Rustic but new home

Up at 5AM! Greeted by the worlds biggest toad outside my door.

Many of the buildings in this area, including our new home, have tin roofs. This makes it very difficult to sleep when it is raining or when it is very windy and things keep falling on the roof. Apparently Doug does not have this problem.

Our first night in the new home was interesting. As I said before it is very rustic. Leaving the lights on too long after dark is not a great idea, there are many openings in the wood and windows so we had the worlds biggest flying beetle join us at one point; several moths, some significantly large spiders and a scorpion! This is going to take some getting use to. Douglas has a fear that bugs will crawl on him in the night. I told him that today we would go looking for a bed net. I saw some in town the other day so this won’t be impossible to find.

There are banana tree’s growing right outside our window. One bunch is ready to pick.

Jack informed us that you have to get a machete, chop down the tree, and then cut off the bunch of bananas. You hang the bunch somewhere to ripen. The catch is that when you first chop down the bunch there is a lot of sap coming off and this sap is very sticky and dirty so you want to hang them outside but not for long because then all the animals will get them.

Bananas are perennial plants so when you cut down one there is another already growing beside it. There are several other batches that will be ripe soon enough. We will be living off bananas!

There is also a bunch of bamboo in our back yard. Hmmm.. what can we do with this. I will have to re-visit survivor episodes!

Internet here is very good but not wireless. If it were we might consider moving our beds and everything into the main building after last night, although I don’t think it is any more bug free in there. We are going to go in search of something to plug some of the bigger holes. At least keep the bugs down to a manageable size.

Ha… Jack’s wife’s name is Nalini

Kathy, who is the agent/landlord working for Jack came by today so I asked. I actually had to ask several times before it sank in LOL. Anyway, it was like Christmas today, she brought us new dishes, towels, sheets, blankets, pots, pans, cutlery a brand new washing machine and stove. I guess the same person was living here for so long that they stopped being able to easily get in and see the place so they are upgrading everything. There should be a handyman here in the next couple of days to start fixing things and plugging holes etc… Life is good – Pura Vida!!

The washing machine is hilarious. There are two sides. This left side you fill with water using a garden hose. Put the clothes and soap in and it will swoosh them around without an agitator, just using water force. You then take them out of that side and move them to the right side where there is a spinner to take as much of the water out as possible. Then you hang them to dry. Quite an impressive system.

YEAH, Doug met a friend. There is a boy names Sequoia living right next door. He lives in the US but is here visiting his father for the summer.  In anticipation of Doug’s boredom I picked up some hand carved die so that Doug and I could play Yatzee. I may be able to hold onto them for another day or two. I met Sequoia's dad later in the day. His name is Pax. He and another guy own the whole foods store right up the street. Good to know!

I googled knot tying this afternoon. Kathy also brought some rope so that I could make a bigger clothes line.

Here is something cool I saw at the store up the road. They have used rope to weave together the tabs from cans to make a belt! Grace/Sam if you are reading this start saving your tab's I want to try this when I get home.