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When we first decided to move to Nicaragua, I had a vision of what our home would be like. That vision was filled with dark wood, open courtyards, hammocks gently waving in the breeze. I.e. a Gringo house, not a Nica house.

Shortly before we moved we received an email from our program director. He described a couple (Nicaraguan) who needed roommates. The monthly charge was only $200 including utilities, and they were happy for us to have our dog live with them. We happily agreed to a three month term, feeling relieved that we didn’t have to immediately start searching for a home.

I knew I was in trouble the minute I walked into the house. The lights were fluorescent. Geckos were on the walls. And oh the paint. It can only be described as sickly green. I was immediately homesick. I won’t go any further, to do so would be insulting to our roommates.

We spent the next week pondering reasons to move (prettier digs), but realized that nice cushy budget wouldn’t exist anymore if we did move. We decided to stay, but started making plans to paint and update the house just slightly. Not enough to lose money, but enough to be comfortable. I’ve lost the before pictures, so you’ll have to make do with the after.

First up, the living room. The HUGE living room. We have two front doors, double sized. Two huge windows and so much space it’s hard to fill up. Our life of dodging furniture is over. I can’t get over the space. These pictures only cover half of the space, it’s that huge.

We only painted and hung curtains in this room. Our roommates have been living in the house for seven months, and I don’t feel comfortable rearranging or buying furniture that we won’t bring back to the States.

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Hello EAD Readers! It’s been sooooo long since I’ve posted. As in, 2.5 months long. During that time, we have moved out of our apartment and into temporary housing, moved to Granada, set up our home, adjusted as much as we can to the heat, shipped one of our dogs, and attempted to learn the language and the culture.

Wow.

E has been patient while I figure out what I want to blog about and how much I want to show you of our life here. While I live in one of the oldest and wealthiest cities in Nicaragua, much of the country is extremely poor. So my life isn’t always lighthearted and adventurous. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking, and I don’t think it would be fair to share only one side of my life here. But for the first few posts I’ll be sharing my home with you!

I haven’t had much of the “living” inspiration I thought I would have until the last two weeks. The home we moved into was not at all what I expected, and we’ve struggled with the idea of moving and finding a “prettier” place while we’re here. Staying and doing slight improvements to the house, while saving some serious cash, was our final decision. I’m really happy we decided to stay, even if it ends up being for half of our stay in Nicaragua.

One of the biggest benefits and drawbacks to living in Central America is the cost of living. Benefits include amazing organic locally grown produce at really low cost. Drawbacks include a serious language barrier and lack of easy access to things like home goods and craft supplies. I’m learning to adapt in two key ways.

First, I’ve realized that its better to have a general idea of what you need instead of something specific. This applies to everything from lamps to recipes. For example, we have a HUGE bookshelf that contains most of our goods (medicine, clothing, shoes, small electronics, books, toiletries, etc.). It’s functional right now, but not pretty. I really wanted baskets to organize everything, but no one we asked knew of a place in Granada to purchase baskets. We ended up taking a bus to a mall in Managua to pick up baskets for our bookshelves. They were horribly expensive, even for American standards, and I still am not completely satisfied with them. Two weeks later, I saw baskets made out of recycled material that weren’t quite what I had in mind, but were prettier and about 1/5 of the cost. I picked up one as a test, and love it.

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