Mi Casa

Jen, David, the Rudi Booher Family, Vico, and Elena

Hello from the courtyard of our new home. David (in the orange shirt) is holding out his hand to show the numerous keys that go with our house. I think there must be at least 20! So far we have only had to use two of them: the front gate and the front door. Here in Cochabamba we have to lock things up tight! Everyone also has sharp objects on top of the fences, gates, and such to discourage theft. Pictured below is one wall in the front of our house. These glass bottles are attached with cement. An innovative way to recycle glass bottles, eh!

The Front of our Casa

I wanted to show you all around our house... Hang on tight as it may get a bit random at times...

The Sewage Canal across the Street...

   
 If you look at the picture of the "Front of our House" you will see a dip in the cement behind the first bushes. This "dip" is the Sewage canal that the houses and businesses on our street all connect to. It smells pretty bad when you get closer.... When Jen told us about our house she told us there was something "odd" about the bathrooms. When we got here we found out that we could/should only go uhmm... number 2's in one outside bathroom. We have christened this bathroom the "Big Jobber House".This bathroom is attached to a small septic tank system. All other waste water that goes from our house dumps into the canal... (I warned you that this would be random!)

The Big Jobber House

Handwashing Station

Our house came with this very deluxe area to hand wash your clothes. There was not a designated place for a washing machine. I think that the Lawyers that own/lived here before us did all hand washing for their clothes. David rigged up an area for our washing machine in one of the spare outside bathrooms. (There are two extra bathrooms outside, besides the "special" one!)

Amazingly, the washing machine "sits" in the shower area, pulls power from the shower head socket on the wall, takes water from the back of the toilet area, and drains into the toilet.... Ned, are you impressed? These folks down here know how to make it happen when it comes to electrical and plumbing! My washing machine works great and has a very large capacity. I need to get a bigger dryer to handle all of the clean wash....

Mi Secadora

Yep, you guessed it... my clothes dryer is "Bolivian style" and, thankfully, my favorite! You are also looking at the majority of our "yard". We are hoping to do all of the yard work for Casa 1 and Casa 2, to get all of the lawn mowing out of Rudi's system! Those of you who know him know he loves to work in the yard!

The Widow Maker (Shower head)

   Another wonder in the electrical and plumbing world here is the electric-heated shower head, fondly dubbed "The Widow Maker"! 220 volts can really pack a punch especially when standing in water! Not that I would know anything about it! The way it works is: you turn on the water, then you flip the breaker switch (pictured to the left in the grey box) which starts heating the water in the shower head. The slower the water flows through the shower head the warmer it is. It is actually super clever and a very economical way to have a hot shower... Just hope that your shower is not a shocking experience!

The View from our Balconies

The view from our balconies of the mountains and skies surrounding us is amazingly beautiful. The weather has been sunny, with some clouds in the afternoons. When the wind kicks up it is amazing how much dust gets in the air.

Installing our Phone line!

       I don't think this picture turned out very clear, but this is the phone guys working on the phone/power pole to the left of our house. It is a real jumble of wires and the fella on the ladder is very high up off the ground! Wouldn't the safety associations in the U.S. have a fit?

Our local herd of Sheep

 Although it feels very city like where we are, it is not uncommon to see a flock of sheep or several HOLSTEIN dairy cows, right on our street grazing on the very few tufts of grass available. I don't know who they belong to, or where they go, as I have never seen people in charge of them.

Our Neighbors

This is our neighbors directly behind us. I don't know if animals or people live in these tin roofed huts. I think it is a combination of both. I have heard lots of chicken and rooster sounds coming from here, as well as, people sounds! The house beyond them is the one of the nicest I have seen in our area. The part of town we are located in has a real mixture of industry and homes.