Home

As promised, here are pictures of my lovely home. Most houses have gates to the courtyards here, for safety reasons, but not all. All of the homes on my side of the street do, but the homes opposite us have no gates or fences. The homes are simpler, too (no shutters on the windows, looks like one room only, but they have screens). I'm not sure why there's a difference but there is, even from one side of the street to the other.
The ditches on the road are the most interesting thing to me. They're really quite deep--likely three to four feet--and in town there are all sorts of haphazard wood planking to get from one side to the other. You can leap across, if you're agile and not carrying anything, but I haven't tried it yet (mainly because I wouldn't want to get laughed at if I fell in!). Usually they're kept pretty clean--swept, and there isn't a lot of trash in them. Occasionally some fruit remains, or a wrapper or two. I just try to imagine these during the rainy season filled with water!


This is the front part of the courtyard, inside the gate. I walk through here every morning to go to work.

And here is my little friend. I'm not sure how he got in, or how he got out (my idea is the grate in my wall that promotes airflow), but he was really cute and quite shy. My landlady hates them but I love them!