MTV Cribs: Nipa Hut Edition

Much has happened in the month and a half since I last posted a blog entry. Apologies, but with everything that’s been going on, it’s sometimes hard to keep up. We completed all 16 community meetings in every coastal barangay and are far along in the process of consolidating the secondary data from different agencies and organizations in and around Guimaras. I had a great time during my birthday weekend in Roxas City as well as at the Mangahan (Mango) festival last week (more about those later). For now, I want to tell you the other piece of news: that I have moved out of my host family house and into a nipa hut they built for me. Although the move was only about 20 feet, now that I have my own space, my own kitchen, etc. things are definitely much different. I still see my host family all the time, which of course is great, but I also have a little more independence and added responsibilities as well.

I love my new house. It’s nice, a good size, stays cooler than the regular house, is very open but with enough privacy, and is completely my own. Best of all, dust has been significantly minimized, a very nice change of pace. While I’m still encountering some problems, such as the running water hasn’t worked in about two weeks, tik tik (small lizards) seem to love leaving little presents for me all over their house, and when searching into my bag for my extra towels, a mouse jumped out of the bag, the benefits far outweigh any negatives.      

Construction began about a month ago. Marion, our architect, and Boy, our handyman, were able to build the hold thing, from scratch, in less than 4 weeks. After much preparation of the materials, the first post was put up on Wednesday, March 23rd, which of course is a very lucky day to begin construction. According to Filipino tradition, Wednesdays (and Sundays) are the days of the “glorious mystery,” great days for beginning construction. And dates ending in 3 will bring good luck: think, 1, 2, 3!! Another option could have been the 18th or 28th since the figure 8 represents constantly going up. As you can tell (and as my host mom told me repeatedly), Filipinos have so many beliefs. When construction began, 8 coins were placed under each post of the house in order to bring success. Additionally, the first post was put up at sunrise, to symbolize again the idea of going up.  

Here are some pictures of the construction:

 

Marion (L) and Boy (R) laying down the foundation.

Justin standing in what will be my kitchen.

Marion and my host dad, Pinot.

 

Tapos na!

To best show off my new home, I thought I’d give you all a little tour. Of course there will be some visual aids.

Yes, that is blood on the steps and door post. But don't worry, it belongs to that of a chicken, not me, whose blood was spilled over all the posts to ward off bad spirits before I moved in. Guess what was for dinner later that night.

To enter the house, you must walk up a few steep steps. You can see in the picture above that this little landing is where I keep my shoes. I try to keep all shoes out of the rest of my house to minimize dirt and more importantly, the real enemy, dust.

When you walk up the steps and onto the landing, there is a room on your right. That is the main room of the house. Enter the room and turn around:

 

You can see the front door on the right. In front of you is my couch and mirror with a small shelf for my toiletries. 

Now, turn around again to see the rest of the room:

 

Here is my bed with newly-bought sheets and pillows. On the left you can see my bedside table. Over the bed is the map that Logan gave me as a going-away present. If you look closely, you can see he also gave me pins to mark the places I've been.

On the right, you can sort of see my shelf, hamper, and hanging canvas shelf bag. Basically, it's a college dorm room meets the Philippines. 

Now, if you walk out of the room and back on the landing, you can turn right. You can get a look of the kitchen from above:

I promise I usually eat more than just rice.

As you can see, to enter my kitchen, you have to walk back down the steps. Yes, it's a little treacherous in the middle of the night, but to have a bedroom with a wood floor and a kitchen with concrete makes it well worthwhile. 

In the picture, you can see the sink, which, as I said, hasn't been working in weeks. On the right is my table with stool. What you can’t see is that on the left there is another shelf where I keep my electric stove and toaster oven. Those are what I use to do most of my cooking. 

If you look off to the left, there is a white sheet. Behind it is my bathroom (or CR as they call it here). That sheet has since been replaced with a different curtain, but let’s go take a look:

 

Here it is: the final part of my house. Best feature of the bathroom is definitely the elevated toilet, which usually run rather short here in the Philippines. To bathe, I fill up that red bucket and use a smaller pale to scoop up the cool water and wash myself off. If you look closely, you can see the hole in the floor directly in front of you. That’s the drain. Don't have to worry about that getting clogged!

Let's walk outside again and take one more look from the rear of the house:

This is actually a pretty good view to get a sense of the house. I hope you enjoyed the master tour. Maybe someday you'll get to see this in person!