Familia Tica

My familia is really simpatica. There is a mom and three sons (all with American names): Marlon (as in Brando!), Kenneth and Allan. I’ve met Allan and Kenneth, who I guesstimate are early 20s. Kenneth goes to the school that we go to, so he helped us get there our first day.

At first I was surprised by the houses here. They generally have a garage with a fence instead of a door, and the fence has barbed wire over it. Our house has neither, as we have a garage door. The house itself is cute. When you first walk in, there’s a living room. Next to that is the bathroom (hot water scarce) and Wendy’s (my companera from Hawaii) and my rooms. My room has a window that opens into the garage. Not the best view, but better than no window! There’s a small kitchen and then and upstairs (which I haven’t seen).


A huge culture shock is the agua. They don’t have hot water from the faucet. Seriously. To shower, I turn on the faucet that heats up the cold water (it is a crazy apparatus that can start on fire…pic below) and get wet. Then, I turn it off while I lather up and shampoo. Turn back on to rinse. Off to condition. Back on to rinse. Wow. That was a lot of work without any relaxation. Steve, you could never handle this shower!


The casa is in Sabanilla. On a map, the easiest way to find it is to look for the cemetery that is a few blocks away. It’s funny about the lack of addresses here. I wanted to verify the (semi)address in case my husband wanted to send me something. The mom, her friend, and Kenneth all argued about what the address should be. When I asked Kenneth how in the world the mail process functions here, he replied, “Un milagro” (a miracle).