GOOD NEWS CAN CHANGE THINGS

Friday, April 17: AMAZING HOW QUICKLY GOOD NEWS CAN CHANGE THINGS
This one is out of sequence - it should be the second post, but I can't figure out how to change it. Copied below is the email I sent to my friends after I found the house I am living in.

It's now less than three weeks since I arrived here, and so much has happened. I am in the town of Grecia which is where I will be living for the foreseeable future. I rented a small apartment at a local hotel, and have been comfortably established in a sunny friendly place with bougainvilleas outside my window and a lovely swimming pool which nobody uses until mid-afternoon, leaving me free to swim, sip coffee and read in relative peace. I rented the place for a month, having been told that it would take at least that long and probably longer to find someplace to live.

I contacted the local resource guy, Jorge, and before I could even tell him what I was looking for, he said he had a place to show me. Well, I figured, the adventure begins. My needs (desires) were as follows:

2-3 bedrooms, preferably three so I could have an office as well as a guest room.
Access to high-speed internet (you can't get it just anywhere.)
Access to cable TV
Safe and secure
A garden
A view
Less than $400/mo.

He took me out to see a house next to his brother's family, and omigod it was everything I was looking for. More than 3 bedrooms, though they are mostly tiny, (room for a double bed and a tiny bit of space to walk around it - one bedroom is larger and more like what we are used to) and a big laundry room in addition that's larger than most of the bedrooms (hmmm, a workshop probably). The only compromise is that there's no yard, but there is a long narrow deck across the back of the house that looks directly out on a view to die for. Hills, mountains, coffee estates, sugar cane fields - a vista that extends for miles. I will plant some pots full of flowers, and tomatoes in season. The property behind the house just off the deck is a large piece planted with the neighbor's fruit trees - bananas, mango, peaches, papaya and a couple others I don't recognize. The house is part of a compound of four houses on one side of the street and three on the other that houses various members of one family. Couldn't possibly be more safe and secure. I've met several of them and I have a feeling that I've suddenly come into more "family" than I could ever imagine. The only drawback I can see right now will be convincing them that I need a goodly amount of "alone" time. $350/mo. I took it.

Today we are going out to meet the cable guy to tell him which rooms to string the cable to. This is a service that ordinarily can take weeks but apparently Jorge's brother has some connection with the cable company - everything in this country is about who you know and/or are related to. (I read somewhere recently that as little as 50 years ago, everybody in this small country was related to everybody else in some way or another.)

I spent the evening last night having lemonade and cookies with one of the families, speaking English with their 8 and 10 year olds, Spanish with the adults, and am already invited to join them some weekend on a trip to one of the local volcanoes.

I've met some great women - a group of local gringas who just happened to be having a little potluck lunch just after I came to town. So, I have a home, a network and a family. Must have done something right.

Amazing how quickly good news can change things.