Casa Nov

The New House

So after returning home from the states I moved to a new house here in Chan di Igreja. The old house was great (And I’ll definitely miss the view from the rooftop) but as I may have mentioned before, there was a serious privacy deficiency. Because Peace Corps had arranged for me only one room of a three-room floor, the other two rooms were often occupied by tourists, friends of the landlord, strangers, and due to a mix-up between Peace Corps and my landlord, drunken teenage girls. Several times I awoke to find tourists in my kitchen making coffee and eggs (with my coffee and eggs), several times items went missing from my bathroom or all the water or toilet paper was gone, and several times I was asked by people in my village where exactly in my house Analisia and Lanisia (the drunken teenagers) were sleeping. Needless to say it made for an uncomfortable situation. Apparently, my landlord gave PC the wrong bank account information and PC transferred the money to someone else’s account.) In true Cape Verdian fashion, he didn’t tell anyone. Rather than talk about a problem directly, he sent drunken teenagers to sleep in the room across from me, knowing that would cause me a problem that would, indirectly, lead me to deal with the rent problem. It worked. When I approached him about the drunken teenagers, he told me about the absence of the rent money, and I told PC. A little over a month later, PC did something about it, and arranged this new house. I can tell you though, that the relationship between me and my old landlord soured quickly and living there was a VERY uncomfortable situation for the last month. As it stands, I believe he still has not received any money for the time I was living there, and he still is not speaking to me. More evidence of outstanding American diplomacy abroad.

In any event, I am comfortably installed in the casa de Dona Erminha, a very nice, very rich lady in Chan di Igreja. She has several children living in the States and apparently they are sending back a lot of money and things because her house looks just like (on the inside) any house you might find in America. There is a big screen TV, leather couches, fancy vases, artwork on the walls, etc. They have a generator so they’re the only people with lights on when the power goes out. They own several properties in Chan di Igreja.

Anyway, like I said, I am VERY comfortable here. Inside, all the walls are painted blue which, I can tell you, seems to produce a very tranquil, mellow, feeling (pretty much my favorite thing about the house…after the bathroom). There are 4 rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom a quintal and a veranda. In fact, the only uncomfortable thing about this house is when people ask me “Which one of the rooms is yours?” and then I have to tell them “All of them,” and then they make a face where their eyebrows shoot up and their eyes get real big and there are tons of wrinkles in the forehead and their mouths are slightly agape and they say “Huh?” (I have learned to cover for this excess by telling them, truthfully, that there are no other vacant houses in Chan di Igreja…at least that have running water.) Also the problem about the power. Sometimes sparks come shooting out of the place where the town’s wires are connected to the house, and sometimes I’m the only one in town without power. Still looking into how to get a “qualified professional” out to fix it.

Anyway, here’s a tour. Entering from the front there are two rooms on the bottom floor. One is for where visiting volunteers sleep (Justin and Emily were the inaugural visitors!) and the other serves as the “dining room.” Exit the dining room through the quintal, where I hang laundry and wash clothes, and there is another exit to the right. To the left you have the kitchen and bathroom. The kitchen is about 2m by 2m. The bathroom is a marvel of design and efficiency. It’s about the size of a water heater closet, and serves as the toilet AND shower. You may be able to see in the picture that the shower hose is attached just atop the toilet tank, just beneath the sloping ceiling. Thus, one is not only able, but compelled, to shower while sitting atop the sanita (toilet). Having lived here for a little over three weeks, I can tell you that once you solve the problem of keeping the toilet paper dry, this is a very agreeable arrangement, and should I ever have the funds to construct a house of my own, there will definitely be a toilet inside the shower. Returning to the quintal, you climb the winding staircase to the top floor and enter my “office.” This is where all my clothes and school supplies and books and towels and junk go. From the office you can step out onto the sizeable veranda which overlooks the mini-precio (Quick-Stop Store) and Silvania’s house. Past the office is my bedroom. I chose the minimalist style for my bedroom, with nothing there but my bed on the floor and my wooden chest. The two windows produce a heavenly breeze and, amazingly, when the door and both windows are shut, the room is almost completely dark, even at midday.

So that’s the dollar tour. Here are pictures of everything, except for the outside of the house, which I forgot to take a picture of, but which I will put up shortly. The US Congress comes tomorrow so wish me luck.