Meet Santiago

We have been living in our current home for nearly 3 months.  It has had it's share of hardships (including: cold showers, mold, smelling water pipes, lack of insulation, no screens on windows), but there has always been one consistent thing that makes us happy to live in the home.  And that happy thing is the landlady's maintenance man, who works in our courtyard 4 days a week.

Can you tell why we like him so much?

He is the most friendly guy to interact with.  He has a positive attitude and is a very hard worker.  He only has a few teeth.  He doesn't speak Spanish fluently, but only his native tongue.  He is always very grateful and appreciative of Jenny and I.  We give him lunches from our kitchen several times a week.  One of the main reasons living in this home is difficult is because of our landlady.  She is very controlling and doesn't treat Santiago well.  When we give him lunch, he has to hide it from her because she considers him her work and doesn't need us to interact with him.

We have been able to locate a new place to live, starting early December.  It became a difficult decision (whether or not to move) solely because of Santiago.  We are currently working on arrangements with his schedule to work it out that we can still see him on a consistent basis.  But we feel that since our house was not very good quality, and because we didn't want to support our landlady for being disrespectful, that we needed to transition when we get the chance (plus we've been told that our landlady has a history of kicking tenants out with no warning...which actually happened last month with our Guatemalan neighbors with the two small children...we are now trying to support that family by having the mother do our laundry every week).

Here are pictures of those kids.  We miss them too.  Actually, when we decided to move here it was because of the closeness in community to the Guatemalans, so now that they have been taken away from us we feel our home is to be made elsewhere.

The Bungalow Home

We've gotten settled in our Guatemalan home!  As we've mentioned before, we share a courtyard with two other bungalows, one of which houses a Mayan family with 2 small kids.  I am happy to report that we have gone 1 week now with the little boy (almost 2 yrs old) not crying at the sight of us, the "gringos".  In fact, we walked with the family to a festival celebrating a "Saint's Day".  He is not only not crying, but smiling and playing with us!

We'd like to share a few photos that you can browse and get a glimpse of our environment.

This is our front door.

The house on the right in this picture is where our Guatemalan friends live.

As we first enter the bungalow, we have our bed on the right and "sofa (i.e. twin bed)" straight ahead.

Our bathroom is through the door on the back right from the picture when you step into the bungalow.

We got creative with our closet space by finding a stick outside as our pole.

 From view of our bed, you can see the tv, shelf and entrance to kitchen.

 We have a four burner stove top (no oven), sink, table, and water filter (on back right in picture)

There's the stove top.

 And then there is our "dorm room size" refrigerator.

And here's our view from the kitchen into the front of the house.

In case you got lost on the tour, we have 1 room that serves as bedroom, living room, dining room, family room, and pantry (i.e. shelf).  Then we have a bathroom with a wardrobe and make-shift clothes rod.  And of course we have a kitchen.

Almost everything was included with the house.  We'll have to buy a gas tank every once in awhile for the stove top.  And we had to do extensive cleaning.  We love our rugs and our bed spread, which we bought (all dyed with natural colors and made by hand).  TV and cable was included.  Rent is very cheap (around $160 per month) compared to what we're accustomed to in the States, however we're also only earning about double that amount on income for everything else to get-by and live on.