mi casa

I think I've shown bits and pieces of where I live. Well here's the whole tour. Houses right in this area, Pailon, Villa Nueva, etc, are generally tiny. A family of 4 to 10 might be living in 200 to 300 square feet, all the kids in one bedroom. Some have a storage container, or a garden shed, that serves as a bedroom for older kids. This is a poor area, and it shows. Anyways, with that in mind, our house is a MANSION, it is CLEAN, it isn't crumbling and it's not missing any bricks! It is nicer than 99% of houses right here.

One of my reading spots :)

 This is my bedroom on a typical day. No storage except for a rod and a shelf (that's the closet) So I stack or pile things on the floor, or in my suitcase... but that's not weird, just normal life for me! 

Right mom?

    

Other side of my room. That's my closet on the left.

 My roommate's room on a typical day. We can all see who's the messy one here. Also, bugs love her. Mosquitoes especially. I've been bitten.. probably less than 50 times since we've come here. She gets mosquito bites on a regular basis, so she invested in a mosquito net, that beautiful blue thing.

Our living room! The couches aren't ours, we just got them a month ago. Another couple on our mission team moved from a different area to here, into one of those really tiny homes (actually built by Habitat for Humanity), and they're renovating, so we currently have their living room furniture! It won't all fit in their house even when they're done, so we might keep one or two things. Our normal living room is plastic chairs, and 2 chairs like that one on the left in the photo. Most people in this area don't have a living room, or couches. The piano I just carried over today, from another family on the team here. They're on furlough for the next couple months so I get their piano.

 Our washroom. Quite adequate

One very new thing for me: electricity in the shower. Hot water tanks are very rare, so if you have 'hot' water for the shower, it's because you have a heater attached on your showerhead. Hot water, that's really a joke, it's just not freezing cold. This means I really don't like showers so they are few and far between. Also, because of the setup, it means you shock yourself when you turn the water off in the shower. Funnnn.

 Kitchen. Borrowed a deep fryer from the neighbours today, we're going to make rollkuchen tonight! And I bought a massive watermelon and carried it home on the moto (motorcycle taxi), it was precarious. Our countertop is marble, which is normal here. Your options are marble or cement, or a combo of both. Again you'll notice that storage is not like North Americans. No cupboards, no closed shelves.

 Other side of the kitchen. I am thankful for a fridge even this large, at my previous guesthouse I just had a mini fridge!

 All of our dishes, utensils, bakeware, etc. This is it.

 The back of the house.

 Front of the house, with a hammock

 If you were to come to my house, this is the way into the yard. Everyone has brick fences, or wire fences. Very little is left just open.

That fuzzy looking waviness up there... that is our special ceiling. This is popular, apparently among some of the Mennonites here. And this house was built by some of this kind. How was it made, you might ask? It's not a tile, or laminate. It's from an oil lamp. That is oil and smudge and smoke marks on the ceiling. Special indeed.

And that is our house! It's not cozy, or North American 'normal,' but it is richness indeed here.