A House for Lani!

“There is no such thing in anyone’s life as an unimportant day.” 

–Alexander Wollcott

I feel like I have been transitioning since August.

In August I spent time moving between Denver and St. Louis.

September was spent in Minnesota.

October I arrived in Santa Cruz, Bolivia and then Bogota, Colombia.

December I moved to Sincelejo and finally Libertad. However, in Libertad I was living with an awesome family until just last week, January, when I moved into my own house!

I have never had my own house before and I would definitely consider this one a mansion. It is weird to the people here that I would live by myself. Everyone asks me if I am scared to sleep alone and many people have offered to keep me company. It is very kind of them, but it is also nice to have my own space and privacy. Though, privacy is relative really… there is hardly a moment when a kiddo is not playing cards on my floor (I don’t have a lot of furniture), looking at the map of the world on the wall, or climbing my tamarind tree in the back to eat fresh tamarind with salt.

The house also serves as the office for the Sembranopaz and a meeting place for the Community Council of Libertad, the leadership board that I support and that supports me. This week in my backyard we even had a cocinado- like a potluck, where everyone brings something and all cook together. We made a really awesome sancocho (soup with meat, yucca, ñame, plantain, potato, corn… whatever you want!)

A quick tour of the house:

My two favorite colors!

Welcome! So spacious with no furniture, but it is good for council meetings!

Here is the kitchen. My kitchen is inside and I cook with gas, but they made me a stove outside so I can cook outside as well. They don’t want me to feel left out! Seriously, they take such good care of me!

Here is the bathroom. It looks like I have a shower, but that’s only partially true. The water only comes to town sometimes, usually in the morning, but a tube broke and last week we went three days without water. Let’s just say that makes for a challenge. Luckily for me, my host family let me go to their house to bathe. After running in the morning and playing Frisbee in the afternoon, it would be really gross to not shower. The lack of water also makes cooking a challenge. Again, luckily for me, my family continues to give me food (as well as the neighbors, the Community Council, and other members of the community).

Here is my room! There was a little bit of a struggle over which room I was going to sleep in: there are three rooms in the house and my host mom wanted me to take the one in the front and I wanted the one in the back. She was totally set against me being in the back room and I was totally against the front room. Naturally, I ended up in the middle room. It actually seems like the best choice because it is the largest and the coolest of the three.

Of course, I had to hang up my discs! :)

This is the backyard. It is super big and a bit dirty. (Actually the idea of doing the cocinado in my house was to clean the yard, and while we did a little, we most just talked about how we should do another cocinado to clean the yard…) That big tree is the tamarind tree that the kids like to climb. We have some big dreams for planting here! I hope it works out!

And, of course, the flowers from the kids to make it beautiful!

I am very happy in my house and it feels really good to have my suitcases unpacked and things a bit more organized. And as I tell everyone in town, a la orden! Everyone is welcome whenever they would like! I have an extra bedroom with a double bed…

:)