The 'Hood, The House

Looking out from the cinema, this is the nearest major intersection several blocks from our home. The Big Cinema building isn’t much to look at, its most prominent features being a McDonalds and a KFC. The children you see on the curb are always here, begging. There are a few restaurants, ATMs, and small malls on the corners. Most of the streets leading away are filled with rows of smaller shops: Pharmacies, bottle shops (liquor), hardware stores, sweet shops, etc. You find nearly identical shops in every neighborhood.

If you turn East at the Big Cinema, you’ll find yourself on this road, heading toward our home and the D-Mart Super Store where I do much of our shopping. You can see some of the garbage that collects on the street. It is also lined with mature palms and Bougainvillea, a rickshaw stand, a couple little stalls cut into the corrugated steel barrier that I think sell tobacco and pan and maybe do men’s hair.

Past the 24 hour guarded gate and within our housing society there are several of these big bronze statues. Opposite our street is one of Sir Isaac Newton.

This is a photo of our street. You can just see a slice of our row house on the left.

Our shipment from the States hasn’t arrived, so we are making due mostly with whatever was already in the house: a bed set and rickety blue table. I did get a small dining table for the rooftop terrace, but furniture shopping has been slow going. Our vision for the house is still congealing and Boaz’s Indian bank account isn’t active yet. We also bought all new appliances which are installed, but the house is mostly empty and very echo-y. There are just a couple little pockets of home.

Already doing laundry. Already missing dryers.

We are staying in the guest bedroom for now. The bed is ROCK HARD. We bought a mattress pad. It’s now just hard. I am counting down the days until our old bed arrives.

Boaz’s top mission is to get the office set up. Right now it is home only to our books, supported by bookends Boaz brought from South Africa.

We spend most of our time on the little veranda off the living room. It is never in full sun, but warmer than the house in the evening. I find the nightstands from the bed set make fine chairs when coupled with my travel blanket and pillow.

The only access to this little courtyard is through the backyards of the houses surrounding it. Our neighbors let their dogs loose in here. Sometimes they come to visit us.