che aiko che rogape. i'm living in my house!

First off, I want to apologize for my infrequent updates this last month and a half. I was sharing a room with my host sister this last month, and I don’t like bringing my computer out in front of Paraguayans. When one person gets a glimpse of my shiny American laptop, their eyes widen a bit, they tell me it’s pretty, and then they leave to go tell the rest of the family that Ali has her computer out. Then the entire family tromps in my room to get a glimpse of the pretty computer that the American has and proceed to stare at me as I try to type. As you can imagine, not only does that make it hard for me to concentrate, but it also makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and confirms more solidly in their minds that I am incredibly rich. So my computer has pretty much been sitting in my backpack the last month or so, only brought out when most of the family is gone. I fake taking a nap and close the door and window to get an hour or so to type up some emails.
I am extremely happy to announce that I am no longer subject to sharing a room or hiding my laptop. After 6 and a half months living with Paraguayan families, I am finally living by myself! It has only been a week that I have been in my own house, but it’s incredible what it has already done for my sanity. As if I wasn’t already aware of the fact that I’m an introvert, living with 4 different Paraguayan families (and sharing a room with someone) brought out my introvertness (yes, that is now a word) more that ever. I now live in a very small, old, wooden house, that even after hours and hours of work is still lacking. I love it. I can now cook by myself and cook whatever I feel like cooking and not feel like an idiot. As I am typing now, I have bread baking in the oven and it smells amazing. I now have some peace in the morning when I wake up and at night before I go to bed without having to worry about screaming children running in my room.
To make my house as homey as possible, I completed it with decorations. I have wildflowers in a glass on my fridge next to a beanie baby that a friend sent me, pictures on my fridge, a world map on the wall, and a princess like mosquito net over my bed. I live very near a creek/woods and every night I have a ridiculous amount of mosquitoes in my house. The fact that I also have very large gaps in between the walls and the ceiling might contribute to the number of mosquitoes I have as well. I also have my dog living with me again which makes me so happy. She follows me absolutely every where I go whether it’s the patio, the latrine, or down the street. She probably would follow me onto the bus if I let her. On my property I have somewhere between 10 to 15 tangerine trees (some of them different types), a sweet orange tree, two sour orange trees, a lemon tree, 2 guava trees, a peach tree, a nispero tree (tastes like a kiwi), two mango trees, and a few pomelo (white grapefruit) trees. Oh, and my neighbors have passion fruit vines as well. I probably have some other kind of fruit trees that I haven’t discovered yet or have already forgotten about.
While the space is somewhat small, that fact that I’m by myself makes me feel like I have more than enough space. I have a latrine that is located about 25 meters away from my house (it makes going to the bathroom in the dark an adventure), but it has a cement seat with a real toilet seat on it so it almost feels like a real bathroom. You just have to pour water down after you go poop. I am also planning on putting in a shower but don’t have that done yet so I’m bathing out of a bucket again. My roof is metal so it gets pretty warm around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Winter hasn’t even officially ended yet, so I think I need to do something to remedy that before the hot months come. I also have hours of work ahead of me with my machete and a rake and probably a few matches. The outside needs more than a little bit of fixing up. All that said, I can’t find reason to complain. Pictures are coming soon… or at least when I have time to upload them all online… I’m sorry if this blog is confusing. I feel like it’s about at disorganized as all of the thoughts in my head right now.