New water connection

Our property had no water when we bought it.  There are a limited number of water connections in the community, so we had to buy a connection from another member of the community.  We met him at the local meeting hall on a Saturday night, which is when the leaders gather so the members of the community can come and pay their water dues.

The purchase was recorded in a notebook by the leaders, which made it official.

Then we went to another group, where we waited for Michael's name to be written on the list instead of the previous owner's name.  For a while we weren't sure what was taking so long, so Michael went over to one of the men to ask.  They were waiting for a girl who went to buy wite-out so they could cover the previous name in the notebook and write Michael's name instead.

Michael also had to sign up for the community work list since we now own a water connection.  We have yet to see how often they ask him to work, but we will be able to pay someone to work for him since his back hurts.

A couple of weeks later, we went to literally transfer the faucet from the other owner.  First we went to his land, where some men dug around the pipes and cut them to remove his pipes and patch the hole.  Then we walked over to our land, carrying the faucet.  They cut the pipes which ran across one edge of our land and inserted a new pipe with the faucet.  You can see the post (cut from a small tree nearby) to which they tied the pipe to help it stay upright.

The faucet leaked, so we had to go buy a new gasket which the hardware store didn't have, so we ended up buying a whole new faucet.

After all that, we now have water!

Grandparents' visit

My (Heather's/Erica's) parents came for a visit.  We were glad to see them!  And we were glad that they brought a lot of stuff for us like textbooks, computer parts, and cooking pans that we can't buy here.

Grandpa telling a story

Grandma drinking coffee

Visiting our new property

Playing card games

"Good-bye"

When passing someone, the normal greeting here is "Good-bye!"  I find myself usually saying "Hello!" and then correcting it to "Good-bye!"  (Well, actually in Spanish it is "¡Buenos días!" and then "¡Adios!")