3 nights in the new house

After three nights in the new house, here is the overall rating. The roosters on the next door neighbors roof are not too bad. All hours of day or night, you can hear roosters crowing about town, but luckily these seem to sleep in until about 6:30. Joe found out that they are raised for cock fighting, which is sanctioned in certain areas. Thankfully, none of our immediate neighbors have dogs, or at least really barky ones. You can hear dogs barking often, but not for long periods of time. The church bells ring at 6:30 every morning to let us know that the Rosary is being read, and then again at 6:45 & 7:00 for Mass to start. (I think this wakes the lazy roosters, who then spring into action) Alex does not hold out any love for the roosters. We sleep with all the windows open to keep cool, so you can hear it all.

The trash truck sometimes picks up the dumpster at the end of the street at about 2:00 am. Joe and I couldn't help but laugh at that one. The trash pick up daily and I am trying to get a shot of the trash truck going by. One poor guy is inside the truck stacking bags, and it just rolls really slow down the street and they toss the bags up to him to stack up. That is what you call low man on the pole. The street traffic is a bit loud, as there is no inspection of anything here. Mufflers, windows, doors, taste in music, etc are all optional. It is not uncommon to see about 10 people in the back of a pickup truck traveling down the highway, or a person or two holding on to something being transported. We sometimes hear kids screaming, which makes me feel like mine are not the only whiners in the area. I am sure the neighbors talk about our loud kids. We also discovered the milk cows grazing in the lot across the street. Joe saw one munching on a tree down the road, but we didn't realize they were that close until today. Pic attached.

The house itself is huge, and we found some cheap rugs at the market to cover some of the floors. We found some used living room furniture, and got the internet working. We should be falling into a rhythm of life sometime in the next few weeks. The plumbing works pretty well considering the town shuts the water off at 7:00 pm, and you are running only on your cistern (giant jug on the roof which gravity feeds the house). Joe got some clothes lines hung for me today, so by the time I got the laundry hung, it was late in the day. I will leave it out all night, and hope it doesn't rain.

The guys have been working on the house all week, and will hopefully be done in a few more days. They have gotten most of the outside patched and some painted. If the weather holds out, they may get it all done. The guys are pretty friendly, and seem to really like the kids. Joe gave one of the guys an outfit and some shoes that no longer fits Alan, and he seemed pretty excited. They have a bunch of highly neglected plants in pots in the yard, and I have started to "repot" them. Mostly just root bound. Joe bought a push (Brady Bunch) mower for $400 peso to mow the yard which is about 12'x20'. We could hire a gardener, but at $10 a week, we thought we could make up the money real fast. Good luck Joe Brady! If they don't finish their work soon, it is going to be tough to push that thing!!!!!! More to come.....

Pictures are the ice cream man on foot, the trash truck, the milk cows across the street, the Mertens' laundry, and more of the house.