more rhum please

we had an empty jar.
we had some plain rum.
and we had fruit from our trees outside.

it just made sense to make more rum people.
here's another version.

the finished product is banana-combava.
combava has a lime flavor and smell, but they're not exactly the same fruit.

Tamana zahay!

We are finally settling into this house, slowly, one more empty box at a time, one minor kitchen disaster at a time, one day's worth of mangoes at a time, one small project at a time, and one beautiful sunset at a time. 16 gorgeously colorful sunsets from our balcony to be exact.

The corners of our home have been marked (quite literally) with our presence. There seems to be an unending list of things to clean, but thankfully, Luc is at an age where he wants to do exactly the same things I do. So, he grabs his mini broom, left here from the previous owner, and follows me around the house, down the steps and descends the steep driveway with me, sweeping leaves and other dust piles around. We talk (it's mostly me since what Luc speaks is neither French nor English quite yet) about what we will be doing for the rest of the day, or what we'll cook later, or stop to check out an interesting bug or lizard. Sometimes he stops by the cactus plants and warns me not to touch them. He is a very careful boy. He seems to notice everything; he's insatiably curious, and ever observant. In his own way, he tells me about all he's seeing, hearing, touching, and sometimes, tasting.
We are so happy here-what an understatement-we couldn't be any happier in this place we now call home.

*Tamana zahay is Malagasy, literally it means, "we're settled", but it implies that you are happy in the place you've settled.*

my new camara makes pictures alright again

before and after

We just spent several weeks repairing, sanding, and painting the walls and ceilings of our new house and now you can see the results here.

The living room

Before:

After:

The major difference in this room wasn't paint color, but how we repaired the walls before applying a fresh coat of white. While we certainly aren't professionals, at least we didn't paint over peeling paint or wall hooks like the former owners did.

Bedroom 1
Before:

After:

I meant to get a better after photo than this, but here I think you can still see the improvement. This room was in bad need of wall repairs too, and the white looks so much fresher than the dull beige from before. Alex and I can't wait to be settled into this bedroom, as it has a beautiful view on the sea!

Bedroom 2
Before:

After:

Wow. Who paints a room (plus ceiling!) HOT PINK? This room was a challenge. We started out just painting above the wood paneling. There was a debate about whether or not to pull all the (ugly!) wood panels off the wall, but was put to rest when we thought about the work involved repairing any crumbling cement once all the nails were pulled out. Alex didn't want to do the extra work to paint the bottom half, but I was insistent because there were 3 different types of paneling! It simply didn't look good at all, especially since it wasn't put up completely around all 4 walls. The only problem we ran into was realizing we needed wood filler for some of the spaces between the panels. Easily solved, and now look!

Bedroom 3
Before:

After:

In all honesty, we're not finished with this room. You can't see it in the above picture, but some of that teal paint was actually peeling off the wall. This room also had no window to let in natural light or air. With the help of a friend in construction, we found a small, (but big enough) space in the wall to punch out a new window. The bottom picture is the result of messing around with the panoramic option on the new camara (thanks family!) and obviously I need a bit more practice, but you can see the boarded up hole in the wall on the right side as you walk into the room. We should have the new window installed by the end of this month and then we'll make this Luc's bedroom.

The hallway
Before:

After:

Again, the dull beige paint got a facelift with a fresh coat of white. Still not sure why the former owners decided to put up wood panels on only one side of the hallway.

The Kitchen
Before:

After:

I'm not sure the pictures of this room accurately convey just how much improved the white paint is in here. I was so happy to see that green go! In the beginning, Alex was opposed to painting the wood paneling, but once we started, he began to see why I said that painting it would look better. This room had the same problem the pink room suffered from; there were 3 different kinds of wood paneling, all ugly. Alex didn't want to paint the storage cabinets above, and at first I wanted to, but I'm satisfied with them remaining the way they are. It's probably the first of many home improvement compromises in our future.

progress and change

We are almost there.
The painting is done.
We're in the scrubing, scraping, and sweeping stages now.
Pretty soon it'll be all clean and we'll be moving in next Monday.




Alex, Luc, and I were there past sunset tonight, our first time all together at our new house at night. It's strange, but that's when the house began to feel really like ours. Like we weren't just visitors during the daytime anymore. Or maybe it's that it's looking so clean now. Or maybe that we're just one week away from moving in. Whatever the reason for that feeling, I'm glad to be feeling it.
We will definitly miss this résidence, as we've many great opportunities to interact with other monkeys, make friends, play games, have parties, and in general enjoy many unique and kind people here.





But we have the house and a new set of neighbors to look forward to, and oh, we can't wait!