And now for the tour...
(For real authenticity, just imagine me wearing a W&M tour guide t-shirt and walking backwards this whole time.)
Here we are walking down into the area for volunteer and visitor houses. Our houses are on NPH's property, but they are over in their own corner, and the kids are not allowed to go past the top of these stairs. Actually pretty gorgeous, right? It definitely looks a lot less orphanage and a lot more tropical resort.
My house! Casa 6! There are three houses for volunteers, and we happen to have the only one with a really ugly front yard. The other houses have green grass on both sides of the sidewalk, tables and benches out front, and hammocks too haha. Not sure how our house got the short end of the stick, but the inside is still awesome!
Oh, but before I let you inside, here is our pila out back. We don't have a kitchen sink, so for all dishwashing or handwashing clothes (we do have real washing machines though), you come out here. At first it was really weird to go outside to wash dishes after every meal. Now, it's just second nature.
And welcome!
Yes, that was a swing in the middle of the house that you saw in the photo above. Here is a close up shot. Who doesn't want a swing in the middle of the living room?! We love it.
And to your right, our dining room, kitchen, and sitting room.
Our lovely little stove.
Our organic trash. Yeah, sounds about as gross as it is. At NPH, we have to separate organic from non-organic trash. But, we can't put the organic stuff outside because the millions of free-roaming dogs will come and eat it. So, we have a bucket of organic garbage sitting in our kitchen. Absolutely disgusting at first, but just another thing you get used to haha.
And the rest of the kitchen (the fridge is off to the right). Note the absence of a sink, but the addition of our brand new coffee maker!
Just like the kids, each volunteer gets a locker for our stuff -- sort of your pseudo closet.
Our two bathrooms. Very exciting, I know. Fun fact though: NPH has a water purification system, so we can drink any of the water on NPH property. That means that water from these sinks, the showers, and the pila out back is safe. We're really lucky, because that is NOT the case in the rest of the country. Outside of NPH, we can never drink tap water, and we have to watch out for things like ice and raw vegetables.
Our bathroom area is a little bit more special than those in the other houses, however. Thanks to an old volunteer who used to live here, we have individual lights installed above our sinks! It's a big deal!
We also have these in all of our showers. See the wires? It takes the water coming in and uses electricity to heat it up. The result? We pretty much always have hot water in the showers. Definitely spoiled.
And now the room I share with Letizia (my roomie from Spain)! The girls before left us this pretty decoration on our door. Also, all the doors to our rooms automatically lock when they close. These doors are the same as our front doors and the same as EVERY single door at NPH. Needless to say, we've locked ourselves out many a time.
Woohoo! Our simple but cute room. :) I live over on the right side.
All of this hangs above my bed. :) I call it my photo nook haha. Here's a game: try to find yourself somewhere!
Or find yourself in a few more photos I have on our "bedside table" -- a board resting on two cinder blocks and a crate haha.
Our red tin roof (pretty soothing when it rains) and decorations from the girls before us.
And finally, Letizia documented (on our "bedside table") our first official day in our new house here at NPH! I'm Campanilla (Tinkerbell) and she is Winnie de Pooh (do I need to translate this one?) because when we went to make our beds, my bed came with Tinkerbell sheets, and hers came with a Winnie the Pooh blanket haha.
Home sweet home. :)
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