Meaning to Life | Exotic Caribbean

Posts Tagged ‘Calle Abraham Nunez’

Sunday, July 11, 2004
With reference to garbage-free streets our thoughts strayed off to the famous spotlessly clean streets of Switzerland and Singapore when the local council’s magistrate stated that here in Boca Chica too it is strictly against the law to throw garbage into public thoroughfares. We were very pleased, indeed relieved, to hear this at a meeting held this week in the principal office of the local Boca Chica council.
With this pronouncement as the starting point we felt very hopeful that a garbage disposal problem in our vicinity that has been gnawing at us for all too long could be resolved fairly soon. The problem is a simple one: irresponsibility. Incomprehensibly it is not even the usual adage of “not in my back yard” that applies, for there are four businesses in our immediate vicinity who have been consistently throwing all kinds of garbage into our common street area precisely in their and our own back yard. We are pleased though to be able to report that general garbage collection improved markedly with the introduction of an almost unfailing daily pick up when the council distributed a set of garbage disposal rules as far back as early 2001. However this has merely served to make our very local problem even more pronounced.
After numerous approaches and complaints one of the local council officers took it upon himself to circulate a letter of invitation to the meeting… at least we presume it started out as a circular although we never saw any other copy than that received by our friend in another affected neighboring business, Restaurant Verde Luna. We pounced upon this long-awaited opportunity and breathed new life into the circular by copying it and handing it on. At the appointed hour on Tuesday morning there were four representatives of the affected area, notably all only because of our circular-regenerating effort, and predictably none of the alleged street trashers were present.
Fortunately for us the council officers and the magistrate took the matter, having photographic evidence placed in their hands, seriously and called for representatives from the four alleged street despoilers. Three of the four were found and the magistrate spelt the situation out very clearly: that what they were doing is against the law and that if anybody is seen doing the like again it should be reported directly to him for it is he who has the authority to send the police and apply sanctions. There was talk of fines being applied, also of more punctual garbage collection and even of a public sign being erected for information purposes, but more importantly the meeting broke up in positive mood with more than one of the former miscreants acknowledging how good it would be for even for their own business if the back yard were to be kept just as clean as the front yard.
We were left to ponder just two things: how would a Swiss or Singaporean local council have handled the three year ebb and flow of street garbage and what actually happened to the original circular of meeting invitation?

Meanwhile seven years later:
We may be critical, though usually with tongue in cheek, of organizational difficulties from time to time in these parts but it has to be said garbage collection has maintained its high level of efficiency ever since those awkward days.

Friday, October 24, 2003
Calle Abraham Nunez where we are located is a very short uncomplicated street; and when we moved in we asked the local postman what number the property was. “No. 3”, he said very forthrightly. All right, we thought, #3 it is! Nice simple number, we are more or less at the beginning of the street and above all the postman recognized it as such.
We haven’t had any difficulties with being #3 in general, but merely observed that the water company has us down as #13, the cable TV company as numberless and the electricity company as #8. However, further to this we couldn’t help noticing the other day a very large #52 being painted on the wall of a restaurant next door but one to us! We do know it is a situation not entirely rare around these parts but we mention it by way of backdrop to an even more entertaining story I heard at the bar the other day from a friend and customer. He owns a restaurant in Calle Caracol… one of the principal streets leading from the high street up to the main freeway running between Santo Domingo and San Pedro. He has always believed that his property was #15 only to discover that Hotel Hamilton almost opposite also uses #15. He was further surprised to then discover that the florist shop some doors down on his own side also uses #15. He visited the post office to try and point out what he thought was a ludicrous situation. The post master said “Well, actually that isn’t too bad because if you carry on up your road and cross the freeway there are actually fourteen #24s.”

Meanwhile seven years later:
After some considerable time had passed we discovered that #3 Calle Abraham Nunez was not unique to us either. Calle Abraham Nunez had indeed been a long coastal road in days gone past and although it appeared to begin a few yards to the east of us that in fact was merely the recommencement of a road that could be trailed well beyond and out of sight beyond the hotel Hamaca. We have yet to learn exactly how many #3s exist in that parallel universe.