We found a suitable house! We signed a contract this afternoon, and will exchange money and keys this evening. I'm 99% sure this one will actually happen. It's $400 for the month, and that includes electricity, water, garbage, and the commission for Fernando (the owner pays, not us).
The owner is cleaning the house this afternoon, and we will move in tomorrow.
There's an orange tree in the back in the midst of a beautiful yard perfect for the kids. It's not a mansion, it's not a shack, it feels just right to me.
Pictures to come!
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
No House Yet
We have not found a house, and we are feeling a bit depressed. While our hotel room is only $20 a night, we have no place to cook, and while the meals are fairly cheap when taken individually, eating at a restaurant for every meal adds up quickly. I am also really concerned about our lack of vegetables, as vegetables are very important to good health and meals here consist mainly of white rice, meat, french fries, and a few vegetables, if you ask for them, like carrots and broccoli stalks. I have no idea why we don't get broccoli florets.
We are exploring some options.
We talked to Gustavo and he said that was very unprofessional of Auxiliadora to rent the house to someone else. He found a place for us to look at, which Eric went to see, but apparently it wasn't very nice. I feel like Gustavo is someone we can actually trust, as he has nothing to gain from us.
We had a long day looking at houses. The first house we went to already had someone living in it, who had no idea that the owner was going to rent it to someone else. The renter was an American, so we were able to communicate with her about the situation. She's paying $100 a month and we were told $300 a month, so that explains why the owner would deal so inconsiderately with her. I think the difference between Canada and Nicaragua is that in Canada there are people who would like to behave like this, but there are laws and courts and procedures to protect the tenant, so most landlords don't even try to break the law, but if they lived in Nicaragua they would and could most likely get away with it.
I had been told previously that this house was already rented, so I was a bit surprised when it was apparently available. The one good thing about the trip to that house was the orange tree. The tree was full of ripe oranges, and the American woman had picked all of them that she could eat, so she encouraged us to pick some. They were absolutely delicious! Elias thought that was pretty neat.
Then we went to see a house that the owner is still living in. She is apparently willing to move out if we pay a rent of $800 a month for six months. No way man. There was no yard, and while the house was big, clean, and in good repair it was very dark, with pretty much no natural lighting.
This evening we went to look at a house that the owner is living in right now but will be leaving in a few weeks to go the States. It has a decent sized front yard with grass and a wall all around, it's clean and in fairly good repair, it has quite a few windows, and it has lots of bedrooms and bathrooms (I lost count, I think maybe five or six of each). They will probably leave some furniture, and want $800 a month, not including electricity, water, garbage etc. This seems quite high for Jinotega. It's not available until a few weeks from now, which is also a pain.
I'm pretty mad that Auxiliadora rented the house from under us. I was looking forward to getting settled. It is not at all relaxing to be running around looking for a place to live and eating meals that are not healthy. I also would prefer to have my own employee, who I know I can tell what to do, rather than hotel staff who are not my employees, and so I don't feel I can commandeer their time.
Tomorrow we are going to go to governacion here and see about getting our 30 day visas changed to 90 day visas. If this doesn't happen we will have to go to Costa Rica in any case, so we will probably check out places there to live. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
We are exploring some options.
We talked to Gustavo and he said that was very unprofessional of Auxiliadora to rent the house to someone else. He found a place for us to look at, which Eric went to see, but apparently it wasn't very nice. I feel like Gustavo is someone we can actually trust, as he has nothing to gain from us.
We had a long day looking at houses. The first house we went to already had someone living in it, who had no idea that the owner was going to rent it to someone else. The renter was an American, so we were able to communicate with her about the situation. She's paying $100 a month and we were told $300 a month, so that explains why the owner would deal so inconsiderately with her. I think the difference between Canada and Nicaragua is that in Canada there are people who would like to behave like this, but there are laws and courts and procedures to protect the tenant, so most landlords don't even try to break the law, but if they lived in Nicaragua they would and could most likely get away with it.
I had been told previously that this house was already rented, so I was a bit surprised when it was apparently available. The one good thing about the trip to that house was the orange tree. The tree was full of ripe oranges, and the American woman had picked all of them that she could eat, so she encouraged us to pick some. They were absolutely delicious! Elias thought that was pretty neat.
Then we went to see a house that the owner is still living in. She is apparently willing to move out if we pay a rent of $800 a month for six months. No way man. There was no yard, and while the house was big, clean, and in good repair it was very dark, with pretty much no natural lighting.
This evening we went to look at a house that the owner is living in right now but will be leaving in a few weeks to go the States. It has a decent sized front yard with grass and a wall all around, it's clean and in fairly good repair, it has quite a few windows, and it has lots of bedrooms and bathrooms (I lost count, I think maybe five or six of each). They will probably leave some furniture, and want $800 a month, not including electricity, water, garbage etc. This seems quite high for Jinotega. It's not available until a few weeks from now, which is also a pain.
I'm pretty mad that Auxiliadora rented the house from under us. I was looking forward to getting settled. It is not at all relaxing to be running around looking for a place to live and eating meals that are not healthy. I also would prefer to have my own employee, who I know I can tell what to do, rather than hotel staff who are not my employees, and so I don't feel I can commandeer their time.
Tomorrow we are going to go to governacion here and see about getting our 30 day visas changed to 90 day visas. If this doesn't happen we will have to go to Costa Rica in any case, so we will probably check out places there to live. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
Disappointment
So we received a note this morning from Auxiliadora, the owner of the house we were going to rent. The note says, in Spanish, that she will not be renting the house to us after all as someone else has offered to pay her $300 in US currency, and has not made any changes to the contract.
We went last night to pay and sign the contract, with the rent in cordobas, and she said she wanted it in US dollars and some time to retype the contract. She did say that it was okay for the first month to pay in cordobas, and calculated that it would be 5200 cordobas. But, we didn't pay, didn't get the key, and didn't sign the contract.
We try to be honest with people, as we let her know that we might only be taking the house for a month, and added to the contract that we would give her a week's notice before moving out. I think it is standard practice here for people to just leave before paying next month's rent, so we were actually giving her consideration. She said in her note that this other person is committing to three months. We had also let her know we were looking at another house, so that if we decided to take something else it wouldn't be a total surprise, as we felt we had a verbal contract with her to take the house. We were also preparing ourselves to pay her $30 (the equivalent of a few days rent) if we decided to take another house, for any lost rent she may have experienced due to us telling her we would take the house.
But, as I said to Eric, there's a reason people aren't always honest and that's because it often does make things go your way. But it's important to us to be ethical, and part of that is that we won't always get what we want. In the long run it's more important to me to feel right in myself than to always make everything go in my favour.
This morning Fernando and Heilym (his assistant and translator) will be taking us to view the two houses we didn't get to see yesterday. Hopefully one of them will work!
We went last night to pay and sign the contract, with the rent in cordobas, and she said she wanted it in US dollars and some time to retype the contract. She did say that it was okay for the first month to pay in cordobas, and calculated that it would be 5200 cordobas. But, we didn't pay, didn't get the key, and didn't sign the contract.
We try to be honest with people, as we let her know that we might only be taking the house for a month, and added to the contract that we would give her a week's notice before moving out. I think it is standard practice here for people to just leave before paying next month's rent, so we were actually giving her consideration. She said in her note that this other person is committing to three months. We had also let her know we were looking at another house, so that if we decided to take something else it wouldn't be a total surprise, as we felt we had a verbal contract with her to take the house. We were also preparing ourselves to pay her $30 (the equivalent of a few days rent) if we decided to take another house, for any lost rent she may have experienced due to us telling her we would take the house.
But, as I said to Eric, there's a reason people aren't always honest and that's because it often does make things go your way. But it's important to us to be ethical, and part of that is that we won't always get what we want. In the long run it's more important to me to feel right in myself than to always make everything go in my favour.
This morning Fernando and Heilym (his assistant and translator) will be taking us to view the two houses we didn't get to see yesterday. Hopefully one of them will work!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Employee Searching and House Stuff
We move into the house tomorrow! I will post pictures after I take some. So we are now looking for a helper for around the house. I told the two women who work here as main reception, cleaning, and laundry washers that we are looking for someone to help us in our new house. I thought they might have friends or family members looking for work. It turns out that both of them wanted the job! And that they are sisters.
Mariana is much friendlier than Blanca and she has already washed our clothes twice, so I have a sense of what she can do, so we will do a trial day with her. I asked Blanca what she gets paid to work here and what her hours are. She works six days a week, 7 am to 7 pm, for 1500 cordobas a month. That's $75. She probably gets her meals included, although I didn't ask. I think minimum wage is supposed to be around 2000 cordobas a month, and you are supposed to give a 13th month bonus every year.
We are the only guests here, and our room has only been cleaned once. Blanca works here full time, and Mariana three days a week. Blanca does not seem to be particularly proactive, although I do occasionally see her slowly mopping the floors, but for $75 a month I'm not sure I'd be particularly inspired either. Blanca seems more interested in the job with us than Mariana, but we are not interested in hiring her, unfortunately. Mostly because of what we have experienced in our interactions and observations of her, but also because we need someone who doesn't have children of their own so they can travel with us when we have to go out of the country when our visas expire. Blanca has a ten month old daughter.
Our friend, Gustavo, mentioned to us that his current helper is filling in for his usual helper, who has been off because of medical issues. She is returning to work tomorrow or the next day, so the fill in person will be available. We will probably do a trial day with her too.
We will pay 2400 cordobas a month (about $120), and will require the following:
We did a lot of walking around today, partly because Fernando told us he found some other houses with bigger gardens, so we wanted to see if any of them were suitable before taking this smaller place. Unfortunately, the two he had in mind we didn't actually see, as the owner was away for the day. We did see one other he found out about in the afternoon. It had a great garden with fruit trees, but the house itself was decrepit and there were countless hazards for small children. We also went back to the furniture stores to decide on beds, and a fridge and stove. Then we looked at the fridge and stove Fernando has to rent us, and they are in surprisingly great condition, so it is likely we will rent from him. We are waiting to get from him the price list for each item he has to rent. Apparently it is his parent's/family's furniture for the farmhouse we looked at, which they are not using right now. Or at least that's what I think he was saying.
We also stopped at a shoe store we were passing by, to look at sandals for Eowyn. We've stopped by a few stores, but this is the first one that had anything promising. We got her a great little pair of closed toe sandals, leather and cloth upper, for 165 cordobas, so about $8.50.
Tomorrow our plans include signing the rental contract, paying rent, and getting the key for the house at 10 am, buying beds and having them delivered, buying sheets and quilts, and getting 3G internet. To get internet here with Claro requires an 18 month contract and documents identifying you as a resident, so we have to get someone else to sign up for us. The cost of 1 Mega download speed of internet is $58 plus tax a month. Hopefully this will work and meet all of our needs, including using MagicJack to make phone calls to Canada.
I'm also hoping to buy some pots and dishes tomorrow, but that may be too ambitious.
There is so much to write about, I feel like at this point I am just keeping a log of events and trying to squeeze as much helpful information into each post as I can, for other people who might be thinking of a similar venture.
We went to Matagalpa yesterday, to see if we could possibly find a better house and if we liked the city. It is only 95 meters lower than Jinotega, but it is noticably hotter. The streets are narrower in Matagalpa, and it feels much busier. We looked at a house that was quite nice with great wooden lacquered tiled floors and new looking counter tiles, and big like a standard Canadian house, with a very large property (I would say somewhere between half an acre and an acre). It was $500 per month, not including electricity or water. The drawbacks were that while the property was gated there was another rental house on it, and a family with teenagers living in it. This family has a medical supply store on the front porch of the rental house. We just wouldn't feel comfortable letting the kids run around the yard if we weren't right there all the time. Plus, Matagalpa just didn't feel right. It's good we went and checked it out so now we know that we really do like Jinotega the best.
I was thinking on the bus ride down to Matagalpa how much I like the feel of the land here, and how comfortable I feel. The types of hills feel familiar, and there are deciduous and evergreen trees that I recognize, as well as tropical plants that are foreign to me. I love the cool breezes in Jinotega. I think I will be happy here for six months.
Well, I should be getting to bed as today was a long day and tomorrow will be full as well. Buenos noches!
Mariana is much friendlier than Blanca and she has already washed our clothes twice, so I have a sense of what she can do, so we will do a trial day with her. I asked Blanca what she gets paid to work here and what her hours are. She works six days a week, 7 am to 7 pm, for 1500 cordobas a month. That's $75. She probably gets her meals included, although I didn't ask. I think minimum wage is supposed to be around 2000 cordobas a month, and you are supposed to give a 13th month bonus every year.
We are the only guests here, and our room has only been cleaned once. Blanca works here full time, and Mariana three days a week. Blanca does not seem to be particularly proactive, although I do occasionally see her slowly mopping the floors, but for $75 a month I'm not sure I'd be particularly inspired either. Blanca seems more interested in the job with us than Mariana, but we are not interested in hiring her, unfortunately. Mostly because of what we have experienced in our interactions and observations of her, but also because we need someone who doesn't have children of their own so they can travel with us when we have to go out of the country when our visas expire. Blanca has a ten month old daughter.
Our friend, Gustavo, mentioned to us that his current helper is filling in for his usual helper, who has been off because of medical issues. She is returning to work tomorrow or the next day, so the fill in person will be available. We will probably do a trial day with her too.
We will pay 2400 cordobas a month (about $120), and will require the following:
- 7:30 am – 7 pm, lunes-sabado, domingo libro (Monday-Saturday, Sunday is the day off)
- ayuda con los ninos (help with the children)
- lava las robas y panels (wash the clothes and diapers)
- limpia la casa (clean the house)
- cocina la desayuno y 2-3 otra comida/semana (cook breakfast and 2-3 other meals/week)
- necesita tener un passeporte or otro documento para va a Costa Rica con la familia (it's necessary to have a passport or some other document to go with us to Costa Rica: we need to find out from Gustavo what the required documents are for Nicaraguans traveling to Costa Rica)
- ayuda la familia aprendar Espanol (help the family learn Spanish)
- va con la familia a otro lugar en Nicaragua (go with the family to other places in Nicaragua)
We did a lot of walking around today, partly because Fernando told us he found some other houses with bigger gardens, so we wanted to see if any of them were suitable before taking this smaller place. Unfortunately, the two he had in mind we didn't actually see, as the owner was away for the day. We did see one other he found out about in the afternoon. It had a great garden with fruit trees, but the house itself was decrepit and there were countless hazards for small children. We also went back to the furniture stores to decide on beds, and a fridge and stove. Then we looked at the fridge and stove Fernando has to rent us, and they are in surprisingly great condition, so it is likely we will rent from him. We are waiting to get from him the price list for each item he has to rent. Apparently it is his parent's/family's furniture for the farmhouse we looked at, which they are not using right now. Or at least that's what I think he was saying.
We also stopped at a shoe store we were passing by, to look at sandals for Eowyn. We've stopped by a few stores, but this is the first one that had anything promising. We got her a great little pair of closed toe sandals, leather and cloth upper, for 165 cordobas, so about $8.50.
Tomorrow our plans include signing the rental contract, paying rent, and getting the key for the house at 10 am, buying beds and having them delivered, buying sheets and quilts, and getting 3G internet. To get internet here with Claro requires an 18 month contract and documents identifying you as a resident, so we have to get someone else to sign up for us. The cost of 1 Mega download speed of internet is $58 plus tax a month. Hopefully this will work and meet all of our needs, including using MagicJack to make phone calls to Canada.
I'm also hoping to buy some pots and dishes tomorrow, but that may be too ambitious.
There is so much to write about, I feel like at this point I am just keeping a log of events and trying to squeeze as much helpful information into each post as I can, for other people who might be thinking of a similar venture.
We went to Matagalpa yesterday, to see if we could possibly find a better house and if we liked the city. It is only 95 meters lower than Jinotega, but it is noticably hotter. The streets are narrower in Matagalpa, and it feels much busier. We looked at a house that was quite nice with great wooden lacquered tiled floors and new looking counter tiles, and big like a standard Canadian house, with a very large property (I would say somewhere between half an acre and an acre). It was $500 per month, not including electricity or water. The drawbacks were that while the property was gated there was another rental house on it, and a family with teenagers living in it. This family has a medical supply store on the front porch of the rental house. We just wouldn't feel comfortable letting the kids run around the yard if we weren't right there all the time. Plus, Matagalpa just didn't feel right. It's good we went and checked it out so now we know that we really do like Jinotega the best.
I was thinking on the bus ride down to Matagalpa how much I like the feel of the land here, and how comfortable I feel. The types of hills feel familiar, and there are deciduous and evergreen trees that I recognize, as well as tropical plants that are foreign to me. I love the cool breezes in Jinotega. I think I will be happy here for six months.
Well, I should be getting to bed as today was a long day and tomorrow will be full as well. Buenos noches!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Health Status Report
Asheya: sore throat, have been taking Cold-FX
Eric: Fine
Elias: some loose stool/sort of diarrhea
Eowyn: fever yesterday, runny nose
Amadeus: seems to be getting better
We've all been taking probiotics, which is hopefully helping to keep our guts healthy. (Racheal, you and the kids except the baby should start taking them a month before you come, and bring a good supply with you. I haven't looked around for them here yet, but I will let you know what I find when I do. There are specially formulated kids probiotics, and Natural Factors is supposed to be a good brand.)
So far nothing worse than what we've had in Whitehorse! Although it's going to be pretty hard to beat the illness we had in August.
Eric: Fine
Elias: some loose stool/sort of diarrhea
Eowyn: fever yesterday, runny nose
Amadeus: seems to be getting better
We've all been taking probiotics, which is hopefully helping to keep our guts healthy. (Racheal, you and the kids except the baby should start taking them a month before you come, and bring a good supply with you. I haven't looked around for them here yet, but I will let you know what I find when I do. There are specially formulated kids probiotics, and Natural Factors is supposed to be a good brand.)
So far nothing worse than what we've had in Whitehorse! Although it's going to be pretty hard to beat the illness we had in August.
Elimination Communication and Amadeus
I haven't written much about elimination communication with Amadeus. To give an update, I am putting him on the potty when I can. And...he is now communicating with the same "ppbbbbbb" sound that Eowyn did when he has to go pee or poo. I think maybe 'horsey lips' would be a good way to describe it, or blowing bubbles. Pretty cool.
I had him naked on a blanket on the covered patio yesterday, and he started making the sound. So, I put him on the potty and he went pee. What a genius!
Of course, I'm pretty clever too for figuring out what he wants and getting the potty. We all feel pretty great when he goes in the potty. Celebrate the small accomplishments in life, right?
I had him naked on a blanket on the covered patio yesterday, and he started making the sound. So, I put him on the potty and he went pee. What a genius!
Of course, I'm pretty clever too for figuring out what he wants and getting the potty. We all feel pretty great when he goes in the potty. Celebrate the small accomplishments in life, right?
Tenemos Una Casita!
We have found a house, and will sign the contract on Wednesday night and move in on Thursday.. It was actually the first house we looked at, but we hadn’t seen any other places yet so we didn’t take it right off. It’s $200 US a month. The yard is a little smaller than we would have liked, but the other places had yards that were even smaller or no yards at all. Actually, that’s not quite true. We looked at one house that had a bigger yard, with trees in it, but the neighbour’s chickens were in it, and the house was pretty much falling down around it. It was a big house, and could have been nice if it wasn’t extremely dirty, missing some floor and shower tiles, and didn’t have part of the ceiling rotting out. For some reason people seem to think we want a ginormous house, when what we really what is a big yard and a house in good repair. If we were in Managua
It has three small bedrooms, two with windows, one without, one very small bathroom which is just a shower and a toilet, a central courtyard with patio, an area that is now dirt where we hope to put grass, and a laundry sink that also serves as the bathroom sink. The kitchen and living room are on the other side of the courtyard from the bedrooms, and you can lock a metal gate between the kitchen and courtyard at night. The kitchen window has a white metal grate on it, but no glass.
There is no fridge and stove, so we will have to supply those ourselves, either renting from Fernando or buying them. Fernando offered to rent us a fridge and stove for $50 a month, or a house set of furniture for $180 a month. We are still calculating which is the better option, as it is probable we could resell the furniture when we leave. Apparently Gustavo’s brother in law is in the business of buying and selling household items, and setting up houses for people, and his other brother in law who owns Cyber Café is also in a similar business as well, so there may be opportunities for them in buying our stuff since they have the right connections to resell it. There are no electric stoves here, they are all gas, and the propane cylinder goes inside your house next to the stove.
We thought the yard was too small when we first looked, but when we saw it the second time it was bigger than we remembered. It is just dirt right now, but Gustavo said his brother in law Walter will make a call and find out about getting sod for us. We will also buy some plants and put them in planters on the patio and around the yard, to make our own little tropical paradise. The really great thing about the house is that it is all newly renovated! New paint, new floors, new tiles on the shower and kitchen counters, everything. It’s really very nice.
Another great thing is that it is just across the street from Hotel Sollentuna Hem and next door to Hotel Zoy. I know Sollentuna has a guard all night, and I’m not sure about Zoy, but it means the neighbourhood is even safer. It’s also great because if anyone wants to come visit there is inexpensive lodging right there! We paid $20 per night for our room with five beds at Sollentuna. And breakfast there is inexpensive and good too. It is also not too far from La Quinta, which has a great playground. So we will probably come back to La Quinta a few times a week for lunch (total cost about $10-$15) and let the kids play on the playground.
We have been looking at furniture to decide if we should rent or buy. For those who are interested, here are the prices at some of the big stores (Gallo mas Gallo, La Curacao). These are basically the lowest prices.:
$235 Double bed mattress, boxspring, and legs:
$170 Single bed mattress, boxspring, and legs.
$175 Kitchen table and four chairs
$110 Desk
$160 Dresser
$250 Large wardrobe
$400 Sofa set (couch & two armchairs)
$300 Kitchen pantry with counter
$350 Fridge with box freezer
$415 Fridge with separate freezer
$185 Stove with oven
$ 37 Propane cylinder
We are currently trying to figure out what the rental contract says, as of course it is all in Spanish. We may need to ask someone who also speaks English to help us so we are clear on what we are agreeing to. Everything is always more difficult when you don't speak the language! It is really giving me an appreciation for people who come to Canada with very little English. I'm also learning what really helps when people are speaking a language you don't know (enunciate, speak slowly, repeat yourself, speak simply), and that when someone speaks in your language, even just a few words, it really helps. I recognize a lot more words in English, however badly pronounced, than I do in Spanish!
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