This past Tuesday I moved to a new place in town. It's a nice place and has a good feel to it. People I've talked to have said good things about the woman I'm living with and I think we'll get along good. The house is in the far corner of town. The tower in the background is part of the park office compound. Its been nice sitting outside on the bench and enjoying the evenings.
This is my room. Its nice. The head of my bed butts up against the wall where the stove is, so it may be roasting in the winter-we'll have to see.
Kitchen. The stove on the right (by entrance to my room) is where the heat and cooking will take place in the winter. Right now, its a hot plate and small stove on the porch.
My commute is next to nothing now, as you can see. It's timed in at 4.5 minutes.
There is no running water in all houses in Karkaraly. Most people, us included, get our water from communal water pumps. This is our 1 sink. Its pretty nifty. You put water inside it, and push up on the rod on the bottom to release the water.
This means no indoor toilet and I've joined the ranks of volunteers who use the outhouse (above).
I hope my plants continue to go well. It's been pretty chilly here lately. A few nights ago it got down to 46 degrees in my room (and was 56 outside).
There are 3 dogs that live or hang out here. Only one is technically living here. This is Aza.
They're all good dogs and minus the first day when they didn't know, they've warmed to me fast.
Work related: we held a seminar on Adobe Photoshop and CorelDraw for the park last Thursday through Sunday. It went pretty well and was a good introduction to what is possible in these two programs. This was part of my grant that got the computer and projector. Now we have to make some marketing materials and we'll be through with the grant and off to bigger and better things.
