Home, Sweet Home!

I’ve officially moved into my more permanent residence for the rest of the year.  I’m in “Flag-partment,” one of the three sets of rooms on the third floor of a building in the center of town.  This will be extra convenient once street zumba nights start up again. Anyway, our place isn’t the only one with a name; there is Cat-partment, Boss Apartment, Base Apartment, etc.  As I’m sure you can guess, I am once again completely in love with the view, and I certainly won’t struggle to wake up in the morning, since the sun shines right on in, lighting up our yellow-walled bedroom.

 

As to who I’m living with, I got to keep my same roommate from my home-stay, which is great news!  Nely is an impressive 20-year-old girl from a more southern department (departments are similar to US states, in a way), Intibucá.  Her family owns a strawberry farm there.  I’m in awe with her language learning ability, since she has been learning English for only the past two years, but is definitely proficient. I also share a living space with a returner, Sondra, who is from Washington (the state), and is the program manager for BECA.

Here is a breakdown of our living space:

To get to our floor, we take these lovely spiraling stairs (beware of them during a rainstorm; they get mighty slippery!):

Once you get to the third floor, our front balcony/walkway area is complete with a washer, dryer, and pila (which I’ll use to handwash some of my nicer clothes).  There’s also enough space to hang my hammock and read, which makes me happy.

From here, you go down a little hallway with separate living spaces on both sides and a third in the back:

Once inside of our apartment, you see our well-loved couch, bookshelf, dining/work table, and kitchen:

Here are some pics of the room Nely and I share.  You’ll notice that she is definitely less cluttered than I am already, but to be fair, I was still unpacking in some of these photos:

Overall, it’s a pretty sweet setup…with WiFi, a shower, and decent airflow. I’ve already started tackling my fear of using a match to light a gas stove; props to my SJBS administrator, Chris, for demonstrating how it’s done the first time around.  I’m also starting to recognize the importance of sweeping daily and mopping every couple days.  With having open windows, comes plenty of dust.  I also make sure to immediately wash dishes after using them because…well…ants.

One of my favorite parts of being in my own space now is that I am in charge of my own eating schedule (minus school lunches and Wednesday evenings).  This means I get to start experimenting with smoothies again.  Many of my go-to fruits and veggies (spinach, oranges, berries, etc.) are either hard to come by or too pricey (because they are imported) for a cheap-o like me.  My favorite new combo has been cucumber, banana, and pineapple (with a purified water base).  Yum.

I also love that the WiFi has been pretty steady (after the blip for the first few hours after moving in and this terribly difficult time I’ve had streaming Game of Thrones 20-some seconds at a time), so I’ve gotten to enjoy some video chats with folks from home.  My pup, Jesse, seemed to be a bit confused when she heard my voice, but didn’t see or smell me nearby. Poor girl.  I definitely miss her.

 

On a different note, I finally got to step foot in my classroom!  Here are some pics:

Hopefully the next time you see this space, it’ll be a lot more put-together.  I believe that’s another three or four weeks down the line.  Coming up before classroom-prep week: one last week of “summer institute” (aka teacher training), two weeks of “academy” (aka teaching practice and reflection), and a little team bonding trip.  The official first day of school for SJBS is August 22nd–officially less than a month away!

All this said, when I started this blog, I didn’t think I would manage to post but at most twice a month.  So far, I’ve been keeping up weekly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the frequency of my posts will slow once I get into teaching and trying to fit in some travel plans.  I suppose time will tell.  In the meantime, thanks for following along 🙂

 

❤