After quite a few difficulties and delays, I finally moved into my new house! The Peace Corps gives us a nice chunk of change to furnish our houses when we first move to our sites. I was lucky to be moving into Monica´s old room, so I didn´t need to buy anything then and was free to spend the money on a plane ticket to Santa Cruz -- the first leg of my journey home for Christopher´s wedding. Well, moving out of Monica´s room meant losing all of Monica´s stuff. Thankfully, the new house came fully furnished, including a full tank of gas and two five-year-old girls -- the ¨rats¨.

Things started out well. Sofía and Ana invited themselves in and found my toy llama (pictured on the left). One of the goals of my Peace Corps service has since become teaching them that said toy is not a sheep or a horse but indeed an entirely different species of animal.

We´re still working on it.

I gave them my attention for a good two hours as they greatly hindered my unpacking process, but eventually I had to leave. Despite my efforts to explain that I lived there now and would be back that night, the two of them became instant devil-children and began threatening to break my keys or throw them over the wall of our shared courtyard. I was holding the keys, so I knew they would have to pry them out of my cold, dead fingers to accomplish such a threat (although maybe I shouldn´t put it past them), but I was still a little freaked out. I almost literally had to push them out the door.

They haven´t threatened me since then, but it is always difficult to get them to leave the house when I can´t play anymore. They´re actually pretty cute and fun up until that inevitable moment. Sofía (the one with the cheeks) is usually nice, and Ana seems to be the instigator of the devilishness. This morning as I prepared for Davíd from the Peace Corps office to come fumigate and kill my giant spiders, I listened to a good half hour of temper tantrums as the girls protested going to kindergarten. To my surprise, Sofía was the one who got her way and stayed home. As she and I stood outside my house while Davíd did his thing, I tried and tried to convince her that kindergarten was fun. I could not understand why she would want to be away from her partner in crime, especially when I wouldn´t be around to harrass either, but she was determined to stay at home and do absolutely nothing all day long. We´ll try again on Monday.

For the first few days after I moved in there was no water in Valle de Concepción. The situation was getting pretty ridiculous, and I was contemplating retreating to the city to borrow a hostel shower when, gracias a Dios, I began to notice women with buckets making their way to the plaza. A truck full of river water had arrived, and everyone in town showed up with every container they could get their hands on to bring this murky water to their houses. I have to admit, it was kind of a fun experience and gave me a real sense of community. I myself made three trips with the huge paint bucket I found had been provided with the new house and spent the rest of the day boiling and filtering water with every pot I owned. I had to check on the filter every hour or so to toothbrush off the grime so the water could pass through, but it was so worth it to have drinking water again. I even took a break for a celebratory brown water bucket bath. The water is back now and running clear for the first time in a while... but it also hasn´t rained in a while, and I´m sure the murk will return when it does.

Okay. Time to go. Future blog entries will include a tour of my new house and maybe all of Valle de Concepción and a report on Carnaval and the wine festival to be hosted by my site this weekend.