I know it sounds like we are living it up here in Bolivia. We are. And I am not trying to brag when I describe our house and lifestyle… We realize we are not living in reality and we know that we are going to suffer when we return to the States and have to wipe our own bottoms. And if/when I complain, I am still aware that we are living like kings and queens… there are just a few things that are more obvious because of our blessed lifestyle. In one of my teaching courses I learned that you should always end on a positive note when making a critique… it just isn’t as funny when you do it that way, though. So here’s the good stuff first.
Our house is huge. We have five bedrooms and five-and-a-half baths including the bathroom in the maid’s quarters. We have a living room, sunroom, family room, and a game room (on the third floor but it probably won’t get much use because who wants to walk up all those stairs? We’re already at a high enough elevation). The front hall is about as big as the kitchen and while there is a lot of cabinet space and a big island, there isn’t a lot of room for the table. We prefer to eat there, though, than in the dining room, because that table seats eight.
The yard is great. We have a large orange-ish wall topped with barbed-wire all around the house. There are grass and gardens on almost half of the yard and cobblestone on the rest. The Boy “mows the lawn” with a little toddler-walker toy we borrowed from another American family. He and The Dog spend all morning outside. Our street is cobblestone and there is a taxi stand at the end. When The Boy hears anything drive by he thinks it is a “bwown fruck” (brown UPS truck) and wants to go see it. The greatest thing about the yard is the view of the mountains that peek over top of the wall. They are absolutely gorgeous. Houses are built right to the top. I wonder how they build them up there and how they can stand driving up and down those twisty, narrow roads everyday. Our driver (only for two weeks, folks) offered to take the roads slowly for me and I told him faster was better because we’d be done sooner.
The Nanny, Lili, comes from 8am-5pm and helps entertain The Boy while I feed The Girl or holds The Girl while I play with The Boy. She is very patient with both of them and The Boy has already started using some Spanish words (okay, so Ciao isn’t Spanish exactly). Sometimes I can tell that he is tired of everything being in Spanish all day. He gets pretty needy for Mommy in the afternoon. The Cook, Julia, is here from 10am-7pm. She is doing so much laundry that we are almost out of the bottle of detergent we brought with us (see downsides below). We are totally spoiled with our made-daily bed, folded laundry (you know how we hate to fold laundry), dog-hair-free carpets. Not to mention the fresh fruits and vegetables she buys at the market once or twice a week. Then there is Javier, The Gardener. He’s basically a handyman. He does all the manual labor from vacuuming to brushing the windowsills outside, to keeping our grass trimmed like a golf-course and our gardens manicured and watered. Then there is the dog poop. Some little elf must be picking it up (or The Dog needs to see a doctor) because I have only picked up one poop since we arrived. So basically, we live on this little compound and we’re waited on hand and foot. Remember, though, I asked you not to hate us. There are some downsides…
The bathroom REEKS. I thought there was a dead animal in the pipes, at first, and then we learned that the pipes lead directly to the septic system so that lovely smell is not only our stink, but the stink of our neighbors, as well. Mmmm. It seems to be the worst in our bedroom so we keep the door to the bathroom/closet hall closed so we can sleep in peace. Granted, the stench jolts all the senses awake when you go in there to shower in the morning. I guess everything has fermented or something.
Honestly, the only thing worse than the septic smell is the ant issue. I can barely write about it I am so grossed out. There are “sugar ants” everywhere. They are called that because “Sugar, ants nothing more disgusting then this.” We noticed the ants on our first day (how could we not?) and the Embassy gave us some ant hotels. They must be staffed like our house, because the ants sure as heck don’t mind their stay. I almost passed out the first day when I cut some bread and cheese and the ants used the knife on the side of my plate as a bridge to the sandwich. MH isn’t allowed to talk about the time I forgot to rinse my juice glass (mango, papaya, and tangerine made by Julia) before we went to bed. I am thankful that I wasn’t the first one in the kitchen the next morning. I can only imagine what it looked like. He says they almost carried the glass off. We have to keep all opened food including crackers and cereal (thanks for the care package Tom and Liiz) in the fridge or the ants will parade up the wall to the cabinet. I can’t write about this anymore because I am so grossed out.
The day before we packed out, we made frantic trips to Walmart and Costco to purchase “consumables” like toilet paper, diapers, soap, and laundry detergent. We also got ourselves some treats like A-1 Steak Sauce and apricot preserves (for cranberry sauce). The advice I received State-side was not to stress and I could order things I really needed over the Internet or someone would mail them to me. That may be true, but who wants to mail me a couple of bottles of Purex? We’re going to need it. We thought we had enough, but based on the amount of laundry The Cook has done over the past few days, we’re going through detergent the way Popeye goes through spinach. We’ve told her twice how much detergent to use, but so far she’s almost killed a 32-load bottle! What is she doing, drinking it? I am 100% sure that we are not going to find anything here that will be gentle on not only our clothes, but also The Girl’s cloth diapers. The Embassy sent over a crib for The Boy (because he was escaping from his tent) with Bolivian-washed bedding. At first I didn’t realize what the overpowering chemical smell was and then I did that “put your nose too far into the spoiled milk container” gesture to the blankets and I almost passed out. I think I should file some sort of complaint because the resulting loss of brain cells has impaired my ability to learn Spanish.
