Art for your home

Art is a personal thing and art for your home even more so, every once in a while an artist comes along that captures the vibe of Mexico. Rosy Peraza Rios, paints the colours of the Yucatan and respects traditional values, with her art. If you are moving to the Yucatan and want to brighten up your home or want one of her works for your Museum in Paris. Contact Rosy for authentic Yucatecan art,

artistamexicana@gmail.com

or artistamexicana.blogspot.com

It’s time again, Hurricane season starts June 1 in the Atlantic

Todays weather forecast, shows the first named storm of the Pacific season and it is predicted to be a hurricane. We are lucky to be on the Atlantic side, but no one one wants to have a hurricane visit their area, but they are a fact of life in the tropics. Traditionally, the North coast of the Yucatan has generally been a safe place to be. Due to the geography of the area, which tends to see storms follow the Yucatan channel or lose strength as they cross land. However, there have been a few notable exceptions such as Glibert and Isadora, that did huge amounts of damage. The one good thing about hurricanes is you can see them coming for days and have lots of time to activate your plans. You do have a plan don’t you?  Here in Mexico, once a storm reaches certain proportions and is predicted to hit this area, on the North Coast of the Yucatan, an evacuation order will be given. Once given, it is mandatory that you leave and foolish or fatal if you don’t. You need to do your own homework, to find out where the closest evacuation shelters are and make sure you know how to get to them. For people who have pets, the problem becomes much more difficult, as the shelters do not allow pets. If you are a pet owner , you will need an alternate shelter for you and your pets. Now is the time to canvas friends, to see if they will allow you to bring your pets with you, in the event of an emergency. Remember, you may be stuck there for a week or more, under not so nice conditions, so tempers of both you and your pets might get frayed.

When a hurricane strikes it is not just a case of high wind. Hurricanes also bring massive amounts of moisture and humidity levels skyrocket. It could be 35+ degrees and 100% humidity for days on end, with no electricity for fans or A/C. Anything you get wet, will never ever dry, clothes, pills, papers, NOTHING! Plus mould and mildew will run rampant if unchecked. It will not be pleasant, to spend a week or more in a damp environment, exposed to mosquito’s nightly, along with your wet dogs. The only way to keep your sanity is to be absolutely prepared for the worst and make sure you have a way to keep everything as dry as possible. If you have an alternate place to stay inland and you have a generator. Make sure you have extension cords and spare fuel, also fill your cars gas tank and have a syphon hose. A modern car has 45 or so litres of fuel which can power a small generator for 4 or 5 days of reasonable use. So having a syphon hose handy is a good idea.

Below is a list of suggested items to have handy in the event that a hurricane does arrive. But, even if you head to a friends house or shelter and then return home, you will still need to be prepared. You may be with out power for a long period, if transmission lines are down and there is a good chance your beach home and more likely its contents maybe substantially damaged. Remember, no power means , no city water and fuel stations can’t pump gas, stores won’t have cold storage, etc. Like the Boy Scouts say “Be prepared”.

Here are recommendations on what to do before a storm approaches:

— Use hurricane shutters or board up windows and doors with 5/8 inch plywood. Make them now before you need them!

— Bring outside items in if they could be picked up by the wind, place screws in your tinaco lid, as they tend to fly away.

— Turn the refrigerator to its coldest setting in case power goes off. Use a cooler to keep from opening the doors on the freezer or refrigerator.

— Make sure your cisterna and Tinaco are full and you have 5 or more Garafons of water available.

— Make sure your vehicles fuel tanks are full and you have spare fuel for a generator, also have a siphon hose

— Have an evacuation plan.

— Learn the location of the nearest shelter or nearest pet-friendly shelter. This is a big issue for pet owners in the beach areas.

— Store important documents — passports, Social Security cards, birth certificates, deeds — in a watertight container.

— Have a current inventory of household property.

— Leave a note to say where you are going, IN SPANISH!

— Contact relatives and let then know you maybe out of touch for a week or more.

— Unplug small appliances and electronics before you leave.

— If possible, turn off the electricity, gas and water for your residence.

Here is a list of handy supplies:

— A seven-day supply of water, a minimum of one gallon per person per day.

— Three days of food, with suggested items including: canned meats, canned or dried fruits, canned vegetables, canned juice, peanut butter, jelly, salt-free crackers, energy/protein bars, trail mix/nuts, dry cereal, cookies or other comfort food.

— A can opener and eating utensils

— Flashlight(s) and candles.

— A battery-powered radio.

— Extra batteries.

— A first aid kit, including latex gloves; sterile dressings; soap/cleaning agent; antibiotic ointment; burn ointment; adhesive bandages in small, medium and large sizes; eye wash; a thermometer; aspirin/pain reliever; anti-diarrhea tablets; antacids; laxatives; small scissors; tweezers; petroleum jelly.

— A seven-day supply of personal medications, in waterproof containers.

— A multipurpose tool, with pliers and a screwdriver.

— Cell phones and chargers, laptops are handy if the Wifi in Merida’s parks is still up and running.

— Contact information for the family.

— A hammock setup, for each person, as a bed is almost useless in high humidity and will never dry.

— Extra cash, ATM’s don’t work if the power is off

— Mosquito netting or mosquito coils

— A map of the area, as familiar routes my be closed due to downed trees or other debris.

— Pet supplies.

— Wet wipes, showers may not be an option.

— Insect repellent.

— Rain gear.

— Duct tape.

— An extra set of house keys.

— An extra set of car keys.

— Household bleach, lots of it.

— Toilet paper in zip lock bags or the handy single wrapped Costco rolls.

— Paper cups, plates and paper towels.

— DRY, Charcoal and matches, if you have a portable grill. But only use it outside.

SARRO, coming soon to a waterline near you!

If you have spent any time in the Yucatan, you have heard the word SARRO, probably in a combination of swear words. Sarro is to water systems, as cholesterol is to arteries, it plugs them up.

Saro in spigot filter of tap

Lets start with the basics, Sarro is simply a calcium deposit, also called scale in Canada or the USA. It slowly builds up in the inside of your tinaco and in some points of your piping as well. Till the water slows and eventually stops due to the build up. If you notice your water flow is starting to slow down, sarro is the most likely suspect. Remember when it comes to piping, 1/4 the diameter is a reduction of flow by 1/2. So if you kitchen tap normally delivers 4 gallons a minute a 1/4 reduction will reduce the output to 2 gallons a minute. So it does not take a lot of build up to drastically reduce the flow. The other related problem that creeps up and slowly stops the flow, is small particles of sarro breaking off and going downstream. They eventually end up in the fine wire mesh at the end of the tap spigot. Since it builds up over time you don’t notice the flow decrease, until it is partially blocked. The other place this occurs and I am willing to bet a lot of you do not know you have one, is the washing machine inlet filter. Samsung LG and most washing machines here, have a small fine steel mesh filter inside the coupling, where the water hoses attach to the machine. Usually it has a small tab to grab and you pull it out. If you notice the washer doesn’t fill as fast as it did, now you know why.

Saro taken from a tinaco after 2 years.

But, the issue is what do you do about it? The solution is not difficult, but is time consuming. First you need to drain your tinaco and clean every speck of sarro out of it. It is hard to reach the bottom of the big plastic tinacos, but it has to be done somehow. As they build up a lot of sarro over time and of course pieces break off and plug the works.

One way to avoid some down stream problems is to install a filter just downstream of the tinaco to catch particles as they break off. Just make sure it is easy to access and have spare filters handy. Now once the tinaco is clean, comes the messy and what could be dangerous part. No doubt when you have been in a grocery store here you have seen the shelves lined with Muriatic acid (diluted hydrochloric acid). It is used to dissolve sarro. People pour it in the toilet water tank to dissolve the sarro build up on the flapper valve as an example. The locals also use it to clean out the house water lines. I am not suggesting anyone, not familiar with its use, do this, as acid is dangerous, but this is simply an explanation of the process, in a non pressurized house.  Since muriatic acid dissolves sarro, It is diluted and poured into the plastic piping that exits the tinaco, do not use this method if you have old metal piping in the house or a cement tinaco. There are a few things to remember, if you are using this method. Acid stains stainless steel and dissolves limestone or concrete, so if you were to get any coming out of the tap in the kitchen, it needs to be caught in a bucket or other container. you also need to remove every wire mesh filter from taps and other locations and make sure the washing machine taps are turned OFF and all the other taps open and free to let all the gunk out. Now that everything is ready, what the locals do is just pour the acid in the lines, you will see a lot of bubbling and foaming as the acid dissolves the sarro and it may take many bottles of acid to get all the lines clean. While the lines are being cleaned, people pump the tinaco full of water, in preparation to flush the acid and gunk out of the lines. Once the acid has done its work, which could take an hour or more, depending how bad the lines are. the water is turned back on at the tinaco and the lines well flushed. This process may have to be repeated several times, if the lines are really bad.

For day to day removal of saro around sinks and taps, vinegar also works, but a lot slower. As it is not as powerful of an acid. I have also heard of people pouring a gallon or 2 of White vinegar in the tinaco, in an effort to slowly dissolve saro as the home owner uses up the water. But I have no practical experience with it. There are also commercial products like CLR that will do the same job, but they are more expensive than acid.