The White House

I have no idea why Keira called our home in College Station the "white house," but she has continued the tradition here.  It must be because of all the white walls inside, because as you can see...

It is most certainly, not white.  Whoever built it, must have decided that the work they did inside was enough, so they stopped.  Notice no railing around the balcony!  Also notice chicken man/landlord's truck on the sidewalk (which is where it is every day), and chicken man, friends, etc. outside to the left of my gate.  Basically, I have my own security guards right there for the price of rent :)

Inside the courtyard, down the right side of my house, it looks like this.

And looking at my two entrances to my house, you see a white box in front of you, which is the outside squatty potty for guests (or whomever wants to use it).

I must say, I haven't been brave enough to clean it yet.  I think it's been used frequently by some neighbors before we moved in, but I did tackle to the two squatty's inside.  Two down; one to go.

Caleb has done a nice job using the squeegie on the patio for the last few days.  Everyone here cleans their's almost every day, so it looks like it's going to be a chore that we do often.  Caleb has already volunteered.  I think playing in the water is fun for him, and I'm sure in his imagination, that squeegie is something like a light saber :)

This is my laundry room.  I'm told that culturally, this is where people would wash their dishes over the drain in the floor.

If you look up from here, you see the water heater.

And if you continue looking up, you see the cracked, plastic covering that allows sweet droplets of rain to enter on a cool day.

I plan to have that fixed :)

Up on the roof of the house, this is one of the views.  I have yet to figure out the directions, but when I do, I'll let you know.

And the side street by my house looks like this at the "slow" time of the day. 

I don't know if I'll be brave enough to pull out my camera when it comes alive, but maybe I can shoot some pics from the roof someday.

A few interesting things that we learned this week, and then I'll close.

We were getting town power the few hours that it was on each day, but when the generator for the block would turn on, we still didn't have power.  It turns out we had to pay the "generator guy" about $7, and then he would put the size AMP fuse we wanted into the power pole.

See the brown box below on the pole?

And did you see those wires??

As my kids would say, "Yikesy Poodle!"

Anyway, sometimes our power will shut off because we have too much running, so someone has to cross the street with a broom pole (or something similar) and flip the switch back up.  It's basically like the breaker box in your home except the whole neighborhood has access to it apparently.  It's pretty funny to drive down the road and see small boys with a squeegie in their hands, reaching up to flip their switch back up.  Seems like an everyday occurrence here.  (I think it's another job for Caleb).

Another "different" thing here is the "ice cream man."  Every day, the ice cream truck comes down our street.

Well, you think it's the ice cream truck.  It's actually a man in a truck playing the cutest "ice cream truck" music, but he's just letting you know to come outside if you need to switch out your propane bottles.

In Uganda, propane bottles were not always easy to find.  In fact, sometimes it was near impossible if the town was low on supply.  Here, they just go up and down the streets handing them out like candy.  I wish I had someone near me to clarify the prices, but I think in Uganda, each bottle was about $50, and here, they are about $10. 

More later on our journey to "the white house."