Paul's love language is home improvement projects

                                                 

While I am busy in the kitchen making muffins, Paul is dreaming of his next home improvement project. Sound gendered? Well, you are correct, it is. I am planning on writing about gender and gender norms in Ecuador in the coming weeks, so I won't get into the topic here except to say that this is a gender divide that mostly works in our marriage: I cook, Paul does home projects. 

Paul gets great satisfaction working with his hands to improve our living situation, and, thank goodness, he quite enjoys planning and completing such projects.  One of the great benefits of living here without formal employment is that there are plenty of projects that could be done and sufficient time to complete them. 

I wanted to be sure to record the amazing projects (some larger than others) Paul has completed in the last 6+ months to make our lives easier, more comfortable, and all around better in our casita in La Josefina. Our dear neighbor in Santa Rosa, Jacquie Smith, has been known to ask "What is Paul doing now?" as he wanders down the street with a 2x4 and a drill in his hand. My dear friend here in La Josefina, Lucia, drools with anticipation at his next project. She so admires his drive to upgrade our lives. . .

1) The electric shower head (written about in detail here)

2) A potable water system with two components -- a 5 micron filter plus a UV light treatment -- all of which is discreetly tucked under our diminutive kitchen sink and gives us unlimited potable water straight from a special spout. The potable water was originally planned to come straight out of the main faucet, but because the water pressure in the house was too low, he had to create a dedicated spigot. The spigot is actually great because it is very clear when you are filling anything with potable water. It is so so so nice not to have to boil, iodinate or otherwise manually filter our drinking water.  Subsequent inspections of the town water-treatment system by our visiting professional engineers (thanks Pat & Erica!) indicate that drinking from the tap might be safe enough, but we're sticking with our setup: zero bouts of diarrheal disease while in La Jos!)

3) Lofted/bunk beds for the boys (including a homemade ladder), which he designed and built from scratch. The bed lofting allows adequate floor space in their 7'x10' bedroom for a place for Brynna to sleep, lego playing, a swing added by Dillon, and other shenanigans. Also the perfect amount of space for our Halloween haunted room. 

                         

               

4) Rabbit doors to keep the rabbit in and the predators out. There are a lot of free-roaming dogs in our pueblo. Plus, we live in the tropics, and it is nice to have our door open during the day, but since our rabbit roams freely in our casita, we needed some way to have the door open but barricades in place. Screen doors are not really a thing in Ecuador. After several iterations, Paul designed a spring-loaded gate that blocks Crema from leaving the premises but allows our family and visitors easy front door access. He also made several iterations of back door barricades.

5) Screens for our windows and doors. While the mosquitoes are not terrible here (in fact, much better than when I lived here 20 years ago because of a town-wide septic system installed over a decade ago), there are plenty of other interesting bugs that are happy to enter our house. The screens keep many, though not all, of them out, and again allow us to keep doors and windows open as much as possible. At the last minute when packing, Paul also came across a magnetic screen door that he had originally purchased for our home in Santa Rosa but never quite installed. That screen door currently hangs on our front door, and all the local kids and adults love playing with the magnetic closing feature. It works great!

6) Kitchen shelving, plus shelving in the kids' room. Our house literally has no closets and no pantry. Can you imagine living in a house without closets? Shelving, it turns out, is much easier to install than closets, but more challenging here because of the cinder block walls, which require masonry drill bits and anchors to install shelf supports. Paul is a trooper rocks (sorry, Paul made me add that; he's working on his Dad jokes). Needless to say, we have very useful kitchen shelves for pantry supplies as well as storage shelves in the kids' room.  We just realized we need another for our ever-growing crafts & game supply.

                                           

7) A raised garden bed and garden. Shhhhh, Paul smuggled special seeds into Ecuador in an attempt to grow some of our favorite tomatoes and other veggies. His first attempt at seedlings a few months ago was not successful, but this second attempt seems to be coming along nicely. He recently transferred his seedlings into a raised garden box he also built and then had to fence in to protect from the roaming chickens and dogs that frequent our yard. Most important is the bamboo+plastic roof to prevent our now-frequent rain storms from inundating the plants. Fingers are still crossed we see some tomato plant blossoms soon . . !  We're holding ourselves back from immediately harvesting the bok choy and lettuce.

8) Installation of the internet:  We originally avoided this, despite our kind neighbor Evelyn's frequent offers.  But Paul & I separately concluded it's now necessary because of all that has gone on with my mom the last couple of months.  Evelyn is now generously sharing her internet with us, which does seem to please her as a trade-off for her son Joao spending so many hours here. Paul had a fun time stringing an ethernet cable through the top crotch of a 15-foot tree in our front yard, over the road to a stick lashed onto the top of a falling-down abandoned house, and through the eaves of Evelyn's house to her internet router.  Thank goodness for our handy 15-ft fruit-harvesting pole ("gancho")!  So far it's working great; luckily, the cable is high enough that both the garbage and the gas truck easily pass under.  Now we just have to unplug it every time there is a thunderstorm, per Evelyn's warning that she once had all her equipment fried.  

9) The well-loved swing (written about previously here)

                                                       

10) A tetherball court, the collaborative brainchild of Paul and Dillon. It was inspired by Dillon's love of tetherball at CCLA. It is made in a clearing of banana trees in our backyard with a large bamboo pole, a rope, and apparently the only water polo ball in all of Ecuador (we think it was mistakenly shipped here). The first bamboo pole snapped off at the base. The second bamboo pole held up to the general abuse, until the eyebolt ripped out of the top. (Not that this stopped the Ecuadorian children from tying it on lower and playing a foot-based version of tetherball!)  It is now awaiting its third iteration with a metal pole, after Paul scavenged the bamboo pole to finish off his garden greenhouse. (See above)   

                                             

11) Bathroom exhaust fan. Paul, primarily driven by the desire to reduce the humidity level in the bathroom, cut (drilled + bashed) a hole through the cinder blocks and installed a fan in our little bathroom wall. Of course he had to add a screen so that bugs will not crawl in from the outside.  We think it helps the bathroom moisture and seems to have reduced mosquitoes that were previously hanging out in our shower.

12) Various electrical re-wirings:  Dedicated line for the 40A heating shower head, and additional outlet for the fridge.    

In summary, our life here is pretty basic, as is our casita. But thanks to Paul, we can drink as much potable water as we want, store as many spices as we'd like, take hot showers when we please, swing as many swings as is humanly possible, and keep Cremita safe. Paul gives thanks to the cheap drill he bought at Harbor Freight (best $18 ever spent).