Making the Frames

To make the frames, we hired a welder that lives in los Mameyes named Alé. He charged us RD $300 pesos per house, about 8 US dollars. If we ask him again to weld some frames, hopefully he will lower his price because as you see here, he actually hardly did any of the work and hired two younger guys to do it. As Darien and I learned from hiring someone from the ferreteria to cut the varilla, supervision is necessary so we camped out in white picnic chairs for a few hours to make sure that all the dimesions were correct. When I ordered the varilla to be cut from the ferreteria, I asked for the length of 20 feet to be cut into 1.3 m pieces (51 inches). When we picked up the varilla the next day, we saw that it had been cut to different lengths that were around 1.3 m. The employee had to recut them all over again. A back-breaking task because he was using a hand-saw. The 3/8" varilla frame consists of three straight pieces and three bent pieces that have legs that are 15 cm long. The day before, we had shown Alé the video on how to make them that Kelvin had given us to make sure he got the idea.

This is me practicing quality control.

The welders here use almost no protection from the sparks. When they are welding, they just close their eyes so they are not damaged. Luckily it didn't affect the quality of there work and we had 20 perfectly welded houses. Alé could make 20 frames in one day, as long as there is constant power of course.

Snorking Multimedia Overload!

Since I haven't been able to post many of the videos and pictures of our snorkeling adventures, due to a multitude of factors such as poor internet connections, power failures, several floods, computer inundations, and construction craziness, prepare for a multimedia overload!

This is a photo of rock boring urchins that are actually on top of a queen conch shell that is the size of a fist. That makes the urchins about the size of my fingernail!

This is me "rescuing" a hermit crab from the lobster nasa. I don't know if it actually made it all the way to the seafloor without cracking its shell or injuring itself in some other way. Oh well, I guess it could have met its end this way or to be eaten by the several lobsters that were in the nasa.
Six cushion stars of various shades aligned perfectly in a triangle. These guys were almost a foot across!

The first video is of the nurse shark that we saw. The second is of a jellyfish that Paul saw that was about the size of a fist. The last is a view of one of the lobster nasas under water. You can even see the lobsters!

Construction Craziness!

These last few days getting ready for the construction have been very stressful and I was glad that yesterday ended with a beer on the beach and a delicious dinner at Coco Loco, although Darien got pocked in the eye with a stick... She never gets a break. I have to mention here that I have never participated in a construction project before.

I've been learning a lot about construction lately and the employees at Ferreteria Los Vecinos are probably wondering who the hell are these gringas who are coming in here? Why the hell are they ordering enough cement to build a house and the materials would cost almost 2,000 US dollars? They are right in questioning us though because we don't know what the hell we are doing due to a combination of faulty information, personal error, and the differences between Dominican and American culture. All I have to say is thank god one of the employees grew up in New Jersey and even spoke English with a Jersey accent! Also for Victor for always being online to answer my never-ending questions about lobster houses. Both of these guys saved us from disaster yesterday.

So the day before yesterday I went to the ferreteria to order the varilla that we need to build the lobster house frames by myself. I ordered 10 3/8" varilla (iron rebar), which I asked to be cut into 4 1.3 m pieces. I went by myself and was so proud that I had been able to communicate what I actually needed in Spanish. Later on, I learned that varilla is actually usually sold in quintares, which is a unit of a hundred pounds. There are 13 varillas of 3/8" in one quintar. After I dropped off the varilla at Alé's, I realized that I only had bought enough varilla for 6 houses.

Yesterday I returned to the ferreteria and ordered 14 more 3/8" varilla, along with all of the other material that Kelvin told us to get, 10 m3 of arena de caliza (limestone), 20 m3 of gravel, and 20 bags of cement, which would be enough to build a small house! We did the calculations and only these magerials, without the boards for the outside frame, would cost 1200 US dollars! This number is much higher than the budget of 900 US dollars that I had calculated a few weeks ago that would cover the entire pilot project. Luckily I talked to Victor online and he said that was also way too much material for the 20 houses, meaning that something was wrong.

After telling Darien about the exorbant costs this project was accuing and the fact that Victor thought something was also wrong with the amount of materials, she descided to accompany me to the ferreteria. We went to go pick up the varilla and saw that each of the pieces measured different lengths, luckily longer than 51 inches (the equivalent of 1.3 m). We had to ask the employee to recut them, which is a laborous task because each of them is cut by handsaw. This same situation happened with the latrine project that Henry and Aaron did. You have to look over their shoulder to make sure that everything is exact. You can't take it for granted that they are going to cut each of the pieces to exactly 1.3 m like they would in the States.

We tracked down the employee who was going to deliver the cement and I tried to explain to him in Spanish that we wanted to cancel our huge order and place a smaller one once we figured out how much material to buy. The entire time he was smiling slyly and Darien asked him if he would like to talk in English instead. It turns out that he was born in Miches but had lived 35 years of his life in New Jersey! He even spoke English with a Jersey accent! I've never appreciated English words as much as I did then. He made a phone call to one of his friends who was an engineer and he figured out that we only needed to buy 1 m3 of gravel, 1 m3 of limestone, and 11 bags of cement, dividing our costs by 40! That was a big relief. I don't know how we are going to explain to Kelvin about the mistakes on the materials list he sent us.

We dropped off the correctly cut pieces of rebar to Alé's house and told his wife that we would be back in the morning to show him some videos on how to construct the houses and to look over his shoulder while he is making the first few to make sure that the first few are done correctly and that he understands the process, now that we know that is necessary. We also need to make sure that the materials got dropped off at Frank's house yesterday. He hasn't called us, which could mean that everything went smoothly or that the materials never got dropped off. We still have to buy the rebar that will be used on the houses as mesh to go over the rebar frame but we need Kelvin's input because his instructions are not clear. We also need to hang up the avisos in all of the fishing communities to inform them about the project but are waiting on a project summary. The saga continues.

On a happy note, I'm writing this on my laptop! It has survived the flood. : ) Thank goodness for engineers that live at La Loma and for Paul for braving the floods at Ceyba Park to rescue it from the office for me!

Planning for the Big Construction

The lobster house workshop is less than a week away and the days are getting more stressful as the big days approach. It has been raining all week and doesn't show signs of stopping anytime soon.

This morning it took me two hours to print off the avisos we are going to hang up at the pescaderias and the beaches where the fishermen bring in their catch. The avisos tell the fishermen not to fish inside an area marked with red buoys because it is part of a scientific study. We have the support of CODOPESCA, SEMARENA, and the Marina de Guerra, so if anyone sees someone disturbing the houses, they are to call the numbers on the flyer. The first time I went to print out the avisos, PyP, the business that we also buy our wireless from, was closed. The second time they had run out of yellow ink and said that they wouldn't be able to get more ink until Monday or Tuesday. The aviso still prints in color and the red shows up, which is the most important component, but it looks weird. After consulting with Darien, we decided to go with the aviso in color over the black and white.

We've bargained with a local welder named Ale to weld the frames together before the workshop so that they will be ready. He started off asking for 500 pesos per house but we were able to get it down to 300 pesos per house, which is still a lot of money at $US 166. Today we are hopefully going to buy the materials and bring them to his house. I went to the ferreteria at 1 but it was closed like all of the other businesses in Miches for the lunch hour (12-2). So I'm going to have to go try again. Hopefully, they are open tomorrow as well, or else we are going to have to buy all of the materials today and bring them to Frank's house. Hopefully the rain will cease by then because I don't think concrete likes getting wet.

Frank is the fisherman who is going to monitor the lobster houses for me. He is going to get possession of the lobster houses when the project is over and will be able to collect the legally harvestable lobsters from the houses during the project while he's collecting the data. He is the one who rents all of the fishing equipment to the majority of the fishermen of los Mameyes, hopefully out of respect for him and the chance that they might receive lobster houses of their own from the project if they are successful, they won't disturb the lobster houses. Frank also owns a bar where the lobster information session will be held and we are going to construct the houses on top of his roof.

Yesterday I went to the beach with Darien and Coral to collect bottle caps to help distinguish the houses from each other. Six bottlecaps will be placed into the concrete while it's drying and have a pattern of one or two different colors. I never realized how many different colored bottlecaps there are but there are enough for 20 different color combinations, enough for our 20 houses! We got three fishermen from the beach located by the basketball field to help us. They were part of the fishermen's group headed by Pompilio. Last year Pompilio fished for lobsters but this year he stopped. I still have to ask Carlos why that is...

Arcitectural Speed Bumps... Policias acostados

This is going to be a long update with no pictures do to the craziness that has ocurred recently and my lack of electronics.

So... It has taken me almost two months to create a plan and contact people to carry out the plan. Now it comes time to implement the plan and that seems to be where the problems occur. CODOPESCA doesn't have the data that I need. Kelvin can only come at the very end of July to teach the information session. Darien's not going to be here. Henry might be here but still has to do physical therapy. I'm going on vacation for a week immediately after, which makes getting the houses in the water difficult. Fantastic.

In the DR, the roads are really bad. When ESSEG performed a survey on what the community wanted the most, instead of receiving the answer of clean water or reliable electricity, which is what they thought they would answer, they said better roads. Miches was paved a few years ago and the road to the capital is paved but the road that runs west to east is not paved and are full of pot holes. Sometimes boys instead of begging fill in the potholes and receive money from passing drivers because the government rarely maintains the roads. The roads in cities and when passing through small towns have speed bumps that are called policias acostados, or sleeping policemen. This is a fitting name for them because it seems like many of the policemen would be only useful for a speed bump. Signs and speed limits also don't really work in the DR either and perhaps the name for speed bumps makes slowing down more enjoyable because they are running over policemen.

My project is like a car that has reached the speed limit but has to slow down because of numerous policias acostados. This analogy is also fitting because the data that I'm collecting for my project is illegal. All of the lobster fishing methods being used by the fishermen in Miches are illegal in one way or another. It's illegal to fish at night, to use a compressor, to use a gancho or harpoon, and fishermen leave lobsters in their nasas during the fishing ban. Illegal fishing isn't monitored because the policemen are sleeping. I went to go collect data on lobster fishing during the day last week because they said that illegal fishing for lobster in los Mameyes has been almost non-existent since the ministry of the environment office moved in down the street, but I don't believe it and want to see for myself. We recently learned that the CODOPESCA representative that we had been working with at los Mameyes (Juan) had been moved from los Mameyes to one of the communities along the river called la Yeguada because that community was having a lot of problems. The la Yeguada representative (Angel) was now going to work in los Mameyes. Wilman and I went to los Mameyes to collect data at 1 like we planned but there weren´t any CODOPESCA representatives there. Carlos, the head of CODOPESCA in Miches, was sick and Juan and Angel were nowhere to be found. We went back to Wilman´s to have lunch after waiting a half an hour and Juan pulled up in our moto and told us that Angel hadn´t shown up for training all week and he didn´t know where he was. It´s going to be interesting working with him I´m guessing.

Also, I need to start collecting data on the size and weight of the lobsters being brought in because although CODOPESCA collects data on the weight of the lobsters, the method, and the time spent at sea, they do not collect data on species of lobster collected (there are three) or, the size of the lobsters, and the number of lobsters. This makes all of their data useless for my project. By collecting more data, I am trying to determine what percentage of those are of which species and then maybe we can compare the pounds yielded from the lobster houses to the pounds from other methods. It still does not have the most important information, which is the size of the lobsters, which would determine if the lobsters have been legally fished or not and will be impossible to determine.

To collect data at night, I would have to bring along Arias, who is the law enforcer that was assigned to help our project, because it would be unsafe to go by myself or even just with Wilman. I would have to tell him not to enforce the law because the fishermen are using air compressors, which are illegal, and during the veda, because you aren´t allowed to collect lobsters during this time, and you aren´t allowed to fish at night. Additionally, the lobsters caught could be undersized or have eggs. This means they could have four charges against them! It´s going to be an interesting night.

Oh ya, and yesterday I brought my computer to Paul and Diane´s dive shop to download some of their movies after we went diving but when we came back we found that their house had been flooded with two and a half feet of water and my laptop had been submerged. Luckily, one of the engineers at Ceyba Park is drying it and I´m crossing my fingers that it will continue to work. This will add to my other two electronic breakdowns, which includes my headlamp, which was chewed by the dog, and my camera, which has ceased to function due to the humidity.

Besides all this, I´ve been having a good time here. I had a fantastic birthday on the beach and actually went out dancing! The lobster houses are going to be built next week and I´ve been improving my Spanish. Yesterday I went diving for the first time outside of New Hampshire and it was amazing! I love being underwater, it makes me feel so calm. I´m going out again this afternoon with Paul and Diane to help distract them from the fact that their house got flooded yesterday. This country is so full of craziness but I´m meeting interesting people and I´m never bored, that´s for sure. : )

Problems With The Project...

Fourth of July in the DR

This fourth of July was like no other fourth of July I've ever experienced. There were no fireworks, barbeques, or a trace of red, white, and blue to be found. Instead I spent two days snorkeling with Darien and Paul and Diane, who are English. : ) On the fourth of July, the weather was extremely hot so when we got a call from Paul asking if we wanted to go out on the boat and search for wrecks, we couldn't say no. It was a fantastic day. We set off towards the Point and tried to find a wreck that was supposedly out there, which is like looking for a needle in a haystack. We gave up finally and anchored close to some reefs and did some snorkeling. One of the reefs we went to had extremely deep sides and would be an awesome dive site for Paul and Diane to bring tourists. I even saw a jelly fish! I actually think it was a comb jelly though. It was about the length of my finger. Here's a glimpse of the fantastic clear sailing we had.

The next day we started off around 8 in the morning, picked up a day's supply of empanadas, and got a moto ride from Paul to Ceyba Park. We watched Deep Sea, a documentary on the deep ocean, until Frank arrived, who was the fisherman who knows where the wrecks are. He's also the fisherman who is likely going to help us with the lobster houses. The plan is to give him 20 lobster houses in exchange for the collection of data on the number, size, and sex of the lobsters that are attracted to the house. He will also get to keep the legally harvestable lobsters. On the way to the wreck, we stopped and checked Frank's nasas to see if he had caught anything. Here is a photo of us pulling up one of his nasas. It was a lot bigger than what I expected and made me wonder how they are able to fit them in their tiny boats.

He has 12 nasas that are located in an area that he thinks would be good to keep the lobster houses. However, Paul dove down the the nasas and found that nothing was in most of them. This probably means that someone has been checking his nasas. Although Frank is one of the most respected members in the fishing community, since many of the fishermen rent their equipment from him, fishermen still steal from his nasas. Vigilance is going to be a major problem, especially since many of the lobster fishermen fish at night. I don't know if it is a good site to have lobster houses because the water is over 30 feet deep, the seagrass beds are not of the highest quality, and there are no coral reefs. Frank suggested that a compressor could be used to reach the lobster houses but that's illegal... I was thinking that maybe we could employ Paul to check the lobster houses instead because he wants to practice his free diving and is in need of employment. : ) Some of Frank's nasas did contain a number of lobsters and I got to see my first live lobster! I think they are really cute... much cuter than American lobsters.

The problem with Frank's fishing method is that he is planning to leave the lobsters in the nasas until the veda is over, which is also illegal. Although the lobsters might have enough food to live off of since the nasas are baited with beef and there are other fish that get trapped in there too, they might start eating each other. Frank said that the lobsters would survive off of the algae that grows on the side of the nasa, which I think is very unlikely. Also, how are the females with eggs supposed to migrate to deep reefs to release their eggs or the lobsters mate with the rest of the population? Hopefully we can get this project started so that Frank will use lobster houses instead of nasas so that the lobsters would be free to come and go as they please.

Then we went to the wreck, which is by the twin tanks, where I went snorkeling before with Adam and Paco. The wreck was about 35 feet deep so it was hard to see from the surface but you could see an outline of the ship and what looked like two cannons. There was also a cave in the coral right next to the wreck. I can't wait to go diving there and explore some more! While we were there, we also saw shark! It was a nurse shark though, which according to the reef fish guidebook only bite when provoked. It was still over five feet long and was Paul's first shark ever, which I found hard to believe since he has been diving for eight years. I was also excited to see a barracuda that was at least two and a half feet long. It was in the cave next to the twin tanks and I only got a glimpse of it though. Like always, we also sawplenty of brightly colored fish.

On the way back, we stopped at a beautiful sand bar that you could actually stand up on to your waist. It was covered with cushion stars and white sea urchins. I even saw two queen conches mating! Well, I guess it's the season because there is a veda on them right now.