Thursday, March 12, 2009

Trabajadores, Agua y Perritos

Ok, here´s a testament to our dedication to writing in the blog. In order to get to the internet tonight, we had to break into our office since we don´t have a key. Picture Miah lifting Leslie above his head to slide into a tiny window above the shower in the office bathroom. Besides a few scrapes and bruises, our recon mission was successful and here we are. It´s been quite a week here, since we´ve been hosting a volunteer group from the US. We´ll provide a full account of that next week though when we return to the office.

Great news, we can finally take hot showers. This is definitely one of the blessings of home that we always took for granted. After $150, a few days of work, and a very Tico style of running wires out the bathroom window (it looks awesome leslie, hush), across the house, and into the breaker box, our shower head now runs a current through the water to heat it instantaneously. As soon as we got the shower head installed, however, our water was shut off for four days becuase the bill is apparently delivered to a neighboring house that no one lives in and so it wasn´t paid for the last two months. It is all taken care of now though, and we return to having water during the week, except from 6 to 8 in the evenings, and only in the mornings on the weekend. As we continue farther into the dry season, the two rivers in our town have dried up and the soil is hard as a rock. It is interesting to only have two seasons, dry and wet, and never need a weather report.

We almost became dog owners once again this week. A tiny puppy found its way to our front porch and was so adorable we could not turn her away. After giving her dinner and a few pets, she permanently attached herself to us. Wherever we would go, she would follow, and if she couldn´t be directly in contact with us, she would crawl into our shoes, a purse or backpack, or just curl up on our socks so she could feel close. It was absolutely adorable. Unfortunately she had fleas, so she had to sleep outside. She whined the entire night, only to stop from exhaustion for short breaks, before starting up again. Needless to say, we didn´t get much sleep, but as soon as we opened the door in the morning she was happy as could be. After work the next day, however, she was gone, which is a blessing and a curse. We would not make very good owners here, since we work so far from home and are not around enough, but it was so happy to have a dog again.

Well hopefully you are all watching the Wolfpack play as we write this... we have to be satisfied with ESPN updates since we can´t watch the ACC tournament here. We miss you all (and college sports as well).

Team Wander

4 comments:

Nick said...

Maryland sucks. Is the US volunteer group a collegiate challenge Habitat group? What kind of dog was the puppy?

Texas pretty much has two seasons, cool and hot, but we also have spring thunderstorms that make flying interesting :).

I went skiing in CO last weekend and thought about Miah while I was watching the snowboarders doing their tricks. Is there a Tico bobsled team you guys could join?

Thanks for getting all scratched up to update us, I love reading your blog!

Liza said...

You need to shoo off any other animals that attempt to climb into Leslie's purse. They should know that means they might get carried to a strange place and then left behind! It was wonderful living with you, Leslie, knowing I wasn't the only one trying to leave my belongings everywhere!

Thanks for your dedication to the blog! I constantly check it for news! :)

Susan said...

Yay for hot water!!

Team Wander said...

The group that came by was a high school group that was doing a service spring break opportunity, but from the looks of it i would say that a lot of these kids are headed straight for their collegiate habitat chapters.

the puppy was 3/4 cute and 1/4 tiny, but i'm not sure of the breed.

:-)

love ya, nick