On Our Own

So we found a place to live, and we've survived the first week doing all our own cooking, cleaning, shopping, clothes-drying, mosquito-killing, water sanitation, flood mitigation....you know, typical new home stuff in your average developing nation.

Tolkien wrote about happy days slipping by into oblivion like pearls on a necklace, while tales that are palpitating, perilous, and even gruesome make a deal of telling (I can't remember the exact quote and I can't reference it because I don't have my books--they are all packed up in Virginia).

I'll write later about the search for a house--well, bother, now I'm starting to sound like The Never-ending Story (the book, not the movie) where every promising lead fades into "But that's another story that shall be told another time"--and then it isn't. I will try to follow up about everything eventually, though.

This past week has been fully occupied with survival and figuring things out, but I hope we're falling into something of a routine and will have more free time in the weeks to come. Well, we're already doing better on the sleep front due to Peru not participating in Daylight Savings Time!

Enjoying dinner at the local polleria. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of the actual pollo a la brasa y papas fritas.

Shopping for a new clothesline. Didn't buy this one. Still looking.

Watching a dump truck dump stuff into the construction zone next door.

Celebrating a successful braces/dentist consultation.

Our landlords graciously left some games for us. Michael was showing me the sequence he created.

At the dentist.

On our way downtown to change money.