Settling Into My New Home

My house:
I can't wait to tell my kids in the future that my very first house was in Mozambique! :) It's been almost 3 weeks since I moved in. I finally feel settled in enough to blog about my house now haha so without further ado, here's my home for the next 2 years:

Living room. The door goes to the kitchen

Kitchen

Bedroom

Other side of my bedroom

Closet room. I'm still living out of my suitcases for now until I can get some shelves built

Bathroom

Guest room

Hallway. Door to the left is the guest room. This is also where I wash my dishes

Backdoor and door to my storage room

Backyard

My favorite part of my backyard

Cooking:

I have electricity [yay!!!] so I bought an electric stove. I'm also very fortunate to have a fridge that my org provided for me! Cooking is my new stressor and hobby [not by choice] now. I don't really know how to cook so the next 2 years will be a huge learning experience. So far, I've been making a lot of soups or eating rice with eggs or dry shredded pork that I brought over. My rice cooking skill is a getting better and not so watery or mushy anymore. I really miss my rice cooker ): The mercado in my town is really really small. There's only tomatoes, onions, potatoes, couve, and lettuce. I have to go to the next town to buy cabbage and other food. 

It felt like Christmas when I opened my 2yr suitcase!! I've been restraining myself from indulging it all at once.

The first meal I made since being on my own! My neighbor said it was good.. yes! success :)

Water:
I don't have running water so I have to walk about 5 minutes to get water to bring back to my house. I am so lucky to have such wonderful neighbors who refill water for me :) I told them I wanted to help them so they let me practice getting water once. It caused a big scene because a bunch of my neighbors came out to watch me trying to carry the bucket on my head hahah I'm planning to buy a big gallon container so I can just use my bike to carry it back to my house without having to bother my neighbors.

My bucket was only half filled with water. My neighbor's kid who is a lot smaller than me was carrying a bigger bucket filled to the top with water without spilling.. I need more practice to get to her level! haha I woke up with sore arms and neck.. The girls here are so strong!

The unwanted pets in my house:

I feel like I have a zoo in my house when I first moved in. I was quite afraid of my own house, especially my bathroom. I think I've finally gotten these pests and critters under control (for the most part)

Cockroaches: They are HUGE here and some of them fly! I was so afraid to use my bathroom because there was an army of them crawling around the corner and on the wall of my bathroom everyday. I bought baygon and sprayed my whole bathroom so that did the trick. I actually had to get my neighbor to help me spray it because it was raining cockroaches when I tried to spray a corner. All of them starts running away and crawling up walls and then falling down. I still see 1-2 here and there but I can deal with that.

Bed bugs: They are my worst nightmare!!  I have bites all over my body and they swells up really big too. At first I thought mosquitoes were attacking me but I realized it was bed bugs when I wake up itchy with new bites in the middle of the night. My dono da casa helped me spray my bedframe with baygon and I had to leave my mattress in the sun for a few hours. I did that twice already and it's working so far. I havent gotten any new bites. My dono da casa is going to help me do this 3 more times to make sure they're completely gone. 

Rats: During my 1st week, I saw something running past by out of the corner of my eye but I thought I was just hallucinating and paranoid from Larium (malaria prophylaxis). I started noticing little black pellets all over my house the next few days.. which I later realized it's rats' poops. After many attempts of preventing them from going into my house and getting rid of them, I think I finally did it! As of today, 4 have died in my house. I'm definitely going to get a cat asap.

The rats been entering my house through my shower (more like bucket bath) hole. There's large gaps under all the doors so I tried to block it with the box. It didn't work since it apparently can jump over. The first few nights I tried blocking with the box, I keep hearing rats running into the box and trying to get through >.< I thought I was clever when I covered the top opening with books but the rats managed to squeeze through, chewed up my books and get back into my house ):

I went into the city to buy this glue and it worked! I caught 2 rats with this trap but it made a huge sticky mess in my house.

My neighbors were already asleep when the rat got stuck so I trapped it in the bucket to wait til the morning to get rid of it. I'm too scared to do it myself haha

Besides leaving poops all over my house, it started chewing things up when it couldn't find any food in my house ): Good thing I have a capulana that matches well with my bag!

I woke up to 2 dead rats in my bathroom from the rat poison that my neighbor got for me. My dono da casa also found a hole outside my house that leads to my shower hole so he will cover it up with cement for me. Hopefully this will be the last time I see rats in my house!

Other animals in my house: lizards, ants, mosquitoes, smaller flying animals, frog