Correction: square footage!

Our house is 40 square meters, which is actually about 430 square feet.  Big difference from my previous conversion!

Differing Schedules

Our typical schedule is as follows…

Wake up at 5am to read, study, and exercise.  The boys are up about 6:30 but have to stay in their room until 7am.  The we shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast.  Caedmon and I try to start school by 8:30.  We have lunch around 12p, quiet play time for an hour or so in the afternoon, which consists of the boys playing in their room… alone, no friends.  Then dinner 6-6:30ish.  The boys shower about 7pm and are in bed usually by 8pm.  Recently I changed our big meal to the middle of the day, at lunch time.  Many of our neighbors are outside more often in the late afternoon.  I, Erin, felt I was missing out on a lot of time with people as I would go inside to prep for dinner about that time.  Though it still seems weird to me, eating something easy such as sandwiches, ramen, or left-overs for dinner, it has enabled me to spend more time outside with people in the afternoon. 

Regardless of the changes, our schedules are still very different from the people we live among.  The first loud speaker call happens between 4:30 and 5am.  We thankfully, often sleep through it.  Though most people go back to sleep afterwards, they are up well before 7am.  Children start school by 7:30 and the loud speaker occasionally makes public awareness announcements in the morning, sometimes before 7am (these consist of recent deaths, baby well checks at the local clinic, and school enrollment dates).  By the evening loud speaker call (6pm-ish) most neighbors go inside.  Kids and some adults are back outside about 8pm-ish. 

Though we are interact a great deal with people amidst the differing schedules, it has caught me off guard many times recently; compounded by other cultural differences as well!  At least twice in the past week, kids were at our front door looking for the boys before 8am.  On Tuesday morning, a national holiday so no school, it wasn’t even 7am when they arrived!  I still struggle with how to politely get them to leave.  After telling the children Caedmon and Whitman cannot play they often continue to call the boys’ names from our yard.  In the afternoon, during quiet play time, it is even more difficult as the kids then move to the boys’ bedroom window, at the front of the house, and peer in the window, occasionally opening the screens.  After repeating that the boys are ‘resting’ and will play later, I then proceed to close the curtains. 

Onlookers while Caedmon studies.  They remained, quiet, at the window for at least a half hour. 

One evening a couple neighbor kids came to our door at 8pm as the boys where climbing into bed. We politely informed then the boys were headed to bed, but maybe they could play tomorrow.  Thankfully the boys are rarely distracted by the laughing and talking of kids outside at night. 

All of these experiences are full of cultural lessons for us; specifically the difference in concern for adult direction, the difference in personal space, and the difference in schedules! 

 

Kids that came to visit.  Most of these live 15minutes by foot from us.  The boy on the far left is a neighbor.  He is very helpful, constantly picking up toys after he is finished playing with them, even when Caedmon and Whitman don't.  He seems to be a bit of an anomaly in his culture!

Adventures in our new house

Even in a house of our own, we have been experiencing a great deal of culture as we get settled. 

As part of our rental agreement the owners installed safety bars on all the windows (common on most homes).  At the same time we ordered screens to be made, but forgot to ask that the bars be installed an inch inside the window sill.  This resulted in needed adjustments for the screens to cover gaps around many edges.  The screen worker thankfully was willing to add molding to the edges, closing the gaps, and actually dressing them up a little.  Another hang up with the screens was the material the worker chose was neon green.  In the end we learned in a case such as this people typically buy the materials themselves and just have a worker build it.  As per John’s idea, we spray painted the screen material black, which now looks great and didn’t clog all the little holes!

Screens on door, window, and ventilation holes!

 Our landlords also decided to fill in the back part of the property, to enable adding on to the house at a later time.  For the past two weeks our front yard has been full of rocks, sand, and ten truckloads of dirt.  All of the work has been done with shovels and wheelbarrows. 



Truck load #6.
I woke up from a nap to find dirt being delivered next to my clean laundry drying in the yard.



Caedmon is my helper.  He is ready to get involved in just about any work taking place!

John is also becoming quite the home-fixer-upper.  He installed a knife rack, a curtain rod, and a shower head.  This all required drilling into our brick walls.  The shower is a pleasure to use.  Unfortunately the water flow in our complex isn’t strong, so during high water usage times it is impossible to use the shower.  I have learned the mornings, especially on Sunday, are not a time to depend on water as occasionally there isn’t any at all. 

In the kitchen I was using a two burner stove barrowed from our host family.  Last week their stove broke.  We returned their extra one and bought a one burner stove.  Why?  Because we had a real oven on order.

The one burner stove was quite nice, for awhile, as it opened up a little counter space.

 

Our new oven!!!

The biggest cultural adventure recently has been with our neighbors.  Neighborhood kids just come right in when we leave our door open.  Then they, and even the adults who usually wait to be invited in, look through our stuff that is still piled all over the floor, some even still in boxes.  In addition, we’ve had multiple pieces of furniture delivered. which is always accompanied by neighbors and friends asking, “How much did you pay?”  This is a common question here and not at all taboo to ask, even in regards to salary, rent, or anything purchased.  It is a very difficult question for me to field.  It would very rarely be asked in our home culture and I feel we are constantly battling the image of rich-white-westerns.  Hopefully a lot of those questions will die down once we are more settled. 

Neighborhood kids, and a mother, playing with the boys. 

 

For now we await some additional furniture to finish unpacking and gain a little more order in the house!

A kitchen cabinet, still not perfectly placed, but with lots of storage!  Each piece of furniture requires us to be creative in arranging rooms to take advantage of the space we do have. 

 

 

We have a House!!!

Monday the 28^th of April we arrived back in Barat with the main goal of finding a place of our own.  By Wednesday John met with a couple to negotiate the terms and conditions, and price to rent their 2 bedroom house for a year.  The next day we cleaned, and then Friday we began painting.  After a very full weekend of moving and painting, we spent our first night in our own house on Sunday.  We know so many people were lifting this up, but we are still amazed that we are in our own place, and in just a week’s time of returning.  It is a small house, 40 square meters (~131sq ft), but the location is wonderful.  It is in a complex just behind our host family of 5 months.  It is at the end of a small street, keeping it pretty quiet and safe for the boys to play.  We don’t have any furniture yet, but it doesn’t seem to matter at this point.  Another blessing, thanks to John’s planning, was we had already packed up our house in the big city before returning to Barat.  So last Saturday we hired a man John knew to bring all our stuff here to us, without us having to return to retrieve it.  By Monday we finished moving out of our host’s house and have been furniture shopping and re-organizing to live amongst all our unpacked stuff.  Thank you for thinking of us.  We now hope to focus on using what we’ve been given for others, amidst finishing getting settled. 

Our house!
At the end of the street, shares a wall with an empty orang house and sits next to a large banana garden. 

The back door and unfinished back yard area. 

Looking down our street towards our house at the end, left side.  Seven of the nine houses here are currently occupied.

Our living room, after we painted.

Currently the kitchen, dinning room, and laundry room (washer by the back door there). 

Our bathroom.
  It too is small, but it has a sit toilet!  Notice it is not a flushing toilet, which John reminded me wasn't part of my 'must have a sit toilet' condition.  We just added a shower head to the faucet, but the water pressure so low showering is difficult when the neighborhood water usage is high!  On a cultural note people here DO NOT shower at night, more or less after dark that is.  There is some belief it will make you sick.  Thus far I've been able to use the shower head at night because we do shower at night.

Looking toward the living room from the kitchen area.  The boys room is on the left and our is on the right. 

Looking into the kitchen from the living room. 
The frame of the doorway was a very bright turquoise before we painted. 

From the kitchen window are our neighbors directly behind us.  They have 11 baby chicks the boys are enjoying. 

Our bedroom, yet to be painted.  John doesn't want to see another paint can for a very long time.  One of our neighbors told us everyone was so surprised I too was painting.  Apparently it is not something wives or mothers do here.  I got the impression it is considered the man's job. 

The boys' room.  They are very excitedly waiting for a bunk bed!

Our first event.  On the first night, or day, when people here move into a new-to-them home they make a sweat mung bean porridge and other sweat treats.  Then they usually read out of their holy book.  Our host mom on her own initiative, with her new baby on her lap above, prepared the porridge and another dessert.  Then Monday, about noon, we all ate together in our new house. 

From left to right: the Dad, the mom, their month old son, oldest daughter, the grandma, Caedmon and I, and an employee at the center where John will work.