Home Sweet Home

written May 18, 2009

After the disastrous and stressful house hunting, my search has finally (at least temporarily) come to an end. I moved into my new place on the 1st of May, just hours before my first guests starting arriving. We originally rented the place just for the week that the other volunteers were here, but after some talking with the landlady, we convinced them to let me stay here until the house sells (it's been for sale for two years with no luck - here's to hoping for continued bad luck for the next 18 months).

So, the house. It's been lovingly nicknamed "The Farm" by my PCV guests, and quite honestly I think the name suits it. However, they also mentioned that it would make an excellent setting for a horror film (which I unfortunately can't disagree with). A long time ago, whoever lived here clearly had their own animal farm housed on the grounds - there are chicken coups and every other kind of farm animal structure you could imagine in my yard. In fact, I even get the frequent chicken visitors from next door during the morning, day and night. Most of these farm structures, I don't even come near unless I'm searching for dry wood. Dry wood? That's for my very own banya (Kazakh sauna, much less luxurious that you are probably imagining) which we spent the first day on the farm cleaning and prepping for it's first use.

My guests helped me dig my trash pit (welcome to the world of trash burning), start a compost pile and attempted to start a garden in my huge "former" garden - an area of my yard that is so overgrown I haven't even really attempted to fix it up. My next door neighbor did point out the green onions that are growing there though, and now I find any excuse to add green onions to my meals... would it be fair to say that I'm living off the land? I'm hoping to get out there this summer and get something started, or at least clear out an area for picnics or something - it's huge. We'll see...

As for other amenities, I have gas and electricity (yay!) but no water. I have a pump in my yard that is my wonderful source of water from the mountains (which are exactly 6 km from my front door). At first, and for any and all American guests, the water pumping is a very exciting thing. I've learned to take advantage of this and let anyone who has an interest in pumping satisfy their desires. Because now that I'm doing it on my own several times a day, it's beginning to lose it's excitement. But, it feels more like that Peace Corps experience I was expecting when I filled out my application and wrote all of those essays. I also don't have a refrigerator, which I'm planning on using my alloted Peace Corps "Settling-In Allowance" to purchase, if this place starts to feel semi-permanent.

I've got enough furniture for two and a half of the five rooms, plus a table and chair for the kitchen. Since my friends have left and we are no longer using the floor in one of the rooms for sleeping space, I've closed off the back two unfurnished rooms to make the place feel less large and empty. I have two small beds in "the bedroom" and a fold out couch in the... well I have no idea what it's called. Right now it's the laundry room, but it's probably more equivalent to something like a living room? Point is, there is plenty of sleeping space for at least nine guests... The door's always open.

I'm finally cooking for myself, meeting the neighbors and enjoying life without beshbarmak and crappy Russian TV shows, not to mention the occasional grandma's nudity. All of my years of camping have really paid off, learning how to start a fire (banya skills), how to make a sink out of two buckets, hanging everything on a clothesline and playing cards all day and night were a huge asset to my week hosting eight or nine volunteers. Life on The Farm is exactly what I was looking for out of Peace Corps... an adventure. And heck, I'm going to be so scrappy and resourceful when I get back to California you won't even know what to do with me.

As my friend Andy was pumping water for the banya, Hotard and Jenn were out trying to clear a space for my garden, and Sagar was carrying buckets of water to and from the banya, I think Sagar put it best when he asked, "Exactly how many years into the past do you think we have travelled?"