The weather breaks

I was able to walk today with a short break in the relentless rainy weather. I wandered around to see the progress of the construction going on here on Tinian.

Here is a beautiful sidewalk of inlaid stones.

The new Tinian hardware is open, so I went in to check it out. They are still working on stocking the shelves. They have a little wood, some metal roofing, boxes of nails and screws, etc., and lots of odds and ends. There are now two hardware stores on Tinian!

Terri is taking a break at Taga beach during one of our morning walks (we can walk together occasionally, now that she takes a couple of mornings off).

The newest home on Tinian looks ready to move in!

Here are the other new homes, that are beginning to have that 'lived-in' look

This newly finished home is already starting on a new project:

Starting a two-car garage

The new amphitheater continues to be worked on. They continue to tie together all the rebar that will be buried under concrete in the main beams of the structure.

The roads continue to erode away with all the rain

They continue to work on the road through town

Since they are widening the road, they have to take down a few trees...but if they don't hurry, these trees will be fully grown again before they are done!

Tinian does clean-up well after a rain

To my surprise, I found a crew planting new flowering bushes all along Broadway as it goes up the main hill to the airport! I had understood that the brick/planters that they were installing along Broadway was to go all the way up to the airport...perhaps they have changed their minds.

Other crews continue to try to clean-up and finish the new medians that have been built at the bottom of the hill on Broadway

And another crew continues to install the pavers--cutting all the small pieces that 'fill-in' the gap between the full pavers and the planters

It's the rainy season here on Tinian, which means that walking around the island can be tenuous at best...at least if you want to stay dry! It is still amazing how hard it can rain here--cats and dogs does not describe it adequately...perhaps cows and kangaroos? Often it is deafening as the rain hits the buildings and the leaves on the plants and trees that surround us.

Terri has started to 'schedule' patients at the clinic. It was standard procedure for people to just 'show up' at the clinic, and be seen in order of when they arrive. But this often ended up with days that were overbooked and days that were very slow. So, after the Mayor and the Clinic director asked Terri to see if she could arrange to work out a schedule so that the clinic could be open in off-hours (at night and on the weekends), she implemented a new procedure at the clinic where people actually call for appointments. She also adjusted her schedule so that one night a week (Tues.) she goes in to work at 11 am and stays until 7:30 pm. And then she works Saturday morning and takes Monday morning off. So far this has worked well. The appointments has actually helped spread-out the work load so that Terri is booked every day, and yet is not overwhelmed. In addition, people who cannot come to the clinic during the day have the option of coming either Tues night or Sat morning. They may decide to extend the off-hours further, or modify the schedule further, depending on how this works out.