January 14 to 16- My first visit to an Ecuadorian Doctor

Since I had left Arizona back in April 2011, I had not had a medical checkup nor had my blood work done. Even though I felt great with no problems and lots of energy, I thought I had better get a checkup now rather than wait until I actually had a problem.

So I set about finding a doctor in the Salinas area who at least spoke some English. My Spanish although getting marginally better was not up to medical terms etc.

I asked my local Expats on both Expat Exchange and those I hung out with personally. The same doctor was recommended by two different people so I set out to make an appointment.

The first difference from North America is that there is no Doctor’s office to call. You are given the doctor’s personal cell phone and email address. I emailed him about a date and called the day before to confirm.

Next big difference is that instead of me going to his office, he came to my home. He arrived early and came with a huge medical bag that he later explained to me was for those with medical emergencies. He was very nice, spoke passable English and wore a great tea shirt with cartoon dog characters with the headings ‘Bray’s Anatomy’. Ok, so far so good.

I gave him copies of my last blood work and he took my blood pressure. My concern was that that was all he did. No asking about my life style- did I smoke, drink, exercise- or my family history- nada! No listening to my heart, checking my ears etc. No checking my weight (and why did that upset me-LOL) or my eating habits. On the other hand, I’m at the advanced age of 66- maybe he figured whatever habits I had, by this time I should know better.

  Then he filled out the sheet for my blood tests plus a prescription for some high blood pressure pills and he was on his way. I was to get the blood work done at a local clinic in the next town, La Libertad, send them to him and he would discuss any concerns with me. Total bill for the call was $30.

The next morning, after fasting through breakfast- no food, no coffee! - we took a taxi to La Libertad. The clinic was very easy to find per his instructions. I went in, was taken immediately into an office, asked for some identification (I had a colour copy of my passport), had my doctor’s request input into a computer and given a bill of $45! Wow! My last blood work in the USA had cost $500 of which $79 was my co-pay. I then followed the nurse into a cubicle, he checked both arms deciding which had bigger veins I guess, had a pressure strap placed on the right arm, asked to make a fist, swabbed with disinfectant and my blood was drawn. I was then told that my results would be ready that afternoon.

Instead of going back that same day, we went back next morning and picked up the results. Three pages of tests all pretty clear showing my results and the healthy average much like back home. Mission accomplished!

 

January 3, 2013- Paying our Property Taxes

On January 3^rdwe had planned to meet our friend Eddie at the municipal building in Salinas in order to pay our 2013 property taxes. We decided to pay them as early as we could because our lawyer Sebastian had emailed us that the Government office doing our Residency Visa now wanted our 2013 receipt.

It seems that last year’s tax receipt, which they already had, did not have our name on it. Ok, no problem! Eddie was going with us to do our Spanish translation as I thought  we may have a problem. Bureaucracy is next to godliness in Ecuadorian government!

Because everyone who paid their property taxes during the first 15 days of January received a 10% discount (discounts went down in a sliding scale as the weeks/months progressed) the line-up at the caja was huge. When it was finally our turn, Eddie asked the woman employee to check that our names were on the property record on her computer. Indeed Uwe’s was but not mine!!! We had our deed/registration papers with both names but she couldn’t change and she sent us to yet another line-up.

When again it was our turn, the gentleman employee said yes, our registration papers looked fine but he could not change the computer, we would have to talk to the manager. Into the back office we went to yet another line-up- patience… patience….

This time there were only 2 people ahead of us. The manager checked our papers and yes, everything looked good, he would talk to both employees we had talked to already.

When he returned after talking to the first person we had lined up at he told us that she had made an error- both our names were indeed on the property record in the computer- she just hadn’t scrolled down far enough.

Back to the first line-up which by now was at least 3 times as long. Patience… patience..

Eddie being even more impatient than me went back in the manager’s office and convinced him to let us get back in the front of this very long line.

Finally finally we paid our $218.45 yearly property tax for our 2100 Sq Ft condo, got our receipts with BOTH our names on it and were on our way. Patience… patience… LOL

What would we ever do without our amigo Eddie! Our obvious new year’s resolution is to LEARN SPANISH so that we could become more independent.

 

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December 31 & January 1- New Year in Salinas

The week before New Year’s , the local people started  collecting/making/buying their dummies-viejo anos- to be burned  at 12 o’clock on New Year’s Eve. I blogged about this custom last year as the same was done in Cuenca and all over Ecuador. In Salinas, the dummies looked far less home-made, more like cartoon characters, soccer players or super heroes.

http://www.cuencahighlife.com/post/2012/12/28/Ecuadorian-tradition-the-New-Years-Eve-burning-of-the-dummy-clears-the-slate-for-2009.aspx

 

Here are a few near the Naval Base street corner.

As we walked along the Malecon, several could be seen decorating balconies

As New Year’s approached, the beach became more and more busy, much like it had been during Carnival. As well, almost every condo in our building and surrounding buildings became occupied by their absentee owners. Most of these buildings are second homes to well off Ecuadorians mostly from Guayaquil. They usually only come during the ‘high’ season- New Year’s to Carnival in February. In the two provinces,  ours, Santa Elena, and Guayas, that the large city  of Guayaquil is in, have  summer vacation for their children in February, much like July and August back home.

We had been told that a huge long fireworks show would be held all along the beaches on New Year’s and that last year one million visitors partied in Salinas. We made the wise decision to stay home and watch the festivities from the privacy of our balconies. We also decided on a simple meal of home-made pizza and were soon ready to enjoy the display.

As the evening progressed, more and more cars came. Parking was soon filled up to three blocks past the beach. The sidewalk along Chipipe beach was also covered with lawn chairs rented to all those visitors who wanted to watch right on the beach,

We did take a short walk along our street just to get a feel for what was happening. Everyone was in a great party mood- adults and children all gathered  to watch the show.

Here is our condo dummy waiting his turn to burn

Here is the New Year’s crowd on the Main Malecon

The fireworks started about 8-8:30PM and continued all along both beaches, the main Malecon beach and our beach Chipipe, for hours. Uwe and I alternated between two of our balconies, one overlooking Chipipe beach and the other overlooking the main Malecon beach. The display was amazing! Thousands and thousands of dollars must have been spent. Here the rich people try to outdo each other in their fireworks to the benefit of all us watchers.

We stayed up until at least 3AM watching this spectacle, consuming way too much vodka.

At 5AM we woke up to incredibly loud music coming from one of the houses behind our building. It continued until at least 9AM and moved us out of our beds far too early.

Welcome to the New year 2013!