My House!
I celebrated Father's Day by officially moving to my very own house! Fine, not literally my house, but I'm renting it and living here solita, very likely for the remainder of my 2 years here. It's odd to think, after anticipating this “2 years” for so long, that now I have less than 2 years planned, and less time every day. Anyway, about My Casita.* Ana calls it the Dollhouse, because it's tiny, although 'tiny' is quite relative. There is a living room, kitchen, 2 bedrooms, and an indoor bathroom! There is even electricity and water...as often as anyone has water here. It's quite closed- most of the windows have screens, there are very few unfilled gaps between the top of the walls and the corrugated metal ceiling/roof, so I've had relatively few bug problems. There were some nests of a gross winged-ant-looking critter on the outsides of a few windows, but the neighbors knocked down most of the nests, and I attacked with chemical warfare as well, and I do believe I'm winning. A rather ironic visitor showed up right after I sprayed my bathroom- some variety of spider cousin was chilling on the wall, a bit more than 2” across (counting legs, thankfully), but he and I sorted out our differences of opinion in his living situation fairly quickly. There've been a handful of cockroaches, but they and I have also had our disputes. So far, I've won all of our little disagreements. Considering that the house had been unoccupied for, well, I don't know how long, I've had surprisingly few roommates. I do have a handful of lagartija friends, who are the ubiquitous little squeaky gecko types, and I've heard that their droppings are toxic, but as long as there aren't too many of them, and they stay near the tops of my walls, they're free to stay and help with bug control.
My house is approximately a 20' square. Coming in the front door, you enter living room, which is currently furnished with some white plastic chairs, a small/medium dining table with 2 associated chairs, and an end table. This room has 2 windows, one to the front (facing North) and one on the side (West) which is lovely because those are the main directions for breezes to come through. I'm trying to decide what kind of seating arrangements to get, because the plastic chairs just aren't cutting it for comfort. There will be at least one hammock seat involved, I think. There was a TV, but it just makes a turning-on-ish noise, without actually turning on, so I've relegated it to my storage/guest room.
There is a little window from the living room to the kitchen, which is slightly small than the Jo McNabb kitchen, for those of you who've seen it. For those who have not, It's a rectangle, along the length of one side is a counter of about 16” deep, with a single basin sink that almost fits my pots. There is a little wall cabinet, and a storage shelf under the counter. On the other side is my refrigerator, a table with lower shelf, my stovetop, and my gas tank. I was fortunate in that my house is almost furnished, and the appliances work and everything- even the blender! I do want to buy a toaster oven (more on the oven side, than the toaster side), but there isn't anything I've needed to buy to live here. No, that's false- I did get to discover that the gas adapter that was in the house didn't fit the tank, so I had to get a new adapter. And then there was a little adventure in which I thought I had to get a new tank of gas, but when I had my neighbor come to help me make sure I had the set-up right, we discovered that there is yet enough gas for now at least! All in all, there's room in there for 1 person to work with just being slightly cramped, and I don't even have to move to reach something from the other side!
Moving past the kitchen, we come to my bathroom, which as I mentioned, is INDOORS! There is a sink, toilet, and shower. The room is about the size of the bathtub we put in the Roselawn house, meaning for most of you, about half the size of the kitchen...kinda have to sidle to get past the toilet to the shower, but hey- it's decently clean, doesn't stink, has light, and I don't spend all that much time in there anyway.
On the other side of the house are the 2 bedrooms. The one towards the front of the house has a twin bed, and a folding temporary bed. (Hint hint, plenty of sleeping space!) This is my guest bedroom, aka, storage space for the dueña's** stuff.
Finally, we come to my bedroom, chosen because (a)it's further from the street and therefore marginally quieter, (b)already has 2 locks on the door, so Peace Corps only needed one more, and (c)has a full bed with a decent bedframe, along with a shelving unit and a dresser half occupied by the dueña's stuff. There's a wire running over part of the room for hanging clothes and whatnot, and the walls are pink! Actually, the walls of the kitchen and both bedrooms are pink, while the sala (living room) has white and the bathroom is unpainted and therefore cement gray.
Outside, I don't have much. Some concrete slab things in the back yard, a good portion of the neighbor's guava tree (guava being the pod fruit that I don't believe is what we consider guava there in the US), and a lot of lovely potted plants, mostly roses. In time, I want to get some composting going, as well as an herb garden if not some actual vegetables going either in pots or in the ground.
The most unfortunate aspect is that there isn't an ideal or even particularly convenient place for a hammock outside, but we'll see what I do with that. Maybe at the back. But, I'm planning on having some hammock action in the livingroom anyway, so...time will tell. And my adoptive familia Panameña (my former host family) have made it clear that I'm welcome back there whenever, for a meal, hammock time, chilling on their porch, and so on. I was very fortunate in having had Ana's family as my host family, because they really have become a family for me here in Panama, in Santa Rita, and some of her siblings that live in Panama City.
My new neighbors, who are of course somehow related to my host family, have been wonderfully helpful. My actual landlady lives in Aguadulce, on the other side of Coclé, and my right-hand neighbors (looking from the street) have practical charge of the house, and have been consistently supportive and patient- and they're taking care of keeping the yard clean and cut for me! On the other side, I don't know the neighbors as well, but so far have seemed very friendly as well.
So, that is my new house, and if you want to know anything else, well, you'll just have to come see for yourself! I'll even get sheets for you, and maybe even a pillow!
Now, it's about 6:30 on Thursday night, so I'm going to make some sort of dinner involving vegetables (that's almost as exciting as having an indoor bathroom). Last night I had grilled cheese sandwiches, with multigrain bread, mozzarella, and massaman curry paste. (I went to Penonomé, the regional capital, for shopping- they definitely do not have any of those things here in town, and I rather doubt they'd have it in Antón).
Buenas noches! (because it's night here as I write this, regardless of when I get it posted or you read it.)
*Santa Ritaños had a proclivity for adding the suffix “ito/a” to nouns and adjectives as much as possible- it's a diminutive, but seems to be used for emphasis as much as anything else.
**dueña means owner/landlady
random kitten who I met
awesome clouds from in front of my house :-)
some of my roses!
host family cousin and Rocky ('my' dog)
Carpintero!
