bet against Elvin how many bags it would take per house. From now on, he will have an idea of how much to use and he won't just add bags unnecessarily. Once again, a little supervision can lead to more efficient results. (Another point... when we interact with the guys and show interest in what they are doing, they perform better and are more motivated to do the work... Hawthorne Effect, anyone?)

Aldo with the projection crew

On Thursday we loaded up with Elvin and headed to Cayacoa, a small sugar town about 20 minutes away from our site. There is another community built with foam, this one complete with a church, school, community center, and even a hospital! Several of the houses were left unfinished and I think our crew is going to come in and finish them. It was neat to see a new layout of the houses (these had courtyards, separate bathroom facilities, and bunk beds built into the walls.) Elvin pointed out that they lack the proper structural elements, however, so if we do come in most of the work will have to be re-accomplished.

Cayacoa foam houses

Cayacoa school, made of foam

No beach this week because there were some lightning storms in the area. Some of the other dangers we encountered were black widows, HUMONGOUS sinkholes (seriously, two full size sedans could fit in one we found, and new ones keep popping up...), and the fact that we were standing in the back of a truck barreling down the freeway at 70 MPH. We spent our nights hitting the sack pretty early, falling asleep to El Senor do los Amillos (Lord of the Rings).  

Our room (finally with mosquito nets!)

P.S. On our trip back to Santo Domingo we were in a gua-gua that at one point had 25 people in the minivan!!!

We spent the weekend in Jarabacoa...

I have to say that the weekend turned out to be one of the most wonderful experiences either of us have ever had!  Our host brother, Francisco and his fiance Karla, took us to Jarabacoa to spend some time with their uncle in their "casa de campo".

The trip was a short, one-hour ride north of the capital on Highway 1. The terrain changed drastically from that of Santo Domingo and about 56 kilometers into our drive we began to see mountains in the distance.  We are not sure what the elevation was but a two-way, winding road brought us to the country house of Don Jose Seijas. Don Jose is the VP and GM of Tabacaler de Garcia located in La Romana, DR.  His factory produces the famous Romeo y Julieta, H. Upmann, and Montecristo brand of cigars.  He was a gracious host, treated us like family and invited us to take an exclusive tour of the factory whenever we pleased.

In addition to meeting his lovely family, we met some interesting people that produced some interesting conversations. A self-proclaimed California hippie named Sunny Blueskies was in attendance this weekend and he shared with us some interesting views on life and a plan that peaked our interests. Sunny's philosophy in life is: Perfection is what is. Simple but profound, we interpreted it as a go with the flow type of deal. What you have is as perfect as it is going to get.

Sunny Blueskies

We endulged all weekend long by drinking fine wines, smoking cigars produced by the cigar world's royalty, drinking a medley of rums, vodkas, beer and eating some of the tastiest dishes on earth.  A signature dish that we devoured was the "Yanikekes." This is a dish made famous in the 18th century by an English woman named Jane who fried up some flour dough and called them "cakes." The Dominican interpretation was Yani's Cakes, which over the years has transformed into the aforementioned spelling.

Above all, this weekend was one in which we spent most of the time in awe of this region's natural beauty.

The view from the patio

The views were breath-taking and we had the opportunity to visit the Salto de Jimenoa and the Salto de Baiguate.  These are water fall with crisp, sparkling water that, against our better judgement we sampled.  It was delicious!

Salto de Baiguate

First week of work...

Sorry it has taken us so long to update, we have been quite busy and out of reach of a computer. It is liberating to escape the confines of technology... A few pictures are below and we can post more if we actually get around to taking some. Look for a complete album on my facebook.

We hitched a ride to work on Monday with our boss, Luis. That afternoon we walked the site and our boss explained the foam panel system to Aldo and I. He left us on site after lunch and we settled into our "home" for the next few weeks. We live in a storage shed with the Maestro, but there is a TV and stereo that is a new addition since my last visit. Elvin, the Maestro, took us to town and got us beds for our stay. He promised to get us mosquito nets, but we still have yet to see them. We bought our own this weekend because the nights were unbearable without them.

Insects cloud the sky here, and electricity is sporadic. If our fan doesn't work, then we don't sleep because we are being feasted upon. Somehow, we still enjoy it and keep on going. Not to worry, Aldo is taking a tablet regimen for Malaria.

Tuesday we worked on some cured foundations and marked the lines for the walls. We drilled rebar into the foundation and did some cleanup around the site. It was overcast, but the heat was still oppressive. The caliche soil reflect the sunlight and exponentially increases it's affects on our sunburned bodies. I think the Caribbean Sun had a bad day and took its anger out on us. Wednesday and Thursday were spent placing the walls of our very own house with Vladimir, our instructor. I think we lost about 20 pounds each from sweating! The workers kept laughing at us because we would take short breaks to recover every hour.

The walls and ceilings are made of foam panels are enclosed in wire mesh. After the plumbing and electricity is installed, the whole deal is sprayed with concrete and sanded smooth. A little paint and some windows rounds out the package. We put the walls up in 2 days, the whole house takes a month from start to finish, including concrete cure times.

Our house

A finished house

The neighborhood

Lunches every day consist of rice, beans, and either chicken or fish. Dinner is some variation on plantains and salami. We don't eat breakfast because we are up before the kitchen opens. In the evenings we sit around a talk with the guys or head to the beach.

A little about the work ethic here... Workers are paid by unit of work rather than hourly. Every three weeks, our boss pays for how much progress was made. The workers typically work 10 hours a day but many stay until dark to make the most of their time. They work hard in order to finish their portion of the work early and start on the next one. Many of these guys are our age and have several kids. They are all poor and can't afford basic goods that most people I know take advantage of (myself included).

Our friend Giovanni has 3 kids and works overtime as a mechanic. We noticed he wears a sweatshirt every day in the brutal sun and we asked him if it was hot. He told us it was and we asked why he wears it, to which he responded "because I don't have anything else." Vladimir's wife may very well be delivering their first child as I write this, and he will probably be at work tomorrow to make his wages. Our buddy Omniki took a nasty spill off the truck on the way to the beach. At first, Aldo and I laughed along with the other guys, but then we realized the gravity of the situation. He may have fractured his wrist. If so, he won't be able to work. The thought of worker's compensation here is a joke, and he can easily be replaced. If it doesn't heal, he could be out of a job and it will be nearly impossible to find another one soon. These are some of the heart-wrenching things we came across this week.

On a lighter note, every one of these guys is nicer than the next. The treat us like friends and are happy to share stories and techniques. We are lucky to have them as influences in our lives.

Friday we left around noon to get back to Santo Domingo on a gua-gua (bus). It is amazing how many people were shoved into the minivan that got us home, about 14!