The kitchen smelled like something died in it, though we never found the culprit. The dishes looked like they hadn't been washed in years, based off the spiderwebs and dust. When we went to clean the dishes before we used them, the crusty, brown sponge at the sink turned us off and we had to buy a new one. There were no paper towels or garbage bags, so when we asked the caretaker if he could get us some, he simply said, "Oh, we don't have anymore." Okaaaaaayyyy... guess we'll stop and get those. Every other caretaker has gone above and beyond to make sure we have what we need. The fridge made a noise, but didn't keep our food cold. The freezer seemed about fridge temperature, so we had a tiny space to keep all of our food for 7 people. One night it stopped working altogether. The washer was in the kitchen but did about as good of a job at spinning as my kids could do at whirling the clothes around in a bin themselves.
The bathroom - oh how I wish I would have taken a picture of the bathroom - was so gross it was comical. You know how there's typically a mirror over the sink so you can watch yourself brush your teeth, do hair, makeup, etc? Well, this bathroom had an old, moldy, sea animal-designed toilet seat cover hanging as a decoration. And it was upside down. The small mirror hung over the toilet. There were no shelves to put our things on, only bamboo pieces cut about a foot long and hung horizontal. They were cut in half down the length so the hollow center could hold things, but someone else's old, dirty toothbrushes and crusty toothpastes already took up the spiderweb-filled space. Instead of a countertop to house the sink, they had taken the sink from an old countertop and set it on top of a pedestal stand, and then used zip ties through the handle holes to attach it to the wall. The shower at least had hot water, but there were wires running free from the wall to this electric shower head, which seemed a little sketchy. The shower floor was not sloped to let the water drain, so they placed a broom in the shower so we could sweep the water toward the drain. Oh, and we were given ONE towel to use for the 7 of us.
The mattresses only had a flat sheet to cover them, which left no sheet to cover ourselves. No fitted sheet. The plastic cover on the mattress crinkled with every movement, so sleeping was difficult! Not to mention the 100 year old, brown, clumpy pillows we were given. Ugh. The kitchen walls were made of lattice covered in netting, which inevitably had holes all over it, which meant bugs were constantly in the house and we got eaten alive by mosquitoes. I found a scorpion in my clothes and ended up getting some sort of fungus in my toes.
The couches were covered in a rough, scratchy piece of material, but because there was NOWHERE in the house to put our stuff (the closets were absolutely repulsive), all of our luggage took up the couch space. We felt like we really didn't have a place to rest at the end of the day. There were some hammocks, but we had to weigh the risk of mosquito bites against the idea of comfort.
Had this been our first house, we probably would have embraced the adventure and dealt with it for 10 days, but we had just spent the most glorious month in a brand-new remodeled house with plenty of brand new towels, sheets, pots, pans, etc. This was a huge let down.
After a few stressful days, I actually felt homesick for the first time.
When my parents came to visit, my mom asked me what I missed most. I honestly couldn't think of a single thing. I was living my dream! I was in paradise with my hot husband and wonderful children and we were having the time of our lives! Adam did all the grocery shopping and cooking and loved it. A neighbor did the laundry and cleaned the house. We went to the beach every single day. What was there to miss?
But I felt it at this place.
I missed being CLEAN. I missed my Norwex rags. No one here seems to believe in dish rags to wipe the counters, because we have a hard time finding them at every house.
I missed CARPET! I just wanted to lay on the floor and play with the kids! And then just vacuum them with my Kirby.
I missed GRASS. The yards here are so beautiful and have so many luscious trees and bushes and flowers, but it's hard to even want to walk around because the "grass" is so thick and pokey and scratchy and full of spiders. I just wanted to do cartwheels on the grass and play frisbee and tag.
I missed the smell of laundry. We felt so dirty all the time. Our laundry hung on a line, but never quite seemed to dry, so we always smelled like mildew.
I missed rugs. I can't handle having gunk on my feet, but there's nowhere to get relief! EVERYTHING is made of tile. I finally started laying towels on the floor to wipe our feet off.
I missed chocolate. I hadn't really missed it until this place. I just wanted to sit down on a couch and eat a cookie. We need snacks because we're always out and about, and we've honestly resorted to eating these nasty, fake Oreo-type cookies and saltines. I would never eat that at home. I started to really miss my snacks. The US has so many options for food. Just think of how many different varieties of lettuce we have! Here they have one. And one kind of rice: white. Quinoa is like $20 for a small bag. I hadn't really missed my food because Adam was cooking so much gourmet, but at this location I started missing my snacks. I missed the texture of a granola bar. And not that those aren't available, but that they cost a fortune. They sell butter by the stick and each stick costs $1.50. I just wanted to make a batch of cookies that uses 4 sticks of butter, but I couldn't swallow that pill, so we just went without. Plus, none of our houses had an oven.
I didn't even get a picture of the outside of the house. It seemed quaint, but after a miserable week there, I didn't even want a picture.
The tile counter on the left was sloped down. Want to guess how many times the kids put their glasses on that counter, just to have them roll down the slope and shatter on the tile? The dust pan had a half inch lip on it so we couldn't even sweep up the glass. I ended up just sweeping it under a cabinet.
The property's edge backed a forest, so in the morning we'd see wildlife scamper through the brush toward the parrots' cage to eat the seeds they spilled. That was cool.
We ate breakfast on this cute little table a couple of times and had our own church meeting out here. (The church was 4 hours away and we would have had to cross a ferry to get there.) Each of the kids prepared a talk and did awesome and we actually got more out of it than any other week because we understood the language. I thought we'd learn more Spanish by now, but we're almost ready to give up trying. It's so hard when we're not totally immersed.
This is when the power went out. Lincoln was so excited! He got the lamps and the bug repellent candles and we ate a lovely candlelit dinner that smelled like citronella. Yum!
The best part of the house was the parrots outside who talked to us every day. They were hilarious! I'm not sure who they were imitating, but the two of them would start laughing hysterically like drunk women. They would cat call and talk in jibberish for hours every morning. Sometimes when Eliza would start to cry we could hear the parrots imitate her cry. They would say "Hola!" when we'd come home and we loved it! They were so funny!
This little dirt path led to the beach from our house. We were thoroughly disappointed that it was full of big rocks and only ended up going there one time.
I love that the kids never get sick of finding seashells though! There were very few here, but they found them!
I’m sorry it was such a let down. The photos make it look like a cool place. Cool to have parrots though!
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