Home Sweet Home

The kitchen

Living room - the mattress in lieu of a couch

Ava's room

The junk room for now - a guest room eventually

We finally got couches to sit on!

We can't drink the faucet water - this is one of our ways to get clean water: a filter

We will eventually add rugs, curtains, and other furniture as we get some free time to go to bazaars. You might have noticed the shutters on outside of the windows. They are mostly to block out sun so you can open your windows and let breezes in. Central air in private homes do not exist here. Most homes here do not have air conditioning and if some do, it's mainly a unit attached to a wall (which you can see in our living room picture, close to the ceiling). The shutters can be rolled up and the frames collapsed against the window casings so let it in full sunlight during cold weather. Since we have no curtains, they also serve as privacy shutters. Anyway, pretty much all homes have these shutters on their windows as a measure against the heat here.

Have I mentioned that it's hot here? Pretty hot. The first couple of nights in our apartment, we all three slept on mattresses on the floor in the living room with the AC running because we had no fans. Once we got fans, we've been sleeping in our respective bedrooms. It's warm at night but not unbearable. Luckily, we live close enough to the water to get breezes.