Mexico A Go-Go; Negatrons; Covid Spike

[Note: this is another blog based on my weekly emails to my family on the mainland.]

7/24/21 

Aloha Everyone –

Hope you are surviving summer by staying cool, unburnt, and uninfected.

This week we finalized our Mexico plans for September, made a deposit, and booked our flights.  As I mentioned last time, the itinerary is non-standard and very much to our travel preferences.  The area

Mount Alban near Oaxaca

will be quite small by tourist standards, with lots of visits to small towns and villages, architectural sites (this area was the center of Aztec, Zapotec, Mayan, and other civilizations), natural areas (especially a bio-reserve just north of Oaxaca), and we won’t go anywhere near the glitzy Yucatan coastal resorts.  Our two guides are a married team who have been doing this for a number of years. He’s a local-born naturalist who has been a guide for 20 years, and she’s an expat Canadian who is an expert in food, culture, and art.  She’s particular knowledgeable about the famed artist Frida Kahlo and has even written a book about her life and her work.  In short, we are certain we’re in good hands, and we like the fact that we’ll get the perspectives of both a local native and an expat who has adopted Mexico as her home.  (Here’s a link to their tour website, and also one to her personal page: https://discover-oaxaca.com/ and https://www.suzannebarbezat.com/ ). Now all we need is for Covid not to screw this up.  There is a surge in Mexico recently and unfortunately not a lot of people have been vaccinated.  Unlike the US, though, their low rate is because of unavailability of vaccine and lack of infrastructure, not to people choosing to leave themselves unprotected and to infect others as a consequence.

Speaking of that, Hawai’i has seen a dramatic surge in cases in the last few weeks, including on our island.  This is nearly all “community spread”, and about 30% are young people 18 and younger.  Less than 1% of the Covid-related deaths in the last month have been people who were fully vaccinated.  That is, 99+% of the people dying here are those who are unvaccinated, despite the fact that we have plenty of vaccine and there are many walk-in medical and retail venues giving free shots. The paper reported yesterday morning that about 20% of the recent cases are related to local unvaccinated people traveling to the mainland and returning to spread the virus among unvaccinated friends and family. Nearly all of the recent cases are unvaccinated people. It seems to me that freedom of choice should entail accepting responsibility for the consequences of your decision to other people.  I could argue that this is evolution in action and we should just let people go ahead and kill themselves and each other, except that the cost to treat those who request it in terms of medical facilities and personnel is borne by the rest of us.  “Freedom” doesn’t mean “free.”  Getting...off...high horse...now.......

On another cheery note, large parts of the mainland are experiencing dire drought conditions, fires, and record-breaking heat, but we have continued to have showers almost every day and cloudy skies even if it doesn’t rain.  We’re still covering our pool each night whereas in most years we would have been able to stop a month ago. This has kept the pool temperature pretty nice, and the rain has meant we haven’t needed to add water for months and months.  However, the cloudiness has put our pv production in the dumper, and our recent HELCO bill a few days ago showed we were in the red for the month by about 70 kw hours, the worst production in the last year. I call these “negatrons.” With our high energy costs 70 kwh translates to about $25.  We pay about 30-35 cents per kilowatt hour, whereas back in Ohio the rate was about 5 cents when we lived there and about 8 cents now).  We have a surplus built up from previous months that will be used to pay this, but I’d rather have a bigger cushion if we go into a.c. season.

Ok, that’s it.  Sorry for the pontificating but sometimes I can’t help myself.  Stay well.  Stay happy. Carpe Diem.