My first electric bill in Puerto Rico

Today I received my first electric bill here... and it is a horror story!

I looked at the amount first $60.25.

Hmm, I thought, seems a bit hig, considering that I do not have a/c, rarely use a fan (sea breeze does the job most of the time at least for now), don't cook and installed my new TV only a week ago. I do shower regularly, though, and do laundry about once a week - both washing and drying.

'Is it normal? ' I asked a couple of coworkers. 'No', they shook their heads 'it seems high'.

So I looked at the bill for more detail. First I noticed "dias de consumo" - 10.

What? I am being charged $60.25 for 10 days of very light electricity use??? It's a highway robbery! My coworkers agreed - a highway robbery. None of them pays so much for a month, much less for 10 days and they assume they use more energy than I do!

So I started to study the bill even more in detail: "compra de energia" - purchase of energy (256 kWh x 0.040909 $/kWh) - $ 10.47 + three different 'cargos' (fees, I presume) at respectively $1, $6.18 and $5.67 and finally 'compra de combustible' $36.93!

What on earth is the 'combustible' I am being charged so much for? And why am being charged for it?

Mysterious - I need to talk to my landlord, who should be able to understand that.

As for the 256 kWh - my guess is that the meter has not been read even before the previous tenants - who left unpaid energy bills for $570 - moved out. My landlord read the meter when I moved in - I did not - my bad. I don't even know where it is. I need to check it now and wait for the second bill to see how much I am actually paying for my own energy use... unless someone somehow gets his energy on my meter, but I have no idea how to check for that - other than, perhaps, turn everything off and check if the meter is running or not. Is that how it is done? Or does someone have a better idea?

Oh, brother, the pleasures of living in a society known for its, hmm, inventiveness (?) in avoiding high costs of living here, especially during recession. But whom might I be involuntarily sponsoring - if I am? Former tenants or a current energy thief?

P.S. My second electric bill was still high, but much more acceptable: $ 84 ( apparently the average of what former tenants were supposed to pay monthly) for 32 days of - still rather light - use. Which means in the first one I must have been charged for some of the previous tenants unpaid electricity use. Oh, well.

And having now lived in Puerto Rico for well over a year, I must add that it was by far the highest electric bill in PR. In my current condo, even when I was using air conditioning during the fall, when it was hot and humid inside, my bills averaged around $50 a month. Electric bills in the mountains were lower still.

Eating healthy in Puerto Rico

... is not inexpensive.

True, tropical fruit is fabulously cheap: papaya - 69 cents per pound, a large pinaple 75 cents....

....but vegetables, wow, $ 8 for 6 organic bellpeppers (that's more than a dollar for a bellpepper!) - and only slightly less for nonorganic - imported from USA; $ 6.45 for a small container (less than a pound) of organic tomatoes - imported from Canada ($4.50 for a similar container of nonorganic).

The prices for lettuce and other available veggies are sky high and .... there is no variety, nothing but a few anemic lettuces ( mostly romaine, sometimes iceberg), celery, bell peppers, tomatoes, cilantro and a lot of brown tubers with different shapes, which I avoid, presuming them all being - like potatoes and yams - starches rather than vegetables.

Every time I try to shop for veggies I dream of a Whole Foods store with its fabulous assortment of hundreds of kinds of fruits and vegetables, many of them organic, or of Atlanta's World Farmers Market, where veggies are almost as plentiful as at Whole Foods, but cheaper - though far fewer are organic.

What's with all those vegetable imports in Puerto Rico??? Don't veggies grow in the tropics?

Perhaps I'd believe it, had I not seen on zoom's blog that she has a vegetable garden - and my institute also has an organic farm and greenhouses where tender greens (sunflower, purslane, etc.) and - mostly green - veggies, like kale, spinach, etc. are grown.

Next Friday I am planning to visit a local farmers' market in San Sebastian, a small town in the mountains, otherwise famous for its hammock weavers and its splendid, though not easily accessible, waterfall in the jungle.

Meat, on the other hand is cheaper here than in the USA and a lot of it (beef) seems to be imported from Urugway. I wonder whether Urugway meat industry is any better than USA or if that meat is as inedible as nonorganic American meat: equally loaded with hormons, antibiotics etc.

And - for the true health gamblers: the fabulous, fluffy, melting in your mouth Puertorican pastries with almonds and guava cost only 79 cents for a large one. Yumm :-(((

Yesterday afternoon and this morning I inspected the plot for my future garden and found it being in a dappled sunlight in the morning, shaded in early afternoon and in more direct sunlight in the late afternoon. Now, a question to tropical vegetable gardeners: what herbs and veggies I should most luck growing there?