So I finally found myself a house! If you believe that everything works out in the end, then I guess my house hunt would prove you right (at least so far). Remember the family moving to the states? Well, they are currently proud citizens of California, and I am happily cuidaring (caring for) their house. Despite drunk nephews trying to charge me waaay to much rent, and some safety issues with the house, I am now loving the new place. After a literal hosing down of the house, inside and out, and some furniture rearranging, I am living comfortably with a TV, fridge, some rocking chairs, full and single beds, and a fully tiled house (WOW). Que fachenta...I know.
Not only did they leave me a house, they left me a dog too. A dog, you might be thinking? Yes. They left me the dog. After a full day of cleaning and moving furniture, I happened to notice a dog laying in a hole dug next to my latrine (just WAIT for my latrine story...). Luckily, she is not brava towards me (brave or mean), as the Nicas say, so she and I have been getting along just fine. In fact, she is a lot of fun to play with and is good protection in the night. As the drunks who hang out on my corner told me, “she is BRAVA in the nighttime!!!”...good to know...and good thing they know...they also told me her name: Puchona...which I think is something of a play on a Nica word word for pudgy....which is exactly what she is not. My very skinny pup has a lot of fattening up to do, especially since she can still escape between the bars on my doors, and underneath the gate to my patio. I do not like the she is in the habit of heading out with her boyfriend dogs at night, as she is definitely going to get pregnant...it also makes for some embarrassing situations in the morning when I have to go retrieve my dog from other people’s patios. Unfortunately, she still responds to the lure of male dogs more than me yelling at her, so I shamefully have to chase her out of neighbor’s patios as Nica’s watch on and tell me I should really just tie her up and smack her some more so she knows who is boss...if one more boy dog pees on my doorstep on her account she just might get tied up...just kidding...
I have also adopted a kitten. She is orange, white and black and has just been given the name Llorona. She has been given this name on three accounts: (1) I think the word just sounds beautiful, even though it means someone or something who is always sad and crying. (2) She actually does cry all the time. She is still a very tiny kitten, but she follows me around the house and cries constantly unless I play with her, give her food, or let her ride around on my shoulder. (3) The lyrics to my favorite Nica song are “Si queres llorar, llora llora” ... If you want to cry, cry cry” ...it’s a great song. Luckily, the dog does not try to eat the cat...in fact, the Llorona is much more brava than Puchona. Puch jumps in circles around her and wants to play, and Llorona does the typical arched back hissing business until Puch gets bored or scratched and gives up. Pretty funny to watch.
So my new animals lead me to the latrine story. Before I tell the story I just want to say that I am NOT the only volunteer who has made this mistake......
Spending most of their time in my outside patio, my cat and dog naturally had flees. In order to get rid of the flees, I went to the town veternarian and asked for a flee bath. As he was bored and I’m a town attraction, he offered to come with me to my house and give the animals the flee bath for me...Actually, he just showed up at my house 20 minutes after I bought the flee bath, and since everyone in town knows where I live this isn’t hard to do...Anyway. He was actually very helpful, as giving a squirming, sharp clawed kitten a bath is very hard, and the dog was equally unhappy. He also told me that I could sprinkle the poison all around the yard to get rid of any fleas/bugs living in the patio. GREAT! He ALSO told me that I could put it down the latrine to kill the cockroaches...EVEN BETTER! What he failed to tell me...and here I put all blame on him, as he is the Nica and should have known better, was that I should have covered the top of the latrine...instead, I innocently left the latrine hole wide open...what happens when you pour poison down a latrine??? I’ll tell you. About twenty minutes later giant cockroaches come flying...not crawling...FLYING out...we’re not talking one or two, but upwards of 50 or 60...Thankfully, they flew out and died...but they died everywhere...in my shower, all around my patio, and in my clean clothes hanging up drying...I then attacked my latrine and shower area with chlorine and cleaned it like it’s probably never been cleaned. On the upside, my latrine is now bug free...I don’t know that it was worth it, though.
So, now that you have gotten the good and bad updates of what my new home life has been like, I will leave you all with some of the changes between how I used to “clean” in the states, and how I have now gone back to the Oregan Trail days...that may be exaggerating a little....
- Used to use a washing machine...I know hand scrub everything...about once a week a lady comes and helps me wash for 20.00 cordobas (about 1 dollar) for twelve items, but I generally have a lot to do throughout the week
- Sweep and Mop daily (only every used to do this when I was getting paid on the ranch...) ... mops here are also metal poles with whatever leftover tshirt, blanket, or whatever you want to use as the mop head...I am using an old blanket which works great, but is a bitch to wash out each time
- Dust everything, all the time...my roof is made of shingle-type things, so it has lots of holes for dust to come in, as well as black pieces of burnt sugar cane, which falls like snow in my area.
- I now sweep and water the dirt...yea I know I used to make fun of that, but I really do have to water my dirt or else it all just swirls up into my house later in the day when it gets really hot and windy...and also it keeps my patio cooler and I have to dumo my sink water somewhere...dang Nicas were right.
Eh so that’s all. More updates soonish, and I really will get pictures going ASAP. Thank you all for the incredible packages that have been coming! Love you all!
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