My Casa Saga

For those of you who are friends with me on The Facebook, The Twitter, The Gchat, or The Real Life, you may have seen something about how my moving day was canceled. For the past 3 months, the plan has been that after 3 months I would move into my project partner's house and she would move in with her brother. At first I was resistent, but my community insisted this was the only solution because there simply were no other houses.

Then yesterday, the day before moving day, it all went to pieces. The brother decided that he could no longer host his sister, so she was going to stay in her house. This was upsetting for me because I have already put some work into that house. I started an amazing vegetable garden. My puppies have been living there already. I installed new locks and latches on the windows and doors and started fixing up some appliances. It was a disappointment.

The picture's a little fuzzy, but this is the organic garden I started! It has lettuce, bell peppers, tomatoes, and carrots.

So the next day (today), I casually mentioned to my friends Mamani and Niove that I was going to go to Coquito, the community down the road, to see what their housing situation was like. Then I went off to give my puppies a bath. While Rivera was sitting in my lap, shivering away the trauma of becoming clean, a veritable uproar took place. Word had gotten out that I was going to look into moving to Coquito, and everyone had something to say about that. There are thieves! The people there are caliente (hot, technically, but meaning more like... hard partiers to the point of being dangerous for other people? I don't know how to translate this). Coquito had a volunteer a few years ago, but they drove her off!

20 minutes later, I was standing next to this man's house with him and another man from the community. We were marking off where my future casita will be built. They say it will take 10 days. I assume that 10 means more like 30, but regardless, I'm going to have my own house! Success!

UPDATE: Later that same day, the building-a-house plan was completely scuttled in favor of the original plan. Moving in tomorrow!!!!