Our new home!

We moved into our new home in Tegucigalpa and its more than we had expected. For those interested, you can find us on Google at http://m.google.com/u/m/AmmPsf

For the lat 3 months we have been living in a very nice 2 bedroom house in La Ceiba. There were four of us in the house – me, Jana, Eugenia, and her son Rigo. It wasn’t very large, but there was suffient space for all of us.
When we arrived to our new home, we were surprised about how big and nice it is. There are 2 bedrooms, an office, kitchen, a nook for eating, and a large living room. Rey and Elise left behind quite a few things so there was only a couple items we needed to buy.
The yard is fairly large and we are looking around to see if there is somewhere we can put a garden. I have no idea what kind of vegetables we can grow here, but e are looking forward to trying.

We had an interesting adventure last night. The water system here is new to me and getting to know it is more than a little exciting. Apparently a water truck comes to the community twice a week and fills the pipes with water. Each house has a cistern that fills, and the house uses that water. Ours is a little different than others. Instead of the cistern begin on top of the house, which would use gravity to flow into the house, we have a water pump that pressurizes the house.
We were initially concerned abount how long the water had been in the cistern. So, when we arrived, we began using it quickly to empty the cistern, so that it could be filled with fresh water. When the cistern emptied, I noticed the pump was still running, even though there was no water. Not wanting to damage the pump by running it nonstop, I unplugged it.
The water truck arrived last night and started pressurizing the lines. We checked and confirmed our cistern was filling. However, when I plugged in the pump, nothing was going into the house. We checked all the knobs and confirmed everything was open, by still no water. We were more then a little concerned because I was nighttime and didn’t know who we could talk to for help.
We weren’t sure if the cistern is large enough for everything we need, so we decided that while water is coming to the house, we would try and fill the pila (a concrete tank that holds water for washing clothes by hand). We grabbed the largest kitchen pot and a large thermos and began carrying water from the cistern to the pila.
Last night we learned a few things – Jana and I can move water faster than a one inch pipe can fill, and for some reason the water pumped into the community is warm.
When we finally finished filling the pila, I took another look at the pump. I figured that because we ran the cistern empty, there just wasn’t water in the pump to run properly. I looked all over the house for a water spigot that was downhill (in hopes of bleeding the system of air), but couldn’t find anything. I finally went back to the pump to see if there were reset directions and found on the very bottom a small screw-in valve. I opened it up and a lot of air came out, followed by a lot of water. I turned on the pump and put the valve back in and I could immediately tell it was working based on the new sound.
After 30 minutes of playing water brigade, we finally got the water running into the house.

So far e have been working all morning cleaning the house. Washing dishes, sweeping, mopping, washing clothes and much much more.