Out Back

Opening the door to our balcony (a medium-sized wooden structure off the livingroom, where we mostly go to hang out wet clothes) and going out onto it at night is the nicest thing. From our vantage point, one can see up two streets -- ahead leads further into the neighborhood, and to the right leads back out to the main road. At night, both directions afford fantastic views -- one of a tv tower and church, lit up and glowing, and the other of an old fortress at the top of a hill.

But what's more fascinating is the local space. There's another building directly across the street. On the second floor, piano music constantly floats out an open window. On the third floor, which is directly across from us, our neighbor Nana occasionally comes out on to the porch to hang her own laundry. Off to the right, a man and a woman trade places, sitting and smoking out an open window.

And across the street to our left, a building is being renovated. While the rest of the facades in our neighborhood consist of chipped brick showing through broken plaster, the new building's front is whole, and freshly painted. The windows, which are vinyl, are still covered in dirt from the workers, and peering in them I can see that the whole place has been gutted and is being rebuilt, almost from scratch. When it's done, it's going to look georgeous. This is happening all over the place.

I'm looking forward to seeing how much this place changes over our ten months here.

On the other hand, our upstairs toilet pipes broke, causing our kitchen ceiling to crack and start falling over the floor, and I've no idea if it will be replaced, repaired, or simply shut off so it doesn't get worse. PVC piping is hard to come by. So everything isn't rushing headlong toward greatness. But there are signs.