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April 28 The "lease renewal" ritualWe have a couple of properties. One is located in the Seattle area managed by a property management company; the other is in the Washington, D.C. area and managed by us remotely from Paraguay. Each year about this time we go through an odd mating ritual known as the "lease renewal." We would love to have long-term tenants in both places, but alas, we have to lease them from year to year. Our Seattle property is leased by a company that provides corporate housing for a major corporation. They take good care of the house and are dependable, although they keep us on the hook from year to year and renegotiate at the last minute. The property management company does a decent job taking care of our Seattle place, but they charge a large fee up front each year for "finding" a tenant that renews the contract each year, and they charge a monthly service fee to boot. It adds up. We don't have many headaches with the place but don't see as much rent as we would like.
Because we manage the Virginia property ourselves, we don't have to pay a property management company to manage the property (we retain a local legal representative as required by law but manage it virtually ourselves -- well, I do anyway). The tradeoff of course is that we have to manage the property remotely. We rent to our colleagues and have developed rapport with each of them, allowing to work together in the event of difficulties with the home. Nevertheless, owning a rental and managing it yourself is a challenge, especially if you live thousands of miles away from the property. Whenever the tenant needs a repair, we're on the phone right away to get the house back in order. Finding a new tenant is another challenge entirely. So far we've been very fortunate to have lined up tenants fairly easily. Because they're our colleagues, we can advertise within the greater community and find someone whose timing and price match ours. We have been very fortunate over the past three years. We're negotiating with prospective new tenants right now and should be able to work something out with them. This happens every year, and each year I wonder whether I should just throw in the towel and hire a local property management company. Then I think--why would I every want to spend so much for some company to do so little? Doing it myself is worth the trouble. April 27 Not quite like AmericaWe just received one more small shipment of items from the United States. We've been here over ten months and are still receiving shipments. The reason is that my wife started working full time here and went to the states late last year for a few months of training. Her household and personal items are still arriving via ship. As such, we haven't quite moved in completely even though we're approaching the half-way point in our journey here. I still have not finished hanging wall hangings like photos, tapestries, and pictures, leaving the house with a half-finished look and feel. I wish I could hammer in a few nails and hang them up, but it isn't that easy.
Homes here in Paraguay are made with brick. The walls don't have soft materials such as insulation, wood frames, or sheetrock. Nope, the walls are just brick with rebar reinforcements. As such, hanging wall hangings requires drilling holes, inserting plastic anchors, and screwing in screws that serve as hangers. I finally found a store that sells what I need and bought a few packages last night. As is frequently the case here, finding things such as plastic anchors with screw sets is a logistical challenge (usually word of mouth and trial and error). There are no Home Depot or Lowe's stores around the corner. I went to three places looking for these items and finally found some hanger sets in a grocery store. Go figure. Now that I have them, I need to get to work. That will take a few hours of measuring, drilling, hammering, screwing, and hanging. Inconvenience and spending extra time to do things that aren't that difficult to do in the states is just one reason why I miss the United States.
Let me give you another example to illustrate my point. Our bicycles arrived with the latest shipment. I was trying to prep the tires but could not find a tire pressure guage at home that works (we have two, and they're broken). I've been to four stores here locally, including two tire shops, a bicycle shop, and a home store, and none of them sell a tire pressure guage. I asked one store clerk what Paraguayans do to measure tire pressure, and he responded, "We go to the gas station." OK, well, that's fine for a car. But what if you want to measure the tire pressure of a bicycle tire? I guess the answer would be, "Go to Argentina!" April 26 Five generationsTonight I'm posting a photo of five generations of my family. The photo is a collage that includes my son, me, my father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. Five generations of boys. My grandmother passed away last year, and my aunt sent me an assortment of her photos, including of my great-grandfather I had never seen. (His name was "Greenup," which is fitting for a man who was a farmer his entire life.) I located and shrunk some of our best photos and strung them together. Do you see any similarities between us? I made the collage for my son, who will not remember his grandfather. He passed away in 2006 when my son was very young, just as my grandfather died when I was very young. This is a collage to hand down to posterity. I'm not a big genealogy geek, but I do enjoy preserving history.
Over the next few weeks -- assuming I find opportunities to update this blog -- I'll post some photos of our time in Paraguay. I am way behind on my posting.
Blog Note: We finally settled on a birthday place for my son. We found a place much cheaper than the other options. Cheap wasn't the only factor -- it offers pretty much the same amenities as the expensive places without the high cost. We'll probably do a small birthday barbeque for him in addition to the birthday party. I'm glad the option we chose is affordable and minimal work. April 25 The birthday partyMy, my, my. I posted a blog entry three days in a row. I don't know what's wrong with me. :-) Maybe I'm finally getting a life. Or perhaps it's because the Paraguayan election ended last Saturday. Either way, it feels good to back writing away. I missed this blog. I always had it in mind to come back and write but did not have the wherewithall to do it. So here I am at long last.
Our son's birthday is coming soon, and we're in full birthday planning mode (I'll write a family update entry soon). My wife and I talked about what to do for him. Of course, she has been taking the lead on the birthday preparations; bless her heart. We're finding the options prohibitively expensive. She told me tonight that the option she was looking at will cost over US$600. Another option would cost about US$800. I love my son dearly, but common sense tells me that that is a lot of money. The weakening dollar does not help matters. Two years ago the U.S. dollar was 50 percent stronger against the Paraguayan guarani than it is now, so the options are much more expensive than in the past. Granted, Paraguayan children's birthday parties tend to be lavish affairs (depending on your income level). Girls' 15th birthday parties (quinceaños) are especially grandiose. For US$600, one can rent an entire building--there are quite a few "fun places" that host birthday parties. Chuck 'E' Cheese and McDonald's Birthday Room they are not. You get far more here for your money.
Still, I do not relish keeping up with the Duartes. The people that host these lavish birthday parties tend to be more affluent and have a lot of discretionary money to spend. Interestingly, they tend to spend the money without trying to one-up each other. My son attends birthday parties three or four times per month and goes to the same "fun places" with the same 30 or so children over and over...and over. I'm not interested in having a birthday party to please my son's friends or their parents. I would rather give my son something more memorable that costs a lot less. Last year he had a wonderful birthday party in our apartment complex in Virginia. I am leaning toward having a more intimate party here at home with a barbeque, presents, cake, prizes for the kids, a piñata, and "globos locos" -- large, blow up amusements. My son will have a party he won't forget if for nothing else than it will be different than the overpriced ones he attends almost weekly. April 24 Lugo wins presidencyThis is already old news, but I should document for posterity that Fernando Lugo of the Patriotic Alliance for Change (APC) won the presidency April 20, defeating Colorado presidential candidate Blanca Ovelar and National Union of Ethical Citizens candidate Lino Oviedo.
The Colorado Party, which had occupied the presidency for the past 61 years -- a world record -- lost for a variety of reasons. Lugo had been the leading presidential candidate for over a year since I before I heard him speak at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and was favored to win. However, Lugo had to overcome the weight of 61 years of one-party dominance capped by 35-years of rule by former dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Over 2.8 million Paraguayans voted in the election, and Lugo won over 40 percent of the vote, tapping both opposition voters as well as dissatisfied Colorado voters. The mood in Asuncion on Monday -- helped by a nice dose of good weather -- was one of elation for many people (but not all--most of all the Colorados who lost). One Paraguayan told me in astronishment, "This is the first time in my life that the Colorados haven't been in power." That's a true statement for most Paraguayans. In the United States, we talk of the Republicans or Democrats being in power for too long, but we measure this in years. In Paraguay, party rule is measured in decades, where the Colorados ruled for 61 years, and before that, the Liberals ruled for 40 years. It remains to be seen whether Lugo will have a successful presidency and set up the APC and Liberals for long-term rule or whether the Colorados will regroup in time for the next election in 2013.
I'm just happy to have been in the front row watching history happen. April 23 It's about time I posted an entryWell, Dear Reader, what could I ever write to explain what's happened down here in Paraguay over the past five months? I wish I could write many happy adjectives like "nice, fun, and adventurous," but no, life here has not been all that. I have pretty much been down and out since I arrived here and haven't been in much of a mood to correspond; hence, I haven't posted any new entries on my blog since November. As they say, if you cannot say something nice, don't say anything at all.
Much has happened over the past few months, both good and bad. I have turned a corner and will try to focus on the positive. I am hoping that this will not be yet another failed attempt to start writing again. I would prefer that I take the time to break from that which does not matter so much in the long run and focus more on what will give me peace of mind. Writing is like that. Writing can be cathartic. Writing is a way to disgorge what is rattling upstairs in your brain and dispensing it to whomever takes the time and has the interest to read it.
As a peace offering to help make up for my long absence, I'll refer you to something I wrote over several months earlier this year. It's an article in State Magazine's May edition featuring Asuncion, Paraguay. My personal sentiments of this place do not match the tenor of the article, but you can read it for yourself. If it inspires you to try and work or visit here, by all means seek my counsel first. I will give you my unvarnished opinion of life on the Island Surrounded by Dirt.
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