El Castillo de los Gatos

One of Kaylee's go-to sources for ideas of activities that she can do with the girls is the magazine Family Fun.  Naturally, the girls also enjoy looking at the pictures and pestering Momma to do a project.

Anne was recently flipping through the latest issue and found a castle for kitties, made out of cardboard boxes.  She asked Kaylee if they could make it for Shadow and Snowy and Kaylee told her, "That looks more like Daddy's area of expertise."

Well, why not.  But also, why not do one better and make it out of that 3/16" plywood that I'm not using?

I had to put it off as we started classes here at Etnos, dealt with flooding, and the general craziness of things.  Then we had a break, a two-day legal holiday for Carnaval.  It was the perfect opportunity, and we made the most of it.

While the girls had class with Kaylee in the morning, I cut out the majority of the pieces and then we set to work in the afternoon.  The girls got some good lessons in power tool use and safety and enjoyed the work.

Lydia takes a turn at pre-drilling for screws

Anne used her own compass to mark the access holes for moving between levels

We had a lot of curious passers-by throughout the afternoon as we worked.  After the girls went to bed, I finished cutting out and installing the battlements, which completely the assembly.

I need a workbench :)

 The next day, the cats tried it out.

Of course we couldn't just leave it looking like that, so I painted it white and presented it as a canvas to my little artists, who decorated it as each saw fit.

Even Kaylee added her own touches:

Job done!  And if those weren't enough cute little girl pictures for you, click here to see the whole Picasa album.

Close Quarters

As we move closer to living in Urubichá, our main concern has been a place to live.

Our long term plan is to find a place to rent/buy to remodel or buy a lot to build on.  But how can we do that long distance?  Where do we live in the meantime? 

We have been given permission to rent a 3-room apartment, built several years ago by former missionaries in the village.  When we went out there to visit, we stayed in 2 of the rooms, so we have some idea of what it is like.

Here's an exterior photo I took of the place on my first trip to Urubichá:

There is no running water.  The well is an "old fashioned" bucket-and-rope affair.  The bathroom is external and shared with the family next door.  It has a toilet, sink, and shower, but without running water!  Everything is plumbed and there is an electric pump at the well, but nothing works.

That's the well in the foreground; the bathroom is behind that bush:

When we found out we would be living there, we asked our coworker Emilio to measure the rooms for us, so we could start planning how we would use the rooms.  The first room is about 176 square feet and has a small cabinet with counter top and a single-tub kitchen sink.  The second room is about 232 square feet and will be used as the girls' room.  The third, our bedroom and office, is about 205 square feet.

So that's a total of around 615 square feet!

One of the hobbies that Kaylee and I share is house design.  Of course, we have been putting this to good use as we seek to plan an efficient future home of ~1000 square feet.  Ever since we came to Bolivia, I have been using my spare time (usually while listening to language recordings) to design more than 30 different renditions of a possible village house, complete with scale models of our furniture.  I use an old home design software that I picked up years ago, so it was easy to mock up this apartment the same way, just to see how things would fit.

We have also talked a lot about the bathroom.  Yes, it is inconvenient to not have a bathroom in the house, especially with 3 little girls that often still need help (especially with a bucket-flush toilet!).  However, our biggest concern was with the "shared" nature of it.  We want to be very careful with our girls, especially considering the high level of various types of abuse.  We decided that we would do what we could to build a bathroom into our already-tight space.  Maybe a shower too?  That would be nice, even if it's a bucket shower.

Here's what we came up with:

Living/dining room:

Kitchen:

Bath/bedrooms:

Our big plan is that Kaylee and the kids will stay in Santa Cruz for a couple weeks while I go paint, build a bathroom, and see what I can do about making the plumbing work!!