Third Night In Our New House

As I lay in the two twin beds shoved together forming Harmon and Sammy’s bed, begging them to go to sleep, I was struck by the fact that the clanking of a gate somewhere outside didn’t startle me anymore.  The first two nights I would have to get up and make sure no bad guys were breaking in.  The first two nights every noise was an issue.  Is that a bad guy in our house?  Is that a bad guy getting a tall ladder to scale our balcony?  Is that a bad guy up on the roof of the neighbor’s house spying on us?  Is that a bad guy honking his horn???  (You know, bad guys usually honk their horns a lot to distract you…)  But by night number three (last night) I felt calm.  Sometime during the day I decided we were safe and no bad guys were coming to get us.  I think I always feel like that in a new house, but it was amplified here because the windows of every house here have bars, many houses have gates, padlocks, etc.  I’m not really sure that is all necessary, but it makes you think it is.

We are loving our new house.  It is on a very busy street on the edge of downtown.  It’s a street we had joked about being able to live on in past years, right across the street from my favorite restaurant.  It’s in our old ward, it’s close to our friends at the volunteer house, and is two blocks from a newly rebuilt park.  Two houses away is a little local restaurant where we eat lunch every day for $1.50/person and $2/person for dinner.  Our house is too big for us, we are currently living in the upstairs which has 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms and the kitchen.  The kids are sharing a room and we are using the other room as a playroom.  Downstairs is a big bedroom and a small office, a good sized front room/living room and a patio with a laundry area.  (You might be happy to know I have been washing all of our laundry by hand and hanging it out to dry all Ecuadorian style until we save/earn enough money for a washing machine.)  Attached to our house is a garage with another tiny bathroom and small kitchen area.  We are hoping to turn this into some sort of restaurant/shop/tienda/office/something.  We are in a good area that gets too much car traffic and a good amount of tourist foot traffic from up the street.  We also have a front patio area between our house and gate (with a padlock of course).  We were very very blessed to find a great house at a great price so quickly.  It was completely unfurnished (this means it lacks even refrigerator, oven, etc.) and so far we have bought beds, table and chairs, desk for Aaron, and we have been reunited with our favorite microwave/convection oven that our friends stored for us.  Our next purchase for a while will be a fridge, and then if/when Aaron does some consulting work we will be moving on to a couch.  (Really exciting details, I know…)

I am really happy here.  It feels really right.  We have yet to settle into a set rhythm, as we have been running errands buying furniture & housewares, making sure our bank account here was working, setting up internet, etc. but things are going well.  We knew the process of settling in could have taken weeks and we are happy to have the things we need (minus fridge) all in place so quickly.  Anyway, if you are still reading here are some pictures.

Our house.  Wedged between a grassy lot and the neighbors.

I totally cleaned this laundry by myself.

This is me after doing all the laundry.