New Place, More Heat, Cold Showers

I moved! Yeah! I am now the proud renter of a wonderfully lovely little casita in Guayaquil. When you come and visit me (cough, hint, hint) you will absolutely love it! And then you will laugh at me for moving into the Ecuadorian version of my apartment in De Pere...

My new place is totally great. Its a casa interior, which means that it is located behind the main house on the property. In my case, its actually behind a house and 2 apartments; mine is the only one thats not connected to the other ones. On the outside it looks like a cute little dollhouse cabin. I described it to one of my friends here as being very handmade, which means that I kill lots of bugs. Ps, if you are looking for an effective and cheap insect killer, might I recommend mixing water, nailpolish remover and concentrated disinfectant household cleaner. It stops ants dead in their tracks, literally. But besides the ants (and the bees, and the flies, and the mosquitoes, and dont forget the lizards in the laundry room) my new place is great. I am, for my first time in Ecuador, living without a hot shower. You would think that a cold shower would take the joy out of showering, at least thats what I always thought. That is until the hot season came...My new place has a metal roof, which means that it heats up really quickly. That would be hugely useful if I lived in the mountains, but unfortunately I like in Guayaquil, the sweaty armpit of Ecuador. Its crazy hot, so the cold showers are kinda nice (once I get over the initial shock, I'm talking ice water, people).

My landlord is an Ingeniero (literally means enginer, but in Ecuador is used for all kinds of people with a college degree. In his case, I do believe he was an enginer in the English sense of the word) and he seems to enjoy the house repairs. However, he is a bit old (and going deaf and senile with Alzheimers, his words, not mine) so he doesnt really do the repairs himself anymore. Rather, there is a steady stream of señores who work on the different properties that he owns. Per Peace Corps rules (and my paranoia) a gate had to be installed on the sliding glass doors in the front of the house. I, foolishly, assumed that a gate would be purchased and installed. Nope! They made it by hand. Then they also made me a table for my stovetop, fixed some doors, installed several curtain rods, and a rod to give me more closet space. I paid them back in coffee, watered down juice and crackers. It was all I had to give, and they took it with a smile!

You might wonder whats inside of my house? Since anyone who knows me (or has half a brain) would know that I could not bring things like a fridge and a couch to Ecuador. Well, PC gives us a separate spending allowance to furnish our home. The amount that they give us is certainly not enough for everything that needs to be bought, if you take into account things like plates, cups, a broom, drapes (so that the señores dont see me when i am nakey...) and all the other misc. things that home requires. Enter lots of drama with my bank account. RARR! Yeah, as predicted I was given the "budget" line for why my money situation got all messed up. And I have broken down and spent money from my US account for the first time since that wild swearing-in week in gringo-lovin Quito (not counting buying new pants, but that was totally necessary because my old jeans fall off me without undoing the zipper). But I (obsessively) keep track of how much money I am spending, bien raro for me, since I am used to being frivoulous and out of control with my money. So hopefully I will get back on track with that at some point. And if not, well, what-are-ya-gonna-do? The whole point of living only within my PC means is to experience living at a level more like the people that I serve. But really, thats a crock, because the people that I serve could never afford to live in the neighborhood that I live in, and I could never live in their neighborhood because its too "dangerous." So really I am living at the level of a modest-means Ecuadorian, and the lesson that I have learned is that this is why no one owns forks AND spoons and many people (myself included) do not own a couch. Hopefully by the time I have company in my casita I will scrap together the money to buy a table, something to sit on thats not the floor or the stairs, and more than one fork. And if not, well, I guess we will eat pizza on my yoga mat. Probably not even that, though, because pizza is expensive and I dont own an oven to make it in either....

Buying the things to furnish my home was an adventure in and of itself. First of all, we got an email at the end of November that because of increased crime rates in December with the holiday season, PCVs were forbidden to be in Quito (the capital) and Guayaquil (yeah, thats where I live) because the cities are too dangerous. So, does that mean I get to move?!?!? Nope, it just means that my friends cant come visit me. On of my friends asked for clarification because she has to come to the city for work, and because she has to come here to buy stuff for her new house as well. She was told that she should try to limit the amount of time in the city, and that she should try to do her shopping in one day, to minimize risk. Really, folks, that makes no sense. Doing all the shopping in one day (which is what I did, beacause its cheaper) only makes you a humongous target if you ask me. What would you think about some chick hopping in and out of a pickup truck digging money out of her bra to pay for large items like a fridge, a bed, a stove, etc? Its not like the "bad-guys" dont know that this stuff costs a lot of money. So its not like the whole world didnt know I was carrying a whole lot of loot in my boobies.

But I was able to buy everything that I needed, which is good. The thing about Ecuador (or at least Guayaquil) is that if you go to a normal store, you are going to pay more. And second hand things basically dont exist. So you have to go to a store where they will barter the price. But if you go there with a grina-voice, you get the special-gringa-price. So one of the Mujeres de Lucha offered to go with me. It was really fun! It was almost like a game: the sellers gives a bogus price, she says "What do you think, Niña Tere?", I scrunch my face and say, "Ummm...I dont have that much...", she goes off into a schpeel about how I am a student/social worker/youth organizer who doesnt have a lot of money but deserves a good price because I am here to make life better for the Ecuadorian people. Basically the sellers dont care who I am or why I am here, but they go along with it anyhow. At one point we were standing in the street trying to decided where to go next and a security guard asked if we needed help. She said yes, gave him the schpeel, he led us to someone else and told that person to help us. When he left, the new guy asks if we know the security guard? She resonds, "Yes, he's my godfather." Without even a waver in her voice! Just flat out pulled it outta her butt like it was nothing! I just stared at the groud, I am a horrible liar!

Anyhow, we found all the stuff I needed to buy, and then came back 2 days later with the pickup truck to buy all the stuff. We moved it all into my new place (which she confirmed is "Bien bonita"), I put a brand new lock on the brand new gate, and ate my first dinner of silent house freedom! Its great to be living on my own again! Basically all the Mujeres and folks from the office want to come over. They ignore my protests that I have three chairs, no table and one fork. They say a house without a party is not yet a house. So I guess the party will be at my house this weekend....

Party on! (Just kidding, I still speng most of my time reading and laying in bed listening to cds...)
Theresa
(ps, spell check isnt working, sorry for the errors....bad liar, even badder speller...is badder even a word? the spell check would know...)