Mi Casa

My house in Ollanta is less than a year old. ¨Nice!¨ you say. You are wrong. In Peru, people move into buildings before they´re finished, and then continue adding to them for years after. So right now the top floor of the house is nonfunctioning. There´s no floor except for what looks like bamboo (I can see it through the cracks at the edges of my room´s ceiling, which is actually a tarp). To get to the bottom floor, aka basement, you have to go down a steep, ladder-like staircase into some muddy muck next to the corn field, then go through the wooden door in the cement block wall. Here, you enter a courtyard, which functions as the center of the house. There are seven chickens living in the courtyard and they do all of their things there, unless you forget to close a door and then they do their things in your room, the bathroom, or the kitchen. There´s also a dog named Tarzan, who I´m a fan of. If I ever have chickens, they will live at least fifty feet away from my house. There are lots of laundry lines in the courtyard and a rusty metal tub with a spigot that serves as a washbasin for dishes and whatever else needs washing. The bathroom is small with a real (though seatless) toilet, a sink, and a hot shower. Not so bad. There´s a window that looks out from the shower into the courtyard. Privacy is not so important here. My room was my sisters´room before I got here, and the first day there were two beds because the five-year-old wanted to share a room with me. I had to say no. Now my entire family besides me sleeps in the kitchen/bedroom/living room. Yikes. But really...come on.
My room has a twin bed with very pink bedding, a bookcase with stuffed animals (some are very creepy. murderous baby doll, one-eyed giant Minnie Mouse), a dresser that I have two drawers in, a sewing machine, some educational posters and books, and pictures of Jesus being flogged and that kind of thing. The window is a plastic sheet, and that plus wind and rain is a recipe for the loudest night of your life. The room is really damp right now. That will probably change once the dry season kicks in, but for now my Spanish dictionary has been wet for a week. This sounds really bad, no? But somehow I´m getting used to it. I can do anything for six weeks! Five more to go before traveling...