STRIP HIM NAKED AND DOUSE HIM WITH WATER

It has come to this; trying out provocative blog titles to get you to read them.    Well, you're in luck.  Sadly, there are no photos of this, but it is an actual quote from someone here in Ecuador and apparently it is an event that this person has witnessed.
    "This is an Indian community," says Luisito who works for us in the afternoons.  "There is no tolerance for this."

He was speaking of the problem of Breaking and Entering, which seems to plague some towns where there are large foreign (read European) populations but not so much in the indigenous communities.  It is apparently not tolerated and the punishment is, well, read the title. I am happy to note that I am not a Breaker and Enterer and that I live in an indigenous community. 

Happy 2014.  Here is my first word to the wise for the New Year: Flash floods are not for the faint of heart, nor is it wise to choose your house at the foot of a 16,000 feet extinct volcano during one.  Yesterday was rather raineous; curtains and curtains of the stuff fell on our house, god's way of showing us where the problems with the roof are.  And also, which drains are or not working.  The answer is none of the drains is working.  Except the one in the kitchen where, apparently, the water flooded in during the night, drained out, and left a fine film of dried dirt on the floor.  And the caida ,or incline, outside the dining room door does not keep the water from draining in because the caida was placed backwards in its original form, much like a the end of a ski jump course where the run tilts upward dramatically so the jumper can get a good lift. What we get with our dining room problem is a good wade.

Oh, and another thing.  I may have to stop doing this blog.  It seems that every time I mention a problem (I'm thinking of the next-door pigs now) something ominous occurs.  Recently, I discussed my problems in 2010 with kidney stones.  And guess what happened to me during this torrential downpour yesterday?  If you guessed I was blessed with a kidney stone, well, you already know you're right.  There are no words to describe the joy in my discovery that my kidney stones seem to travel well, across continents and time apparently.  I am not particularly impressed with this talent.
  Also, buck up, Jeff Bezos (Amazon's founder), who was recently airlifted by an Ecuadorian Navy helicopter from the Galapagos because he was stricken by a kidney stone on New Year's Day.  From all reports it was one stone.  One.  And he gets international attention.  I have been known to produce an assembly line of ten stones  in a row...but enough about that.  I at least want an Amazon gift card for my trouble and humiliation. Maybe they should strip Mr. Bezos naked and douse him with water and see what he thinks about that. 

So, it seems that I have broken some law, or entered some law, because in spite of my admirable track record where theft is concerned(Dennis, enough already about the chicken  ranch incident), I have still been stripped naked (figuratively speaking, and oh what a figure it is), and doused with water.  So, I ask Luisito when  the rainy season stops around here so I can get on with a drier life and all he does is smile and say:
    "Eduardito, here in Ecuador, every season is the rainy season."