...Now where’s our road?
Last Sunday we came home — finally — after the usual long trip between our two countries: a flight from Toronto to San Jose. Overnight in SJ. Visit, visit, visit. Then 4 hour drive in our crazy truck to Copal, Guanacaste.
We had heard the rain was fierce while we were away, and that the road up to our place suffered. It was reported that there was a hole we needed to watch out for. And when I say the road, I’m talking about a public road here. (You know, the kind the city, community, municipality, whatever, is responsible for.) We’d heard it was rough, so we approached with caution, and this is what we found.
Now of course these photos are taken in daylight. However, we arrived in the dark on Sunday. I drove up this bitch in the dark, perhaps grateful that I couldn’t actually see what was really going on.
In places the road inclines at a 60 – 70 degree angle. So much had washed out the concrete supports beneath were all exposed and we actually mounted steps instead of a road.
Here’s evidence of a previous, home-made road repair uncovered. Why are individuals making road repairs? Where’s the municipality in all this? What’s missing here?
This pipe you see is the water service to three villages below us. This also used to be buried in the road.
Now begins the most interesting process of engaging the authorities here in charge of roads to fix it. Thank god for this pipe, because now it’s in their interest to make sure this gets repaired. No one can dance around and evade the issue of water security.
So far we’ve been in contact with our local rep and she has been to the town council and shown them the pictures. Now we’re writing a letter, getting proper signatures, and hoping to get road building material, delivery, and a back hoe.
But it seems we will be responsible for paying for the labour, however. Unimaginable as that is to me, a girl from Canada, the rest of the town here is wildly impressed with what we’ve managed to secure from the “muni”.
Note to self: find out more about WTF is going on here.
In case you’re curious, this is what the road used to look like. Pretty, huh?
Originally July 2, 2012
Commentaires