So after Ty and I took antibiotics, we although tiring easily, had to move to our new digs. The flat we chose was on another island that is a 2 minute water taxi from the main island. We have a large upstairs 2 bedroom 1 bath place. I've included pictures for you to see.
This is taken from the walkway leading from the door to the dock where the kids and I waited for about 4 hours while the house was vacated and "cleaned." The dock is attached to another two story building that houses two men. One of them is a brother, he's who helped us find this spot.
Ray was out in service that morning (he had been asked to lead the group) so I hefted all 200 pounds up the steep stairs and into the flat. When done I vowed that we would reclean the clean house...After two complete days of cleaning top to bottom and laundering the curtains, it is quite cute and now clean.
The house is full of windows and lets in a lot of light and air during the day. In the evening when the bugs come out, we usually close up everything and turn on the 2 working ACs. There are fans in the two bedrooms. The only thing lacking is light at night. Both bedrooms only have a small lamp as does the living room. Any light at night comes from the kitchen, bathroom, and small adjoining hall. It hasn't seem to bother us too much yet. Recently Raymond went to Changonola and found a flat screen TV that hooks up to our external hard drive! Yeah movies at night.
Here are some fun pictures of what we see from our upstairs home. We gets lots of wildlife: geckos (no pictures, although Ty captured a baby one the other day and it is housed in an old water bottle), an iguana in the tree outside the house, pigeons that roost on all 4 working and not AC boxes, roosters, chickens, birds, eels (Ray was walking to refill our water jug-you don't drink the faucet water here-and saw one the kids had pulled out of the swampy area in the middle of the "village"), and dogs.
The two birds (last shot) was from being out in service on Wednesday afternoon. Madi dubbed them Romeo and Juliet. The Iguana Ty named Camouflage. Yup it really does look like a pirate ship. It pulled in on Monday and left today Saturday. It is a really pretty boat. We found out on Thursday that it is actually a cruise ship for tourists. You can pay lots of money to help crew it and live on it for a bit... The Rooster was just pretty. I took the picture from my bedroom window this morning. The house shots were taken from the kitchen window.
Most of you live in Seattle and those that don't know the rep we have in the Pacific Northwest...it is always raining, right. This then will make you laugh...although it is 84-90 degrees consistently here, we do get major rainstorms. I actually look forward to these since when we get them, it means I can do laundry! WHAT! Here's how it works. The brother that lives in front of us and the guys upstairs are connected to city water, but never get any. The laundry room is connected to their house. So how do we run the washer, let them have showers, and wash their dishes...well from rain water. When it rains, the water from one side of the peaked roof slides down into the rain gutter. The gutter then feeds into a huge black "holding tank" that then feeds another holding tank in their house. The laundry is hooked up to this system. So when it rains, I know their tank is full and I can do laundry without causing any hardship for these two guys! Crazy how life goes in a circle...come from rain most complain about and go to rain saves the day! After doing the wash, usually I only do 1-2 loads trying to conserve water, I hand our clothes out to dry on a line hanging on the porch. We have a dryer, but it throws flames when you turn it on...I don't want to chance it!
I forgot this is our little beach. It is right beside the brothers house and is pretty clean. We just learned yesterday from experience not to walk under the palm trees. I had heard earlier and warned the kids about falling coconuts, but you know it sounds crazy to say stay away from the trees. Yesterday after school while we were at the beach, 2 coconuts fell from the tree. Thankfully no on was under it, but one hit the ground and the other hit it...the horrible sound it made was impactful for the kids. They stayed clear of the trees after that imagining what would have happened if that sound had been their heads! YIKES!
All in all we are having a nice time and quite the adventure.
On this island we have been out in service twice. I met a awesome call. He is a police officer that works in Almirante (yup where the bus dropped us off). He is here staying with his mother in law while his kids are out of school. They are on summer break I think because they don't go back until the middle of February and haven't been in since we got here... he has 5 kids and they live about 4 hours from here. He travels to his job in Almirante and stays there for a week then goes back home to his family. Raymond is planning on studying with him...and seeing where it goes. He was so humble and pulled out his bible to see the word of God. It made quite an impact that Jehovah has a name and it is not El Senor (like God). His bible had taken the name out and he was surprised and started using Jehovah as soon as he saw it in the scriptures. It was awesome.
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