La Casa en Uyuni

Here in Uyuni we have been given the privilege of living in a home with a beautiful couple. Now for all of you in the States who just read that and pictured a western style home, don’t. Our home is nothing like you would find in the States. It is more of a small compound. Allow me to give you a tour of our home and the way life works in this home. There is a main door that opens into a small courtyard. Off from this first courtyard are 4 doors. The first leads to a small chapel that our host allows the church to use multiple times a week. Door number 2 leads to our host’s kitchen. Door number 3&4 lead to our host’s personal rooms. Also from this courtyard is the stair case that leads to the three rooms our teams are staying in.
Between this first courtyard and the second courtyard is the bathroom. Our bathroom is anything but glamorous. It is more of an outhouse than anything else. There is a toilet that can only be flushed by pouring a small bucket of water into the bowl with force. With practice you can flush the toilet with one bucket. Of course the toilet paper does not go into the toilet but instead goes in the trash can. They actually make scented toilet paper so the trash cans do not have as strong of a stench.
The second courtyard is affectionately known as the chicken yard. At the back of the chicken yard is 3 rooms. Our hosts rent 2 of these rooms out. The third our team is using for a kitchen. There are 2 tables in our kitchen and several buckets of water. There is no need for a refridgerator here because it is cold enough outside that nothing spoils. We are responsible for all of our meals so we have had breakfast and lunch at the house and then eat dinner out in town. Breakfast consists of bread with butter, Dulce de leche, and marmalade along with fruit. Lunch is usually a base of eggs, rice, or pasta with a variety of sauted veggies. As far as a stove goes we have one gas powered eye that we cook everything on. We have improved greatly in our ability to cook meals for 12 people using limited resources.
Laundry is also a fun experience this month. We hand wash our laundry in a series of large basins set out in the chicken yard. Our clothes then get hung up to dry on either the clothes line across the chicken yard, on a clothes lline strung up along the balcony, or on clotheslines strung across the windows in our rooms. Really anywhere we can find to drape our wet clothes with the slimmest chance of them blowing off the line. You also have to ppray they dry before you go to hex otherwise you will wake up to clothes that are literally frozen.
During warmer months the option of a bucket shower is present, but we have not had that luxury. For showers this month we go into town to the public bath house and pay to take a 15 min shower. I have taken 3 showers this month and have not minded the lack of availability. It has been too cold to shower for me more than that.
We share our compound/house with a dog named Dulce, a chicken and a rooster. Needless to say sleeping in is not something that happens often.
So this is home life this month. I hope you have enjoyed this tour of our home and the way we do life.