Where we live

I am living with Heidi and Damon on their “compound”—every house here
is surrounded by a wall, usually topped with razor wire or broken
glass, with a gate. If you have never traveled in this area, this is
very common to Africa and South America. So don’t worry—the city
really is safe for the most part.

My room is two steps from their back door, built into the back wall of
the compound. It's painted bright green. Our guard, Dessalyn, lives in
the room next door to me. He has a little bathroom near our rooms, but
I share the one in the main house. Dessalyn’s duties include opening
the gate for arriving vehicles, helping Damon fix things around the
house, and spoiling Dasia rotten. She adores him—when we returned to
DD after the time in the capital, he opened the gate for us and Dasia
screamed “DESS, DESS, DESS!!”

There isn’t any grass, but there are trees (tree-like shrubs?) mostly
surrounding the courtyard, and space for the girls to play outside.
Although there are no intentional pets, there are several cats who
like to hop the wall and try to steal food from inside the house (the
doors and windows stay open during the day for airflow). These cats
are, of course, less than welcome. We can also often hear goats
bleating from somewhere nearby.

Our road is dirt, as are most neighborhood streets. The streets are
lined with deep "gutter" ditches, so there is a little miniature
bridge over the ditch into each gate. There is a small beauty parlor
right across the street, but other than that it's a very residential
area. There are tiny shops on several nearby corners though, as is
common in most parts of Africa. I can buy Coke & Fanta and laundry
detergent three steps out our gate, bread and vegetables at the end of
the street, and eggs and flour at the "big store" two blocks away.
There's even a DVD rental place around the corner! Your DVD might have
the back of someone's head in the picture though, if you catch my
drift.

Our next door neighbors run a “TV house,” meaning that they have a big
satellite dish and people pay to sit in their front yard and watch
British futbol games on TV at odd hours. Aside from the occasional
game next door, evenings are usually quiet, filled only with the sound
of crickets and the slight odor of burning rubber (I guess from people
burning their trash).

I’ll try to get some pictures soon.