Home Sweet Home

We've been in Santiago, Panama for exactly one week.  What a week.  We have made new friends, we have done lots of shopping, waited a long time for deliveries, meetings, parties, electricians, etc.  Mark and I are pretty punctual people and so we have had to make some adjustments this week.  I know that generally when a Latin American tells you they'll be there at 3, they probably wouldn't think of arriving before 3:30 or 4.  We were told there was a party at the church at 1 on Saturday, the party didn't really start until about 5 and we ate at 7.  Now I have no idea when things are supposed to start :)

We moved into an empty house.  It did have a refrigerator, stove and washer.

We had an air conditioner in the bedroom but we didn't have the control.  We ended up staying in a very nice hotel for three nights while we bought what we needed and had it delivered.  This is the hotel Mykonos that we stayed at.

We bought a queen size bed, but when it arrived it was not long enough for the mattress.  We had to sleep with our feet up over foot board with the mattress hanging over the end.  The store owner made new side rails the right size so now we are good.

The house is about 700 square feet.  It is perfect for us right now.  There are two bedrooms, the other one we use as an office.  and a little bathroom.  Mark put together a shelf so we could have our toiletries in the bathroom.

Here are the final pictures of our home.  We are planning on planting outside.  It's pretty much weeds and garbage right now.  We're going to wait for a month when the rainy season starts.

My favorite part of the first week was the people we met.  In our church and also in the community. The people have been so helpful and kind as we've waded through cell phones, looking for maps, buying furniture or just looking for directions (non existent).  That's for next time!