I've been struggling with the design of the pond at my house, I think mostly due to language problems. I speak some spanish and my architects speak fairly good english but neither of us have pond terms and concepts in the other language. I could tell that when I tried to describe what I wanted for the pond, not much was getting through. I almost resigned myself to it and had decided to just have them build it how they thought of it and I would try and re-do it when I had time and hopefully my language skills had improved. I have so much else to deal with now, and the pond was not as important as the house. Still, it bothered me. I wanted at least the plumbing to be right since it will be a concrete pond.
Last week a friend told me he had a friend of a friend who had designed a pond for my friend's father. I went to see it and it was beautiful pond with nice filtration and healthy fish. So, I went to their aquarium store in the mall, got his office address and stopped by there yesterday. We still have the language problem but at least he is familiar with the concepts I'm talking about and we look up or describe the words we are missing. His english is not very good so I'm doing most of this in spanish. I'm learning some good words but some just aren't available. He found an
Argentine pond builder's web site in spanish with some drawings and some vocabulary so I could point at something and figure out the word. This is not speedy stuff, let me tell you. It turns out the word we were having the most problems with, bottom drain, is ... are you ready? el bottom drain in spanish. or, at least that is how it is referred to on this web site. Of course, it is pronounced differently which explains why we weren't figuring out what each other was saying. Whew! Can you imagine for a moment the possible misunderstandings that can result from trying to describe "bottom drain" in another language? I think I hit all of them
What also doesn't help at all is that I can't draw a stick figure that is recognizable. I mean, I can't even doodle well. My attempts to draw pond stuff for the architects - who of course are all good artists or they wouldn't be architects - was really laughable. They were trying to be nice so they would look at my scribblings and turn them this way and that and finally have to admit they had no idea what I meant to draw.
I'm more encouraged now, the pond/aquarium guy has agreed to meet with me and one of the architects at the house on Monday and at the least, he will explain the concepts of biological filters, gravity fed pumps, and aeration needs to him. I think we've agreed that I will buy all of the pond supplies from him and in return he will supervise the installation, until he knows what is involved he says he can't give me an actual quote. That seems fair and we'll see how it goes on Monday. At any rate, I am encouraged and I'm once again actively thinking about how I want the pond to be instead of just resigned to making whatever appears work.
