This same time, years previous: lemony cream cheese frosting, all practicality, on his own, curry potato salad, rellenitos, the quotidian (7.23.12), in my kitchen, picklehead.

This week a delegation from MDS’s Pennsylvania office is visiting the island. Tuesday afternoon, they came to Ponce.

My husband left the jobsite at the last possible minute, leaving our son in charge of the crew and zipping home to join us for coffee and pastries on the front porch. I’d originally thought I’d make scones for the group, but then it occured to me that since they’re only on the island for a week, they’d probably want to try as much Puerto Rican food as possible, so that morning I took the three younger kids and traveled a little north of town to one of the better bakeries.

I let the kids each pick out a pastry for themselves, and then together we chose a bunch of other stuff. The baker guy, for some reason, was really concerned about any empty space left in the box — Look! Empty space! Buy more! — so I ended up over-buying. Not that I was upset or anything because pastries, duh.

After visiting for a bit, we piled into cars and drove to the jobsite, taking along all the uneaten pastries for the volunteers. When my husband had left to come home, the volunteers were pouring the concrete bond beam around the outside top walls. When we arrived, they were still hard at work.

The three younger kids immediately grabbed hardhats and jumped in feet first, running numbers (unnecessarily, the older son said; let him be, I said), measuring and cutting rebar, washing the cement mixer, cleaning up.

The last time the MDS director had been on the property, Nilda’s house had been a pile of rubble on the ground. He gave a prayer in that spot, Carmen (or one of the other Puerto Ricans? I can’t remember…) told me, gesturing.

It pulled me up short when she said that. Just ten short months ago, this property was the scene of a disaster; now it’s a beehive of activity and hope. So much has changed.

In the trailer, the delegation lingered in the sweet, cool air, listening to my husband hold forth about all things construction.

Then, before they left town for their next stop on their island tour, we all drove up the hill to see Esther, the homeowner whose roof my husband helped to replace last January, because even though Esther lives in the same neighborhood as Nilda, my husband and I had not yet been to visit her. Esther gave me a huge bear hug and then proceeded to show us every nook and cranny of her delightfully cozy and stunningly spotless — and sturdily roofed! —  house.

What a dearheart!

This same time, years previous: sweet sixteen, in the kitchen, apricot pie, statements, whole wheat zucchini bread, pasta with roasted tomatoes and summer squash, zucchini parmesan frittata.

Last night all of the kids (my four, plus my daughter’s friend, plus the two teenagers who are volunteering this week) went bowling, and for two hours, my husband and I ate chips (first cheesy chips and salsa and then regular potato chips) and watched Goliath, completely blissed out on the empty-house quiet.

As for Goliath, we’re both hooked. Have you seen it?

Another good show that’s all over the internets (so I’m sure you’ve seen it already and if you haven’t, you better) is Hannah Gadsby’s comedy special Nanette. The first thirty minutes or so I wasn’t too taken, but then — BAM — she started letting loose and I was entranced. Her words are powerful and profound. I want both of my older children to see it now.

We’ve gotten some incredible mileage out of these two books.

Educated is such an engrossing, well-written story — even-handed and gracious — about fanaticism and mental health. Weeks later, I’m still thinking about it.

The War Against All Puerto Ricans is so good that I bought a second copy to keep in the trailer for the volunteers to read (and they are). Our own copy is getting a solid workout — currently, both of my sons and my older daughter are reading it. Understanding the political history helps us to make sense of our surroundings, and it makes for some interesting conversations, too.

Ever since we’ve arrived, we’ve been trying to cut back on our plastic usage. Even though it’s safe to drink the tap water, it doesn’t taste very good, and everyone here buys bottled water. But I couldn’t stand doing that. Working in the sun all day, each person could easily breeze through 8-12 plastic drinking bottles — the waste would be (and was) insane!

So we did a bunch of research and then invested in under-the-sink water filters — one for the volunteer trailer and one for our house.

The volunteers make ice every night and chill pitchers of tap water in the fridge, and then, in the morning, they’re responsible for filling the drinking cooler with the chilled water and ice chunks.

We stocked the trailer with durable plastic cups (and real coffee mugs because coffee tastes best from a mug), plus masking tape and permanent markers to label the cups.

We’ve asked Nilda and Carmen to bring the volunteers’ meals in the cooking pots and serve out of them directly onto the plastic dishes we’ve provided (instead of pre-packaging the food in styrofoam take-out containers), and they agreeably complied. As a result, we’ve now successfully eliminated nearly all plastic waste at the jobsite, whoop!

At our house, we keep two big pitchers in the fridge, filling them from the tap as we go.

The system works like a dream — so much better than constantly refilling the brita pitcher — and the water tastes great to boot.

Ever since we’ve arrived, I’ve been begging my husband to fix the over-the-sink light in the kitchen. He never did, and so we limped along, washing dishes in the near dark. And then a few nights ago I had him wash up a bunch of dishes in the darkening evening light, and wouldn’t you know, within thirty minutes I had a lovely light over the sink.

I guess I should’ve had him do the evening dishes weeks ago.

Remember how when we first came here I complained about a scratchy throat? Well, I mentioned this to a couple Puerto Ricans, and they were like, Yeah, it’s the dust from the Sahara.

Um, excuse me? Dust from the what?

I was sure they were pulling my leg, but they didn’t bat an eye as they explained that millions of pounds of Saharan dust blow over to Puerto Rico each year. The hazy air, the fine grit of dust that’s constantly soiling tables and floors, is all desert sand, they said.

After they left, I looked it up and found out they were telling the truth. Weird, right?

The heat is getting to me. It’s not so bad during the day, but nighttimes are pretty awful. Since the house isn’t insulated, it bakes in the sun all day and then holds the heat at night. The bedrooms in the back of the house — and the master bedroom, especially — turn into ovens. Even with the door open and fans blowing, we can’t drop the temperature. Walking from the breezy front porch into our bedroom, the temperature goes up about ten degrees. We lay in bed, the fan trained on us, and it’s manageable, but dare to get up to pee and the sweating immediately starts.

As a result, the bedroom is untenantable except for sleeping. And even then, not really. The other night, my husband, unable to bear the thought of walking into our room, stayed up till the early morning hours watching movies, and a couple mornings back I woke up so hot that I was nearly in tears. It takes a toll on one’s body and mind, never truly getting a respite from the heat.

And yet, the heat and humidity is not nearly as bad as in Managua, and there I was pregnant and nursing, too. So everything’s relative. We’re fine.

When we first arrived, we noticed that the house and patio were edged with gravel-covered dirt. There was even a garden box full of soil, ready for planting. However, we didn’t have the time or energy to do any gardening. We didn’t even consider it, really.

But now, two-and-a-half months later, the weeds are waist high and I’m kind of kicking myself.

If I’d just plopped a couple plants in the ground — herbs, flowers, maybe a tomato plant or two — they’d be going berserk-o right now. Darn.

This same time, years previous: such a hoot, the quotidian (7.18.16), zucchini fritters, a tale of two children, all partied up, in the pits.