The first week we arrived had been a mixed bag of joys and frustrations. Shortly after we arrived Emily’s back was in pain from our drive down. We’ve been told most people feel lousy the first couple of weeks after that marathon drive over Mexican potholes and speed-bumps. She woke up at 4:30am in pain. (Emily's thoughts [on that day]: It brought on my first big wave of missing home and wanting my Portland family around me. I so wish I could fly you all down here! I look forward to finally being settled and getting into a routine. My only ritual so far is every morning I take inventory and scratch my mosquito bites as I wake up.) Thankfully one of the brothers in our Congregation knows a good masseuse for pretty cheap – Emily went to see her and got some relief. She is much better now…
We are so grateful to Trevor and Tiffany for letting us stay with them while we hunted for a place - they were a breath of fresh air after the long trip here. Here is Trevor and I chillin' with their pooches Mazzy and Kahlua.
Another great perk to staying with them is that they live a block away from the beach. This allowed us to savor the gorgeous sunsets over the ocean from their balcony and taking lots of walks on the beautiful beach by them. Just what we needed to unwind from the drive down.
So like we mentioned we had been looking for a place that was within our price range and wasn't the size of a postage stamp :-) Well, we found something - Its pretty amazing how Jehovah works things out, and we ended up finding this place. As we were out in the ministry [which is GREAT here by the way, more on that to come] we had the whole car group on the hunt to find a place for us. We checked out a number of places, and as one of our service days was winding down Joaquin, a brother in the Congregation we're in, saw a local brother and sister couple from the Spanish Congregation driving by. He stopped them, said hello and mentioned we are looking for a place. The brother (Luis) mentioned his wife (Betty) has an uncle that owns the place they are living in and there is an upstairs apartment that is available. He said they are not advertising it because they only wanted either family or someone they could trust since they and the others have children. Well, who better to trust than Jehovah's people? So we checked it out. It was MUCH bigger than the first one we posted a pic of. It has 2 bedrooms, a spacious layout, a stove, cabinets and cupboard space, a place for a washer / dryer, the bedrooms have lots of closet space and shelving (which means we don’t have to buy dressers) and it has a ceiling fan in every room! It’s in a pretty good neighborhood too (by Mexico standards) and about 5 minutes from the beach. It even has a small balcony [now has a hammock] which Emily was really hoping for. Oh, and the price is EXACTLY what we prayed for. The place was in serious need of a good clean, a fresh paint job and few minor repairs. We were concerned about the lighting at first – there are no windows in the living room area and it seemed so dark and drab when we first walked in. The lighting was very dim and we thought that the walls were painted white and had just gotten dingy.
But they were actually painted prison cell gray. We were relieved to realize that since the front door and patio door open into the living room there is pretty good natural light with both of them open. Which is doable and private since the place is upstairs.
So we decided to take it. We're happy to say after improving the lighting and much work getting it cleaned and painted the place is feeling like home. Oh yeah, remember how loaded down our car was? Well, it was nice to be able to unload it after almost a MONTH of it being packed to the gills… wow, that’s a strange thought. ALL the items (including the table) you see in this pic were in our car - minus 20% was still at Trev and Tiff's place...
Our down stairs neighbors are the brother and sister couple we mentioned (Luis and Betty) - they have been great with us. They have helped us find a number of things to help us settle in. The only hitch is, they don't speak English - well, this has turned into a great opportunity to practice and improve our Spanish. One of the first things we needed help with was work on our apartment. Emily asked Betty if she knew of anyone that does housecleaning (thinking we could pay one of the local brothers or sisters to help us get the place ready). Well, she insisted they help us. They spent a day helping us clean and paint, it was super great! Here's before pics and us cleaning / improving, with help from Luis, Betty and their children too :-)
We were happy to see it had a stove. But upon further investigating Emily realized it has no oven. Which I guess is common here, people just don't bake - maybe its too hot... We have seen Mexicans use their oven for storage :-)
Here is an idea of the before and after paint colors
We now are in the process of "furnishing" it. Emily thought ahead and had us bring things like shower curtain rods, wall shelving, plastic storage drawers / cabinets, etc... this is allowing us to find places for all our items and such. We are on the hunt for a number of other items like washing machine, couch, TV and TV stand... you know the stuff to make the place "livable".
First visitor to our home - a small gecko. Pretty cool!
The friends here have been AMAZINGLY helpful as we research getting ourselves settled. Translating for us, driving us around, showing us where all the good places to shop and eat are. Thanks to all of their help we aren’t dealing with too much culture shock, just other funny little things like bed/mattress shopping, which by the way are not cheap here (and most of them are not good quality). They don't do box-springs here; they do bed stands, usually made of wood, and a mattress on top. Also, we are used to Queen and King, etc sized mattresses – and Queen is what we brought sheets for. Their King mattress is the same but they don’t have Queen typically – it has to be specially ordered and typically much more expensive. They do have a “Matrimonial” size which is about 3-4 inches smaller all around, but after testing out several in bed stores (much fun for the locals to watch) we’ve decided we can make do with it. We found a hand made bed frame at a local shop, and we had found a mattress at Wal-Mart (yes, there is a Wal-Mart here) but it was on "Special" and by the time we came back it was gone. Louis helped us find a place that sells new mattresses; he knows where to go for the inexpensive stuff. Funny story – we get to this store and we only see ones for double / triple what we want to pay (mostly American super nice pillow topped), so Louis says to the store owner “OK where are the ones for ‘this price’?” The owner takes us to a stairwell up to the second floor into a completely separate showroom that you would not have seen or known existed from outside. There we saw all the other mattresses and furniture that were not on display. It worked out great… So along with the Memory Foam topper we brought from home (thanks to Trevor and Tiffany for that tip) we have a bed that’s pretty decent. We also just got 2 small beds for a super good price so we can have company visit and stay with us - hint, hint :-) We just received confirmation from our good friends Shaye Eller and Elizabeth Peters that they will be flying in to visit mid-February. We look forward to seeing them soon!
Between price comparing and getting life down here in order we have been eating tons of cheap, delicious tacos and found time to have some fun! We’ve been able to hang out with the friends quite a bit and are starting to get to know everyone. Such a delightful bunch! We had a great beach day with pretty much the whole congregation...
As we mentioned the ministry here is great. A group of about 20 of us went about 45 minutes NE to the town of Cihuatlan, where the territory hasn’t been preached to in English yet. That was a treat for us, and it was a really encouraging day. Our next post will have some highlights from that and how the ministry is here, along with other updates. Stay tuned…
Much Agape,
Dane & Emily
