Home is Where the Heat is

Sooooo with three weeks left here in Granada we've finally found ourselves in a permanent (ish?) home..for the next three weeks!

When we first moved here we stayed with the head missionary family. They are the ones who lived in Cville who we were corresponding with since last Spring about being in Granada. In our correspondence they were always welcoming and very excited about us being here and being involved. One thing we never discussed is where we'd live once we got here. It never seemed like it would be an issue.

When we arrived they welcomed us into their awesome colonial home and the plan was that we'd move into the housing at the mission base after a few days of getting our bearings in the city. We soon found out that the staff housing is actually 2 dorm rooms separated by girls and boys. Having been married for about two months at the time, we weren't too pumped about summer campin' it for 2 months, so we decided to explore other options.

We were first referred to a kid named Ezekiel. Ezekiel is this hilarious, energetic kid who is involved with lots of things that on at the mission base, His family lives near the base and has an extra room in their house that they rent out to missionaries or students. We went to Ezekiel's house late one night and immediately found out that his family is awesome, and his house is hopping with excitement and people. The room we would live in was nice enough, had a shower inside, and the family bano was close by. We had access to the fridge that was located in the store the family ran out of the first floor (basement) of the house, and we could use the kitchen whenever we wanted. We immediately loved the family and were pumped to live in a Nica home.

The next evening when we pulled up to move in, there were even more people there than the night before (probably 30 people on the small porch and plenty more in the house). Ezekiel and his dad came out and informed us that one of Ezekiel's uncle had died and there would be lots of people over for the next few days, since the body and funeral would be right there on the porch. We were pretty shocked they still wanted us to move in right then with the mourning and crowd of people and said that we understood if it would be better if we waited for a few days. We certainly wanted to be respectful and not get in the way. They said certainly not and had us come in right away. We passed by the open casket, paid our respects, and moved through the crowd to our room. Everyone we spoke to on the way in, as we offered our condolences, was very excited to have us and acted as if everything was fine and happy (a big reminder that death is viewed much less solemnly outside of the US). It wasn't an especially warm nica evening but the house felt like an oven and I (Joe) was doused in sweat with 2 minutes of walking through the door. I soon realized that might pose a problem for sleeping. The amazing dad, Efraim,went and found us a fan (actually took it off the porch where the funeral/wake was going on)and insisted we take it in our room. The custom down here when there is a death, other than having the body in the house for a day or two is for family and friends to stay up with the dead all night the first night of the wake. We felt terrible exiting our room, for fear of being disrespectful to the deceased and his family and I was sweating every minute of the night due to the rainforest-like temperature :). I believe we both slept about an hour that night.

Within two days, the funeral craziness had calmed down and they had carried the body to the cemetery. Things were much calmer and relaxed in the house, we got to spend time talking with the family and the many other folks who live/stay in the house. They are all wonderful people. What didn't calm down was the heat inside the house though. The house has about 6 1/2 foot ceilings and is a nice thick tin roof, with concrete walls. It literally was like an oven! It was hilarious how much we'd sweat if we were in the house for more than a minute between about 8 AM and 7 PM. After a few days of not sleeping we started to wonder whether or not we could take it. The family was awesome but, the sweaty gringos were slowly going crazy. We decided that we'd have to bite the bullet and tell the family that we were going to move somewhere else.

It just so happened that one of the missionaries met an american "former nun" who just moved into a nice house near the mission base and wanted to find some young christians to live with her, rent free! We were quite excited about the opportunity and immediately went to meet the owner, Meryl, and check out the house. It was gloooorious! The air actually moved around, and we'd have about 3 times the space and 30 times the privacy! Meryl seemed very nice, and quiet as well. We moved in within 24 hours we knew something a little off might be going on. Be sure to ask us for more details in person, but it turned out Meryl felt extremely unsafe in the house and was scared of basically everyone she saw. We had to hire 2 guards to sleep there just so she would sleep. We had plenty of arguments with her about trusting people and living without fear, but we got nowhere. We got many, many stories from our time there but after about a week we knew we'd have to find a new place if we wanted to actually interact with people. Also, Meryl was moving to a place she thought would be quieter and safer.

We started knocking on every door in the area remotely close to the base and asking folks if they had an extra room, or if they knew anyone who did. We actually found quite a few options! But not too many in our price range, or that seemed sleepable.

Finally, on a random knock we found Ginger, who is also American and is staying here for a few months as a volunteer. She has an extra room in a amazing, comfortable, small house and figured she wouldn't mind some roommates. We moved in the next day to our 4th house in 4 weeks! We are happy now though, we can sleep without waking up in a pool of sweat and leave the door open for more than 12 seconds without being fussed at out of fear of an intruder.
We've even hired Ezekiel's aunt to cook for us twice a week and we got hang out on their porch to visit when the temperature is alright!