So remember back in April or so, I said that I came home one day and they had plowed the not-so-smooth tarmac road near my house. Well, all this time the dirt has been sitting and basically drying out (it is dry season), causing more dust (I mean MUCH MORE!) and just being a nuisance. Well, once in a while they actually do come back and plow it some more, adding another inch or so of dirt. But it isn't like they're working on this thing daily. I think it is a side job for someone and when they feel like plowing for an hour, they come over and re-plow.
So part of the problem, besides the massive dust, is that at on part of the road 2 properties had actually built their security walls into the road itself, making a 2 lane road into 1 1/3 wide. You can technically squeeze 2 vehicles through there, but not if one is a big truck.
I assumed with corruption as rampant as it is at times here, someone had been paid off and the city was going to leave the "stolen" meter or so in the hands of the 2 people who had put their cement walls there. Nope. This week, I came down that road again and- well- talk about a mess!
The 2 walls had been plowed out! Cement, stone, rocks, etc. were scattered all over the road and those 2 walls were completely knocked down! The mess was still there, and a lot of people were standing around kind of staring and discussing the situation. Either the 2 neighbors didn't pay a bribe to keep their walls, or they didn't pay enough... either way, the City Council (in charge of roads here, amongst other things) knocked the walls out.
While I was pleased to see the road would finally be the right width (well, when the road is actually finished), I felt bad that the people's walls were seemingly destroyed in such a callous way. So I stopped, which is culturally appropriate, to say "Oh, sorry for this mess" and hadn't gotten to the "What happened?" (of course we know what happened, but that is the way to communicate here- let them tell you the story). Just after I expressed my sympathy to the guy standing there, he turned and said, "Yeah- there is a water leak!". He didn't even seem to notice that well, um, like 80 yards of wall were completely crumbled into the street! It just seemed so comical to me that he was only focused on the water leaking from a pipe the bulldozer must have hit. The ruined wall was not even on his radar. Interesting (and to me, comical!) perspective.
Now, I bet as they continue to clean up this mess, those 2 plot owners will scrape any bit of advantage they can. I can easily see them putting new walls up, and leaving the mess of rock and cement behind in the roadway, in order to "teach the city council a lesson". Sometimes it seems that is how things get done here, so that is why I say it that way. I'll keep you posted. And you know I'll be celebrating if they ever actually do pave the road again and not just push the dirt around!