Our Final Blog Post

Dear Family and Friends,

I have pretty much stopped blogging.  In the past, I would post to the blog, publish it and then link it to my facebook.   Over this past year I have only posted our travels on facebook.  It is a little different, but much easier for me and I can easily post as we are traveling.  My facebook name is Nancy Powers Watson.  If you want to follow me on Facebook please feel free to do so.  If you want to be friends, just add a message to your friend request letting me know you want to follow our travels.  You will need to do this because I normally do not accept friend requests for security reasons.

I wanted to post this last post to the blog so you would not think that either of us has disappeared.  We are quite healthy and so thankful for that.  

We spent Christmas with family in Tucson, AZ.  We returned to Ecuador last Monday and found that we were returning during chaos.  We are fine, our friends here are fine and we do not know exactly how things are going to go in the near future.  We will take one day at a time, and pray that the conflict will be stopped.  

Also, we are selling the very first condo we bought here in Cuenca.  We have been renting it out, but now that it is empty again, we want to be able to continue to travel and not have to put the condo under a property manager.  Also, we are getting older and if we sell the condo, that is one less piece of property for our children to have to deal with when we die.  

We want to share this condo on this final blog post before we go public with it.  For you folks who have been reading this blog for years will know this condo.  We had many friends and parties here, especially during the early years.  

We have been putting together an ad to publish.  We would like to sell it ourselves. I want to share the details on this post.  If we happen to sell it to a follower of our blog we would be so happy.  If response is are slow, we will go to step 2 and publish it locally in the next couple of weeks.  

CUENCA GARDEN CONDO

Living Room/Dining Room

The living room opens onto a private enclosed patio.  

Spacious Dinning Area

Dining Area

Guest Bath (1/2) Bath Near Entrance

The front door contains a peep-hole viewer for your safety.

Private Enclosed Front Patio

These are views of the spacious front patio

All plants are included

Large Eat-In Galley Kitchen

Kitchen opens to covered patio and laundry area.

The Gas Stove and Refrigerator Freezer are included in the Kitchen.

Large Covered and Uncovered Patio

Laundry Area with Large Sink

A Lot of Built In Storage

On Demand Hot Water Tank

Covered Breakfast Area off from Master Bedroom

Barbecue Gill and outside Dining Area

Master Bedroom and In-Suite Bath

Bedrooms Two and Three share a Jack and Jill Bathroom 

Bedroom Two

The second bedroom opens to the Private Front Patio Area.

Bedroom 3 or Study/TV Room

Bedroom three opens to a private covered patio

Shared Jack and Jill Bathroom

Large bath includes Skylight, Jacuzzi and Walk in Shower.

HERE ARE THE DETAILS:

Secure, Safe, Ground Floor Garden Condo with Private Wrap around Patio

This secluded condo is located in the Oro Verde neighborhood, in a building that is overlooking the Tomebomba River.  It is a few minutes walking to grocery shopping, many restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, pharmacies, ATMs, weekly organic market, meat markets, gyms, bus and tram stops.

This 1,356 square feet condo has 24/7 guard security, 890 square feet of patio, two underground parking spaces and a storage until.  The HOA is approximately $195 per month and includes the cost of centralized gas usage. The building has a generator so if the electricity goes out, the generator will provide electricity to the building.

All the living space has sliding doors to the patio.

• Living Room/Dining Room - direct access to private walled patio through double pane (noise canceling) glass sliding doors, tray ceiling, crown molding and baseboards. Recessed lighting.
• Kitchen - Spacious eat-in galley kitchen. Recessed lighting and under counter lighting. Sliding door to covered patio and laundry. High-end custom cabinets. Lots of storage. Gas range with glass cover, 5 burner cook top and double door refrigerator freezer which are included.
• Master Bedroom - Spacious enough for king size bed, bedside tables and dressers. Plenty of built in closets. Beautiful hard wood floors. Ample size dressing mirror on the inside bedroom door. In-suite bathroom with bathtub shower combination and storage shelving. 
• Two other Bedrooms with Jack and Jill bath. The first bedroom has double glass sound proof sliding door access to the front patio.  It has built-in closets and storage. Beautiful hardwood floors. Ample size dressing mirror on the inside of the bedroom door. The other bedroom can be used as office space with desks and locking drawers. Media room with built in flat screen television. Beautiful hardwood floors. Lots of built in storage.
• Jack and Jill Bath has a jacuzzi, plus a step in shower and a large sky light.  It also has no slip terracotta floors.
• Patios consist of a formal patio accessed through the living room and a patio accessed through the bedrooms and kitchen.  The second patio has a built in barbecue pit. All plants and containers are included. It is lovely, very private, you have your own hidden sanctuary.

The asking price is $168,000.

If anyone reading this post has questions about this condo or would like to have a look see please send us an email at cuencagardencondo@gmail.com  We will be happy to answers questions and schedule visits.  If you try to contact us in any other way your email may be lost.  

So friends, this is it for our blog.  I will not take it down from the internet, I want to be able to go back and look at our life.  It has been like a diary.  Thank you for sticking with us and if you choose to become our friend or follow us on Facebook then this is not goodbye.  

Love,

Nancy

There is always a back story.

Dear Family and Friends,

Remember, when you see a selfie of two old folks....

This is what they looked like a few seconds before.

Happy Valentines Day

Love,

Nancy

Ecuador Election 2023

Dear Family and Friends,

We returned from the U.S. to Ecuador about 3 weeks ago.  We are happy to be back in the wonderful weather. 

Today, I have a guest writer for this post.  Last Sunday was election day in Ecuador.  Chuck voted in this election.  I did not.  Since he is involved in the political scene, I figured you all might be interested in how elections work down here.  Chuck offered to share with you about the voting process from first hand experience.

Take it away Chuck:

Ecuador Election 2023

Sunday, February 5th was election day here in Ecuador. All the mayors and provincial officers were on the ballot, as well as some proposed changes to the constitution.  

The process is so different from the USA, that I thought I would describe it to you.

Before the Election

In Ecuador, there are many political parties. It is easy to a new political party. There is a minimum number of signatures required, and there must be a convention or other process to select the candidates for a party.  

Sometimes, the candidate who emerges is the one who founded the party.  This candidate selection process was done this past August.

The parties submit their list of candidates to the national election commission (CNE) for review.

In October, the review was complete and several candidates were rejected. Here in Azuay province, 3 men were disqualified because a review of their records showed that they had not been paying their child support. One prominent woman was disqualified because she had changed party affiliation just before the August convention. The rules required that she be a party member since May.

Meanwhile, the president had proposed 8 changes to the constitution (designed to strengthen the central government at the expense of the legislature). These changes were submitted to the constitutional court. The wording was reviewed and refined by the court. The ballot measures were expressed as a short statement of the intent of the change and a yes or no question – Do you agree with blah blah.

The campaign season, which lasts for only one month, opened in January and closed 2 days before the election. There were informal parades, party members chatting up pedestrians, advertising on TV and radio, and posters all over town.

The dry law went into effect the Friday before the election and remained in effect until Sunday afternoon, after the polls closed. Bars were closed and no liquor was sold throughout the country.

(However, we had dinner on Friday at an unnamed restaurant where the doors were locked and the liquor flowed – don’t tell anyone).

There were two dry runs by the election officials with international observers present. Pictures of people moving ballot boxes to the counting stations were widely published to assure the citizens that the process would be transparent. Early voting was provided to prisoners and shut ins a couple of days before the election.

The Election and Results

You do not register to vote in Ecuador, the CNE has a record of all 18 million Ecuadorans. Each of us has a unique identification number which is printed on our identity card, which is called a cedula. Voting is mandatory for all citizens between 18 and 65 years of age, it is voluntary for those over 65.

I checked on line to see where to vote. It was a school in our neighborhood. There were hundreds of people voting at this school, and no parking for blocks around it. I could not find a picture of the hundreds of people in 2023, so here is a photo from 2021.

The polling places are in classrooms. Women voted in one building, while men were in the other. This is to reduce the chance that a spouse is influencing (forcing?) the voters choice. My classroom was on the second floor. There were solders guarding the entrances to each classroom.

I walked in and handed my cedula to the election official. He found me in his book, and I signed next to my name, cedula number, and my pre printed picture. At the next two tables I was handed a stack of paper ballots. They were quite large because they had colored photos of each candidate. One stack was for our province, Azuay, and the other was for the national issues.

I took my stacks of ballots to one of the secret voting booths. Mine had a chair, but this fellow had to stand.

After I marked my ballots, I deposited them in the collection boxes. I had to make sure the correct pile went into the proper box. Note that each box has a transparent window.

Then, I retrieved my cedula and was handed a card (with my picture) proving that I had voted. This card in necessary for dealing with government agencies and other transactions such as opening a bank account. People who did not vote must pay a fine to get a similar card. Outside the school, there were several vendors offering to laminate the voting certificate card in plastic for fifty cents. Since I am too old to be required to vote or show my card, I did not have mine laminated.

At the close of the day, the ballot collection boxes were sealed and the soldiers transported them to the tabulation building

The next morning we learned that in a very close race Cuenca has a new mayor, Christian Zamora. I think there was not a lot of interest in this race, more people left the ballot for mayor blank than voted for any of the candidates.

Since Christian Zamora is a man, the vice mayor must be a woman (and vise versa). She will be selected by the party.

Nationally, the results showed a massive shift to the left. The conservative party which has controlled Guayaquil for over 30 years was defeated. The new mayor is aligned with the party of former socialist president Rafael Correa. Many other cities, including Quito, also elected members of this party.

In addition to this shift to the left in local political power, all eight of the proposed constitutional changes were defeated. This is a major blow to our center-right president – I predict that he will have a difficult time surviving the two years until the next presidential election.