Mi casa es tu casa

I thought it'd be fun to give all you blog readers a photo-tour of my casa in Cajabamba, so here we go! This is my street, and my house is the big brown one on the right. I've had multiple people here, after telling them where I live, say "Ohhh, your house is the one with the giant plant in front right?" Indeed. Now that it's been pointed out to me, I've realized that we really are the only house in town with a plant, not to mention a giant one, out front - guess the palm tree can double as environmentally friendly and directionally useful.

Upon entering the house, you see the central patio/garden. To the right is the washing machine (very uncommon here!) and laundry sink. The window across the way is the kitchen.

My host mom was happy to show off our very bustling kitchen :)

Across the patio from the kitchen is the living room:

Walk through the living room and you also find the dining room, where we also keep 8 million books and paintings, done by artists ranging from my host siblings to Cajabamba's finest painters.

If you return to the patio, then head towards the back of the house, you find my host dad's tool collection and our awesome wood-burning oven. I have yet to experience it in practice, but I'm looking forward to eventually making some delicious bread.

The back "yard" houses the bunny cages and another garden - home to "the one-and-only magnolia tree in all of Cajabamba" (or so claims my host dad).

Now for the upstairs. This is a view of the second story from the top of the stairs. The window across the way is my room, and the window on the far right side of the picture is my host parents' room. Laundry is hung to dry in all parts of the upstairs.

To get to my room, I walk down this covered but open-air hallway, usually next to some more laundry. The door in the foreground is to my host brother's room, and the door further along on the left is my host sister's.

This is the view out the little window that's right next to my door - some Cajabamba rooftops and some mountains - an excellent sunset-viewing perch, which our cats particularly like to frequent.

Here's my room - pretty sure this picture is already on the blog somewhere, but for the sake of a complete tour it's here again.

And lastly, here's a view of the rest of the upstairs, from my doorstep. Directly across is the main laundry-drying area/patio, and just to the right of that you can see the window and door that belong to my host grandparents' room - through there is also the bathroom.

And that's a wrap!