House work back home

Blog Post About June 2021

While I was moving every three days in America to a different location, Doug was busy with work and construction on the house.

He hired some guys to build up a wall on our roof so that it would be the height of a door. 

That way, he could put a roof and a door on and give us a storage room.

This is the lot next to our house. It also looks through, past another empty lot, to another street.

This is where the builders put their supplies and cement bags.  As a matter of fact, today it's seven months later, and there is still a pile of dirt out there that didn't get used to make cement.

After all the supplies were delivered, they started hauling cement bags up to the roof...through our living area.

The opening on the left is where we walk up stairs to our roof. 

These guys are building up the wall, so that a door can be put in that opening.

Here is their pile of cement they are using.

The slow-down occurred when this crew got Covid. They stopped work for a while, and didn't complete it for three more months, in September. 

And if you read my newsletter, you remember the dabacle with the next crews that were hired to spackel the walls. 

The first crew asked me to feed them breakfast and then serve tea throughout the day. When we saw they weren't working and a foreman working for us finally fired them, they came back later while the second crew was there and made all kinds of threats until the police were called.

When the wall finally got spackeled, then a roof crew came, and then finally a door guy (not quickly, of course).

Around November, we were finally able to see the floor in this room, because...

All of this stuff was finally able to be moved to this new storage area.

ALSO, while the roof was being worked on, Doug hired a guy to put screens on our windows and door (You would have to look many hours to find a screen on a window in this country - the rare).

If you remember our first house where we lived by a chicken butcher, you remember the number of flies we dealt with. Feel free to click on the link to be grossed out.

Now we have screens!!

ALSO, Doug had to order another water truck to come to the house. This was about the time one of the neighbors realized the pipes weren't bringing water to the neighborhood. 

A neighbor contacted the government, and the government arranged for the problem to be fixed. While the street was dug up and pipes replaced, Doug sat outside with all of the men on the street while they watched and ate ice cream :)

Water is a precious gift.

Scottish Warrior Princess: AOIFE

Blog Post from March 2021

Caleb heard some "mewing" through his vents that connect to the roof, and when he went to investigate, he found this mama cat

and four new babies she'd given birth to in a tarp on our roof.

That was March 27, and Caleb kept making regular trips to the roof to feed the mama cat.

At one point, he realized that one of the kittens didn't make it.

The mama got nervous and took the remaining three somewhere else, and we couldn't find them.

On April 7th, Doug heard crying in an empty lot when he came home one evening.

One of the kittens was by herself, abandoned, with one of her eyes sealed shut from an infection, and she was just crying.

We brought her in, put her on a hot water bottle covered by a towel and let her sleep in a box.

This is the beginning of an ongoing story about a cat named Aoife.

Doug and Caleb went to a pet store and bought powdered milk and a bottle, and the feedings began.

April 8, 2021

Doug put Neosporin on her eye, and we waited for it to heal.

'

April 10, 2021

And the feeding continued...

April 12, 2021

April 17, 2021

And when no one was around, even I fed the cat.

I am not a fan of indoor cats, but I'm learning to adjust.

April 27, 2021

Kylie even got bonding time with the cat when she came home for her April/May break.

April 28, 2021

We decided to call her Aoife /E-fah/, which. means Scottish Warrior Princess, and we were hoping she would stay a loving, calm cat...

HA!

If you would like to follow her on instagram, she can be found at @aoifetaylorrr

Things I See (Vol 9)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8

These boys wanted to play soccer in the middle of the city, so the median seemed to work just fine.

Flour from the government.  Each neighborhood has a small building where the flour is stocked, and by showing identification, each family can come and pick theirs up.

Men playing backgammon at a local tea shop.

There is even a park specifically for retired men where they can pay a small fee, enter in, and meet each other during the day.

This looks safe.

Three wedding photography sessions going on at the same time.

(The third bride can't be seen)

Just another fun menu.

A young adult visiting our house one night said he wanted to teach my kids some survival skills, so he duct taped their wrists together to see if they could escape.

Just another normal night in the Middle East.

Attics in America = Roofs in this country

Well...maybe not ;)

The entry way for a Kindergarten.

It's hard for my kids to do online school when the entire country shuts down the internet.

This happens every year at the end of school when there are big tests, and the government tries to control the cheating.

Chips and Salsa were on the menu, so Doug and I got a little curious.  We were a little hopeful, but we knew to lower our expectations.

If you can't tell, we got a plate of Lay's potato chips, and dipping "sauces" of ketchup and garlic mayonnaise.

In case you're wondering...we didn't touch any of it.

Is it because "ham" isn't allowed in this country??

It's like "something" without the "e"

New Tactics for Keepin' Cool

Trying to get cool and stay cool in the summer is quite challenging.  

Last summer, we bought new swamp coolers, hoping to get some more air circulating in the house.

I wrote about getting them on the roof here.

The first summer, Doug had set up the ones on the left (covered in a lighter blue tarp), and then covered them with canopies to keep some of the sun off.  You can see two of the folded up canopies in the background.  

I think I told you about the canopies because one day one of them got dislodged during a strong wind storm and flipped over onto the roof of our neighbor's house, but I can't find the blog post, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

That silver square with the "X" on it in the picture below is where one of the swamp coolers sits when it's connected to the house.  Air blows down a shaft, which is connected to four vents on the way down.  The only way it can bring coolish air is because there is a continual dripping of water running in front of a fan; however, if that water is hot (which it is), the cooling effect is minimal.  It's not the ideal way to cool a house.

(As a side note, we didn't even use a water heater this summer.  The sun heats up the water in our tank on the roof, we save electricity, and we get warm showers every day (if someone wants one).  Most of my family prefers cooler showers in the summer.)

This summer, Doug tried a new tactic for keeping our house cool, and he bought these indoor swamp coolers (below).

They don't bring in dust from the outside, you can fill them with water (or blocks of ice) and it blows much cooler air, you can just run it like a fan without the water, and it provides good circulation, and you can move it around to where you need it (like the kitchen when the oven is on).  We bought 4, and along with fans in each room, it was a great solution for keeping the house cooler.


I know I write often about the heat here, but it's been a learning curve as we try to figure out the best way to get cool and stay cool.  It's basically on our minds daily from May until September.

But we're learning.

Spring Cleaning

Spring break also meant spring cleaning for us.  

Not that the dust storms are done blowing in, but we decided to be hopeful.

Doug bought a pressure washer, and it has turned out to be very useful.

We took advantage of a free, sunny day to clean the roof.

Pressure sprayer art.

Later that evening, we had my friend and her daughter over for hamburgers, and then we had coffee and hot chocolate around a fire pit on the roof.  It was so nice, and my friend really liked it.  Being relaxed like that, leads to interesting and unguarded conversations.

Karis' Day

Back in May, we celebrated Karis' birthday.  It happened to fall during finals.  

While all three of the big kids were studying, I was filling water balloons up for a surprise attack.

My girls haven't worn shorts in public in over a year, but I whispered in each of their ears while they were studying, to get shorts and a t-shirt on and meet me on the roof.

I had two stations set up behind each of the swamp coolers.  

Not nearly enough!

 

One for the kids.

One for Doug and me.

We all got there before Karis, so that when she arrived, we were ready.

Wet, happy, and "white." 

No tans here :)