We did it!
We moved into our new house. For the past five weeks we have been living among a dense group of Barat people who use their language first and foremost everyday, and whose ancestral ways and beliefs are still very
strong, even amidst the majority religion.
At the end of January we said
good bye to our brick house of four years on the east side of town and hello
to our new stilted wood house on the west side of town. Though a
large truck took most of our things on a Sunday, the entire first week was used to move the
remaining odds and ends that I, Erin, had not been able to pack prior
to the arrival of the truck. Thankfully the owner of the truck brought a crew of guys which provided us with sufficient man power to move everything into our new house with the fewest possible
peering eyes. Regardless, we did receive various comments about
there being more stuff every time that
week we brought another box on the motorcycle.
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| Not much order or thought put onto the packing of the truck, which some of our furniture had the marks to show. Thankfully all arrived safely, even the people! |
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We hired a mini-bus driver to haul a load of stuff a few days later.
He was very skilled at tying our bikes onto the bus, all with one length of rope.
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The Sunday prior to the move we hosted a "thankfulness" party. I, along with a great deal of help from the neighbor ladies, made mung bean pudding again and served rice flour balls filled with palm sugar and rolled in coconut. We found out that these parties are usually used to ask for blessings for the new item, be it a house, car, or job for example.
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| Pressing coconut milk |
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Cooking mung bean pudding
Thankfully neighbors had the equipment needed to make a large quantity.
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Our first guest, a neighbor.
He proceeded to ask blessing on our house all on his own initiative.
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| Other friends and neighbors |
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Only men came to enjoy the treat in our living room.
Many kids showed up for pudding at our back door, while most women stayed at home.
Later the neighbor women that helped me took portions of the pudding around to the ladies that did not come.
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| Friends from our old neighbor hood came to visit later that evening. |
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| Neighbors from our old street came that evening. |
We decided to hold our
"thankfulness" party before moving to decrease the peering eyes and
potential questions. It worked our wonderfully because we had much more floor space to accommodate a great deal of people. Though we
did not really have cleaning supplies, nor a kitchen, clean up was easier
without having to work around any furniture or boxes. Once again putting
on an event like this would not have been possible for me if it had not been
for the help from my neighbors.
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We spent our first night in the house after the party.
It was quite like camping as we slept on the floor and did have a kitchen.
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 A full living room. |
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A kitchen waiting to be filled.
The sink faucet and drain still needed to be hooked up.
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We did move into a bit of a
construction zone that Sunday. The kitchen sink had not yet been
installed, trim around windows and doors needed to be finished, the bathroom
needed grouting, screen doors needed to be hung, stairs needed to be stained,
and two more support braces needed to be added to the house posts. The
plumber spent most of our 'moving day' installing and hooking up the kitchen faucet,
while service men worked until night time installing our air conditioners brought
from the old house. Our builder used the rest of the week to finish the
rest of the other details, while I grouted the bathroom. Thankfully, now,
three weeks later, unpacking is finished and the work on the house is done, aside from a few details like
paint touch ups and decorating.
Building
a house has been quite an adventure. I had often dreamed of it as
building enables you to design various aspects specific to your taste and
select specific details suitable for your family. Building a home in a
different culture was quite different than expected. We acted
as the 'main boss' individually hiring each type of skilled worker. There was a wood worker who did most of the building and a mason
who was responsible for the bathrooms, along with the plumber and an
electrician. We were the ones who had to coordinate these men and the
uniting of each man's work. The result of their individual work was good,
until it met with the work of another skilled worker. So the place the
cement floor of the bathroom meets the wood floor of the house for example is a
bit of an eye sore. There were many other little things that turned out
different than we expected, like the quality of the mudding, sanding, and paint
job. But as we consider the entire finished product, we have an
incredibly wonderful house, especially since we were asking the builders to do many
western things they had never done before.
Some of
my favorite aspects are the wood floors, lots of big windows, the back-side
door that you can open just half at a time, lots of counter space, and our
clothes line on a pulley system right next to the washing machine.
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A pretty good view out the kitchen window.
The moon one morning.
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Our Kitchen
A half door, counter space and big windows!
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Our clothesline, about 10feet off the ground.
Many neighbors were rather confused at first as to how we could reach the laundry.
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| Handy placement! |
