The past month was rather crazy, hence only one blog. But let me
rectify that today! What’s the news? This past weekend, on Saturday May 11 to
be exact, the big transition happened… I moved into my new apartment in Bogotá!
It was a really full day. I started by calling a taxi and moving the
rest of my personal belongings from my host family’s place to the new
apartment. I got the keys for the apartment on April 30, so I had been slowly
bringing stuff over, but the majority still needed to be moved. After I got my
stuff inside the day really got going.
Several co-workers and friends from the MCC/MWC office came over to
help me set up. Some had already helped me clean, and move in some heavier
stuff. On Saturday, they came for a “curtain hanging” party! Everyone said it
was time attending this kind of party. My new apartment has great big windows,
but nothing to cover them. It was also missing lines to hang laundry, and there
was a bed frame in pieces that needed to be put together. So that’s what we
worked on. It was fun to do this with friends, and everything worked! I am the
first to admit that I have no idea how to do this on my own.
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| Beautiful curtains! |
I’ve always relied on my dad, brother and other friends for help
with “handy” things around the house or at the church where I worked. So I know
basically nothing about any of this stuff that was needed to get done and I
really appreciated my friends’ help. Two people went with me to a local
hardware store and helped me buy what was needed. Others brought tools with
them, or extra chairs to use in my very empty apartment. The guys were great at
drilling in the curtain rod hangers, and even showed me how to do it, so that I
installed one of the hangers!
This blog wouldn’t be very interesting if I missed saying that the
day was not without its hiccups along the way.
Putting the bed frame together we realized one of the bolts wasn’t
the right fit, so after a return trip to the hardware store it was finally put
together. That meant I had my single mattress and my single bed frame all ready
to go, except… the mattress is about 4 inches longer than the bedframe! No one
was expecting this. Both the frame and the mattress came from the MCC office,
so we all assumed they would fit. Haha, not quite. So for now I’m sleeping with
the mattress on the ground resting on some wooden boards with the bed frame
sitting on its side.
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| My bedroom |
While others were working on the curtains and laundry lines, some of
us started working on breaking the styrofoam, from the new fridge that had been
delivered earlier in the week, into small pieces that would fit down the
garbage chute. The only info I’d been given about garbage was put it in the
chute, so we did. But (you knew this was coming) we didn’t make it small enough
and jammed the chute! This was an embarrassing moment, that included me calling
the lady below me, who does the administration for the building. I ended up
going into her apartment, and from her chute pulling out every bag we had put
in. At least it all came out! She also showed me where to put big bags of
garbage downstairs and was pretty nice about it.
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| The wall that now is lacking tiles... |
While we had the problem of the chute filling up, some tiles on a
wall decided to start falling off. The space to hang up laundry lines was on
two walls covered in ceramic tiles. When holes were drilled into the grout half
of the tiles on the upper part of the wall started to move! While I was looking
at this they started to fall off. So I quickly threw my hands up to hold them
in place while a friend started taking them down. My hands weren’t big enough
to cover all the tiles and three fell before we were ready, but he caught 2 and
I managed to catch the third while basically hugging the wall to keep the
others in place. It’s hard to describe in writing, but I feel like it would
have looked really funny if we had caught it on video. It worked out ok because
we got all the tiles off intact, so the rental agency can send someone to put
them back up, and I shouldn’t be responsible for buying new ones.
So after all this, and a great pizza lunch, I was alone in my new
apartment. I will have a roommate, but she won’t be living here until September,
so I have four months on my own. This is actually the first time I’ve lived
completely on my own, so in some ways I wonder if this will be a bigger
adjustment than what I’ve faced so far coming to Colombia. I’m all by myself
here. But on the other hand I’m not. I have a great community here with MCC and
MWC, great new friends who jumped in to lend a hand when I needed help.
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| The view of the mountains from my room |
I must say that so far so good. I’ve had comfortable nights, and
been warm enough with the three blankets on my bed. I’m still figuring the
shower and the hot water out, one cold shower so far, but the next was better. :) This place has a really big kitchen which makes me so happy, but
it’ll be even better when I get a table and chairs (hopefully when I get back
from a meeting, aka early June) so I can sit and eat comfortably! And the thing
I’m missing the most right now is internet. I really miss connecting with
people online in the evenings. Hopefully that will be worked out sooner than
later so I can Skype with all you great people who know me!
