The Homestead

Hi Everyone! Just checking in on my lazy Sunday and updating you all. Since you didn't get to see too much of my house I took a few photos this morning and now you can see them.

Here's a few pictures of my room. It's not much bigger than the bed that's in it. Probably should have cleaned up first. Meh. That's also my fancy mosquito net Peace Corps issued me.

 This is my trusty water filter. I asked the doctor if I could pee into it and achieve 100% efficiency with my water. The doc said it was fine but I've been too scared to try it.

These are my front steps. The rules are that you take your shoes off and leave them on the stairs. Then you wipe your feet off on the mat inside the door. No shoes in the house!

This is the living room area. The house is about 2/3rds teal and the other third is blue. I think the other 1/3rd was built on at some point. The floor is wood and covered in 3 different kinds of contact paper. There are holes in the contact paper where there's gaps between the planks and you can see the ground through the floor. Also, the walls don't go all the way up to the ceiling so there's no such thing as privacy really. My room has a door but the other rooms just have curtains. That's my room on the end there.

In addition to the lack of complete walls, the roof doesn't fully attach to the walls so there's about a six inch gap between the roof and the walls. It definitely helps with ventilation but now the mosquitoes can help themselves.

This is the kitchen area, also a little messy.

 Who's that handsome devil?

There he is washing his clothes. He's really good at it despite what his host family says.

 This is the color of the water that comes out of the tap. It looks clear coming out but in a glass or a bucket, it's not to appealing. Peace Corps says don't drink it but I haven't had any problems yet.

 This is the bathroom and shower area.

Here's the shower area. Yep. There's no hot water. Don't even ask. But to be fair it hasn't dropped below about 70 degrees since I've been here.

 Here's the toilet. Sometimes toads get in and will hop on you while you're pooping. True story.

 Here's the sink area.

But, here's the view behind the bathroom. Definitely worth it. It's just a thick jungle that goes on for miles.

That's my house. That's how I live now. It ain't glamorous but it's home. There's a lot to tell you about but I don't want to bore you all with this post. I'll just tell you one cool thing that happened this week.

My first day at the clinic I was watching the nurse weigh and measure infants to make sure they were healthy. I had been watching her fill out the paperwork but not intently. Then, all of a sudden, she asks me to take over. I was hesitant to say the least but I jumped in there and Jerrell, you know him from an earlier post, and I measured and weighed a few kids while the nurse was gone. When she came back she checked our work and everything was perfect. So now there's some kids out there who have my handwriting and initials in their file. And they'll have that forever. I've already impacted someone's life in a positive, albeit small, way.

Kind of a cool moment.