Panama is hilarious.
I spent the entire day in my new house with the owner trying
to fix a leaking toilet and sink. He’s 26 years old and bought the house four
years ago for $21,000. It’s this super cute two-bedroom red house in a
wonderful little neighborhood with kids running in my backyard and street (it’s
a dead-end road and sees little traffic!). Julian came over at 11am or so to
fix the leaks, and JUST left at 6:15pm. Turns out he had put a new piece in
wrong. We had a good hearty laugh about how it cost us ALL day to figure that
out. We had a good afternoon getting to know each other though so it’s all
good. He’s like Sarah and I – he had saved all his notes from high school and
middle school and even elementary school, and he showed me it all on a quest to
find his old English homework, to no avail.
Let me back up. My previous living situation peaked in its
making me feel like I needed a change. To sum it up and leave out unnecessary
details, the family and I were just too different. They were never there so I
wasn’t a part of their family, but it was still very clearly their space, and I wasn’t free to do
with it as I wished. I had contemplated moving out, but feared my Spanish would
get worse. I then stopped and thought, and realized that I speak Spanish with
them about once a week when we spend any amount of time in the same space, the
rest of the time I just feel like a nescience. I started looking for
apartments, and a friend of a friend of a friend knew someone who was looking
to rent their house furnished. Furnished apartments/houses are unheard of here.
Everything else I had looked at didn’t even come with a fridge or stove.
Rebecca drove me to see the house and it was absolutely perfect. That day I
asked Julian how quickly he could be out. It’s six days later, and I’m
beginning my second night here at La Casa Roja.
When I came to see the house, I thought the owner looked
super familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I have a friend in town who I have
been to a lot of soccer games with and met a ton of people at the games, and
thought maybe it was there. Then I decided I was just crazy, and didn’t know
him. Well, yesterday when I was moving in, he told me what he did for work, and
I realized he had given an hour-long presentation at a school I was at a couple
weeks ago! I had asked my friend/Spanish teacher about him because he was so
great with the kids. Same guy. He totally remembered me and just didn’t say
anything.
Santiago is a small ass town.
Anyway, all is well here in La Casa Roja. I have to turn off
the water to the toilet when I’m not using it which kind of sucks, but it
reminds me of Lopez. I LOVE living alone. My sister said I’ll never be able to
go back to roommates and I think she’s right. Everything is exactly where I
left it, and I know anything that’s annoying about the house is my fault and
needs to be my solution.
The neighborhood is called Las Perlas and is like a giant
family. Julian told me that the woman next door is like his mother. This
morning I was coming home from the target equivalent here in Santiago, and I
saw her on her porch so I went over and introduced myself. She told me that
Julian was like her son. Later that day as I was hanging my clothes on the roof
to dry, she told me I could use her clothesline when it wasn’t being used. Then
she brought me a batido and lunch! I
think I’m going to like it here.
Hope all is well in your respective parts of the world. Love
to you all.
PS: I dont have internet so "yesterday" should be
taken with a grain of salt. I think I wrote this two days ago? Not sure.
Also, I was on national television. So there's that.
Ok. The house!
La Casita Roja
