Summer Projects

Our house is still “packaged up” in storage, still vacant and the contractors are STILL working on the renovations that snowballed and took on a life of their own. At the end of August it will be exactly one year since I started these renovations – apart from having a gorgeously fresh new house all updated to the nines, is the fact that the sour real estate market that existed when I started the renos is now a very positive seller’s market in my area. The interest rates are very appealing right now as well. It is practically a brand new house now. The renovations were extensive: brand new flooring throughout, wallpapered/freshly painted throughout, new lighting fixtures, new furnace, new water heater, new appliances, new skirting boards, new decks, new balconies, new kitchen counter tops, new cabinetry, new sinks and faucets throughout, entirely new bathroom, foundation repaired (yes flooding due to all the rain storms was a set back), chimney repaired, etc. We tried to do what renos we could ourselves to save the money – thanks to my handy parents! So, now in light of the fact that we have about four months before I would leave for El Salvador, the heat is really on the last contractor to finish up the last reno that is taking place on this bloody house so I can pop it on the market and get it sold!!




Trinity is still loving her time in El Salvador – although she does miss her sister. But no amount of begging will seem to pry Avalon away from my hips to join them down in El Salvador. Avalon is busy this summer attending a Theatre Arts Programme at Theatre Aquarius in another city that is close to us – Hamilton. She is becoming a “Triple Threat – Dancing, Singing and Acting” and all up in her own koolaid!

Avalon and I are flying down to El Salvador in August for a three week visit. I will now use it as an opportunity to start applying/sorting out work permits, resident status, (whatever it is we need to transition smoothly), research affordable schools for the girls and get them registered in a school. Thank god for the internet in assisting us with planning this stuff.



Douglas thinks that he has found a nice little Bilingual Parochial Private All Girl's school for them, so we will be able to investigate it further when I am down there. From what I can ascertain, the Public School system in El Salvador is substandard; some schools not able to even afford desks or books for their students, so unfortunately this is not an option. As well, they don’t speak Spanish, so of course that would have been an extreme challenge for them. They attended Bilingual (English/French) school up here in Canada, so we were hoping that it would help them to pick up the Spanish a bit easier. The admission fees for a Bilingual Private School in El Salvador are a few thousand, depending on the school and the fees range from $4000.00 a year all the way up to $15,000.00 per year. Yikes!



Douglas is in the process of trying to find a larger home for us near El Tunco - one that isn't so isolated and "open concept" that invites all the bugs and scorpions in. Trinity is having fun looking through all the homes and telling me all about them and which one she prefers.

African Lion Safari

We have season's passes to African Lion Safari - so we have been trying to get our money's worth and have been quite a few times now.  Besides a water park, animal shows, train ride etc., there is the actual "safari" where you drive your vehicle through animal enclosures - but really we are the ones enclosed in the vehicle watching the animals roam free.

The baboons are the best! They jump all over your vehicle - sometimes they poop on it! They always sit on the side mirrors hoping you will feed them a morsel.  We were naughty and fed them a granola bar.

 

Queen Birdie

King of the Jungle having a nap!

An elephant ride  - her name is Lilly!

 We drive past these sunflower fields on the way home - we had to refrain from picking them!

Update on Fingerprints

So I finally received a return phone call from the RCMP.  It took 8 emails and 4 phone messages before I received this phone call. 

This RCMP officer told me that although they had received his information April 5th, they did not assign it to anyone until June 18th.  From the date of June 18th it will take in EXCESS of 140 days to process!!! So I guess that RCMP officer that I spoke with over 3 weeks ago did lie to me then. I am such a fool, I didn't ask his name. He had told me that we should be recieving the fingerprints in 1 week's time. So this "limbo time" is at least four months long - I daren't think of how much longer it may actually take. The most annoying thing is that if he were here in person, he could have done his fingerprints electronically and it would have taken them 24 hours to process. 

I explained our situation again and asked politely if there was anyway of speeding it up a bit for him, since the majority of people requesting fingerprint clearances are living in Canada.  Unfortunately, she was not one of these people who is able to think outside the box and have a bit of  a heart.  I have emailed my MP to see if they can assist at all in speeding this up, but I don't have very high hopes for this.

Once we receive these fingerprints, the next departmental application has a noted waiting time of 6-12 months, although in a phone conversation with them, they assured me that it would probably be a 6 month waiting time. Once they have completed their processing, it then all goes back to the Guatemala Immigration department - at that office I am completely in the dark as to how long it would take them to finalyze his Spousal Application. His medicals expire in September, so we are now going to have to redo these again! So bloody annoying.

Obviously this saga is taking much longer than we had originally anticipated.  The inefficiency of each Department that we come up against and rely on for processing has forced my hand. So, I have arranged for an official "leave of absence" of one year starting on Dec. 1st, 2010 so that we can all be together as a family while we wait for Douglas' Canadian Permanent Resident card.  

Red Tape Frustration

When I bump into friends and acquaintances who ask if Douglas is back yet they're surprised to hear that he is still awaiting his Canadian Residency papers in El Salvador. It's now been about 15 months since Douglas left for El Salvador and we re-submitted his Immigration papers for Spousal Sponsorship.  Every step in this  process has been like pulling teeth from a lion.  Douglas got a major run-around when trying to obtain a fingerprint screen/criminal check in El Salvador (you would think he was the first person to ever request this!), but Canada is no better.

The Immigration office that we have to deal with is the one located in Guatemala City.  On numerous occasions I have emailed them, faxed them, and sent letters via snail mail to check on the progress of the application.  I have never got a response from them. We have only ever heard from Guat Immigration office ONCE in the past 15 months.  The only reason I even know that they sent a letter to him in El Salvador was because, periodically,  I have our Member of Parliament get in touch with the Guat office to check on the status of things.  In February, they apparently mailed a letter to him (which he never received) asking him for a page full of various documents etc in order to proceed.  Some of these things were police clearances. 

I had to obtain a local police check for him - five officers, many visits/ phone calls to the station and many weeks later - finally obtained the piece of paper to say that he was "all clear".  What was the big problem? Well, it seems that it was against protocol to search the database and release a form saying "No criminal record" unless the person (Douglas) was actually physically in front of them.  I explained over and over that I didn't even need to see the form, I just needed them to do the check and mail it to the Immigration dept in Guatemala.  I submitted all sorts of documents from Immigration Canada showing proof that he had left the country as part of this whole saga, provided four different forms of ID copies NOTARIZED by the Canadian Embassy in San Salvador, his fingerprint form notarized by a Salvavadoran police station - I was still coming up against a brick wall. So, short of cutting his fingertips off and having them mailed back to Canada, I had done everything I could.  I think in the end, they got tired of me harrassing them - finally the day came that I was able to cross this off my "to do" list - they released the police check. YAY!!

Next step was the RCMP check for all of Canada. Acccording to the website, processing times are "in excess of 140 days".  I sent our original fingerprint form from El Salvador via registered mail over 3 months ago, so got in touch with them via phone message and email to make sure they have the file and are working on it.  After numerous emails, I finally received a response that went like this: "No, we can't locate his file, but it doesn't mean we don't have it."  Ya, I know, sort of unbelievable for a government organization - but wait, no maybe it is believable.  I kept persisting, explaining that with each month that passes, it is another month that we are not together as a family.  I have received three emails in total from them, all of the same template, all saying the same thing.  I have left numerous voicemail messages as well.  Finally received a call three weeks ago from an RCMP officer who confirmed that they had the file and I should receive the documents in about a week.  Then two days ago, I recieved another response from them via email (from an email I sent weeks ago) saying the same thing - "no, can't find it, doesn't mean we don't have it though."  So, which is it?  As I have not received the documents, again, I have started emailing and leaving voicemail messages demanding that they just clear this up and confirm once and for all if they have the documents.  I would hate to think that we have just wasted three months on this and have to start over again, but I would rather not waste ANOTHER three months waiting to find out.  So, with regards to Douglas' Immigration status - he is "approved in principal" and we are in a holding pattern tied up in red tape. For how long is the big question.

"Orange Alert" in El Salvador

Before she left Canada, Trinity had asked Douglas if she should bring her "Wellies" (Wellington Boots) with her to El Salvador.  He had told her not to, as her feet would get too hot inside the boots.  Too bad we listened! The poor kid has seen an exorbitant amount of rain & storms since landing there.  Tropical storm "Agatha" was first and then the remnants of "Alex".  The country experienced flooding, mudslides, some deaths and an "Orange Alert" was called by the government.

The casa was built very quickly - & me thinks building codes are not the same down there! Unfortunately, every time it rains heavily, it leaks into her room.  So, Douglas is sweeping the water out every day - hopefully, when the rains ease off, it will be repaired. 

The little village they are living in  - Playa El Tunco - experienced quite a bit of damage.  Erica's restaurant was left "lopsided" due to the high winds and the "sitting area" behind  the cafe, Dale Dale, apparently was swept away in the storm into the ocean. Apparently, the other day the water was almost up to their knees in some parts of town. So, there is rebuilding all around them right now that impedes Douglas from actually opening the Salon.  Otherwise, the salon (Onyx Hair Studio) is furnished and ready to go!

Douglas & Trinity sent some pics to me through the iPhone of the water levels. In the first picture of my cutie petutie, you can see how there is very little water (note her Iguana clinging to her purse) - then in the next picture I have doodled an "X" to indicate the exact place that she was standing only a few days before (in the first pic) with the low water level.  Wow! What a difference!

Sound of Music Festival 2010

We love to attend the "Sound of Music Festival" every year in Burlington.  It is touted as being one of the best 100 festivals in Canada. We started the annual Thursday to Sunday Festival off with attending the big concert - Vancouvers' "Mariana's Trench". We were squished with 25,000 other people that wanted to hear them! The sea of people in Spencer Smith Park was unbelievable.  I'm surprised nobody fell in the lake!

 

Little people like Avalon couldn't see much and didn't much like being stuck in the crowd!  But she did enjoy the parade with all the floats and marching bands galore and the carnival rides!

We loved the Caribana festivities the best!

 

                            

                                                                              
                                      

There were lots of vendors (love my vendors!) - these roses look real - but they are actually wooden!

 

Avalon always loves the rides - a bit difficult when she is an "only child" now! Hee Hee - I had to join her on some rides.  Those carnival rides are so expensive! They work out to be about $5.00 each!  

                     

Three days of riding the rides - a busy weekend filled with fun, but we really missed her "sister-in-crime, 

Trinity"! It's hard being an only child - especially when you need a partner for the rides!

Rumblings

 

Well, this will be pretty boring to all you Latin Americans - but here in Ontario today we had a rare occurrence - we had an earthquake and it was the "talk of the town".  It measured 5.0.  It's epicenter was in Quebec and felt all the way to Ohio. I was in my office in a very large concrete/steel University building, sitting in front of my computer when everything started swaying including me in my chair, my computer, the plants and pictures on the wall. It was a bit surreal and I thought for a second that perhaps I was not "right" and my equilibrium was "off".  That is, until someone shouted out "Does anyone else feel that? Is this an earthquake?". So, it was the excitement of the day. There were some buildings evacuated as well, but no damage or injuries reported anywhere.

Father's Day 2010

I was trying to find a half decent image of JUST my Dad, or my sister and I with my Dad.  We had such a busy fIurry of children around us on Sunday during our "Father's Day Dinner"(great dinner!), that I forgot to get a snap of us with our Dad only.   I have so few images of my Dad not without my Mum.  They are an adorable couple that is ALWAYS together.  So, here is a pic of MY wonderful Daddy!

A Very Memorable Fathers Day for Douglas !

I was really relieved this year that Douglas had Trinity with him for Father's Day.  This is his second Father's Day in El Salvador. They had a great day together, but incredibly memorable! When I was speaking with Douglas he told me that he had decided to go to bed early that night as things always happen in three's right?

First thing that happened was he almost drowned in the Pacific.  They went to a different part of the ocean where there are tidepools and caves.  Now, swimming in the rough El Salvadoran coast is a very big concern for me - many phone lecture/warnings have proceeded Trinity flying down there. Apparently, they were being pulled into this tide pool.  Douglas threw Trinity to the shore area; she got scratched by the rocks on her tummy and apparently while Douglas was then trying to get to shore, she kept thinking that her Daddy was going to die on Father's Day! He managed to get to shore. 

The second thing that happened was that Douglas was stung by a scorpion! Ya, panicville. Where is the closest medical clinic??? Oh, only 1/2 an hour away in San Salvador.  His hand flared up for a bit, but it was okay later on as the evening went on. So, this past week has been filled with bats landing on the kitchen counters, poisonous cane toads under the chairs, scorpions running around on the kitchen floor and huge bugs flying everywhere. Hence, why he decided it would be safer to go to bed early! (But, hey, at least he has Trinity and a great ocean view!)

Can I bring him home?

First came the email with this adorable picture of herself and this cute little chow/boxer cross. Then she phoned me and "Mummy can I buy him?" ensued for 10 minutes! Trinity and Daddy were at Metro Centro where the dogs are sold outside on the street by all kinds of people. They went home empty handed - thank goodness!! (But of course, he is adorable!)