House as Home

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As we wind down our year here I'm starting to get a little sentimental about leaving Guatemala. I hope this entire blog has been able to show the gentle reader why we have enjoyed this country so much, but now I want to take just a moment to mention another reason we have been so happy here: we live in a lovely house!

When we arrived last August we had rented a pretty typical modern colonial house located quite near the central park. You can see more of that place by clicking this link to its blog entry.

We ended up having to leave that house, because the owner comes every December to stay for a few months. Originally we were pretty bummed to have to leave, but through Providence and the Wilsons' fine social network, we ended up renting a really lovely home in which we have been living the past 7 months.

Herewith some of the reasons we like this home so much:

• It's well-designed. I have come to think of vaulted ceilings as my birthright, since my parents' home has a georgeous vaulted ceiling, and we included one when we built our house in Seattle. The colonial style here in Antigua usually means there is no place for a vaulted ceiling, but this house is very different from the typical house-built-within-a-wall type. Normally, houses here are contained within 4 thick exterior walls outlining the property, and usually two of those walls serve also as interior walls (three feet thick!) to form an L-shaped house, with a corridor on the inside of the L. This house breaks all the rules; it is located on a very large lot surrounded more by shrubbery than walls, and is a self-contained free-standing structure so that you walk through the garden to the entrance door. (In a colonial house you might enter from the street wall and find yourself in the outdoor corridor, and each room to the house will have a separate, exterior door to enter. This means you might walk from your bedroom outside to enter your kitchen inside, then need to walk out of that to get to the living room, which has its own exterior door).

So when we walk through our gate, we enter an oasis filled with fragrant flowers and abuzz with birds, but we're not in the house yet. We enter the house just as we would in a US house; through the front door, and all the rooms are contained inside the structure and aren't exposed to any exterior corridor. This provides us a sense of spaciousness, and is very beautiful.

• It has a great garden, complete with its own gardener. Alexjandro works in our yard full time, and is a constant fixture in the garden. He has great taste and is constantly bringing new plants to our exterior patio table. During Christmastime we had tons of pointsettias, and lately we've had a lot of orchids. All are grown on the premises. The variety of plants is amazing, including really wonderful epiphytes which sort of cling to other trees and provide surprise appearances of color. The garden would be impossible to love if you actually had to tend it, so we're pretty grateful for this setup.

• The garden comes with a nice collection of animals. We originally had two avocado-eating dogs, but they eventually left because one was getting too horny and wouldn't leave us alone, so we asked the owner to take them both away.

We also have a bunch of squirrels, who hoard avocados in their tree homes. You haven't lived until you've seen the sight of a little squirrel carrying in his teeth a partially eaten avocado (skin broken to get a better grip) and actually hefting it UP into a tree. It looks exactly like the little squirrel in the Ice Age movie. We also have a black squirrel that lives in a tree just outside our shower window. I call him The Perv, as he is in the habit of climbing out on a branch near the window to check out the tall white gal in the shower.

After the first rainfall we also got a wonderful collection of fireflies. For us Northwesterners the site of a firefly aglow is still very thrilling. (There was the one time when one got inside the house and I mistook it for an ordinary bug. When I whacked it with my special bug-whacking clog, I was shocked to see a bright florescent smear that glowed for about 5 seconds after, er, impact. Talk about going out with a bang...)

Every morning we are visited by a bunch of hummingbirds that feed from the wonderful flowers hanging off our porch. There is a special type of flower here called thunbergia that dangles flowers like icicles and the hummingbirds just love them. There is one big hummingbird that comes by and is so large and fat I can hear his wings beat/hum.

• We have a really cool volcano out our window. Agua looks over us when we wake up every morning, and now that the rainy season has begun, we see the volcano silhouetted against flashes of lightning every evening. It is a fantastic presence in Antigua and I really enjoy seeing it every day. It lies to the south of town so if ever I am feeling lost in town (hard to do, however, since the town is only 12 square blocks) I just look to Agua and know how to get home. My friend Lex Cargo tells me that Agua is a Mayan guardian spirit, nahual, which guards over us here in Antigua. Lex made me a silver necklace which features a jade Agua clasp.

• Last, but certainly not least, the house came with its own maid. Boom, there it is: A real, live maid. She even comes with an apron (her own choice, I must point out.) At first I was not entirely comfortable with having Maria in the house, because I felt like I had to be on good behavior around her, but sure enough over time I've become accustomed to her face, as they say. In fact, I've become terribly spoiled, as she does a whole ton of work that I normally do, and some that I'm absolutely terrible at, such as folding the laundry. For that one thing alone, I've become addicted. What am I going to do when we get back to Normal Life??? Every Wednesday night she also cooks dinner, which has been its own little adventure. She has provided us with a selection of typical fare, with a wide spectrum of results. The chiles rellenos have been the biggest hit, and then there was one cut of beef that challenged our dental wear so dearly that we had to surrender and eat toast instead. (She leaves before we actually eat so didn't learn this. Mum's the word, okay?)

It's not all paradise, however, as I must bring up Yip Yap, the Awful Little Dog. When we first arrived in this house, I was often awakened by the sound of our dogs barking. Black (one of our dogs) especially had a very deep, loud bark, and he had a trigger-throat when it came to barking. No threat too small to give a good yelling. It also turns out that our neighbor took his little dog (whom I named Yip Yap) for a walk every morning at 6:30am, which set off a hearty round of barking on BOTH sides of the shrubs. And it was ALWAYS Yip Yap who started first, so I became to loathe this dog.

Those first few days were just the beginning, however, as Yip Yap decided he needed to bark ALL AFTERNOON LONG. I'm serious, this dog would regularly bark from 2pm until at least 6pm, WITHOUT STOPPING. And then there was the night-time schedule. I actually marvelled at this creature's stamina, as a lesser dog would eventually get a clue that no-one cared about whatever was ticking him off. I began to think very dark, unfriendly thoughts. I thought of feeding him chicken bones, or chocolate. I began to re-consider my opinions about guns. I mean, I really hated this dog. Plus, I couldn't figure out what was bothering him so deeply that he had to complain all day and night about it.

Then, one day I was walking down our alley and saw little Yip Yap emerge (barking, of course) behind of his master's fence. He was, of course, an ugly little Chihuahua, and he came prancing towards me, with all the fury he could muster with his 5-pound bulk. A classic case of Small Dog Complex. But then, another Yip Yap emerged, and then another! They were CLONES! In all I counted 4 separate Yip Yaps, all with the exact same bark, but none of which would bark at the same time. They were a team! They were cunning! They could keep up this barking business longer than any single dog alive! Unstoppable!

Thus, the fly in the ointment of our little oasis in Antigua. The necessary balance in our lovely casa situation, and frankly, no big whoop (or woof?) compared to living in this wonderful home.

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Photos

Que buena casa
(photo credits: Eric Gustafson)

Thunbergia flowers hanging from our patio
The hummingbirds love 'em!

Boo-Boo and Black...
...the avacado-eating dogs.