Our neighborhood

I have been wanting to give you a better sense of what the neighborhood around our little chapel apartment and the school is like, and I think we finally have enough pictures to get started. The neighborhood is called Habitat because the homes were originally built by Habitat for Humanity about 20 years ago (more on the homes in a little bit). First, to orient you, this is the view of the chapel from the school--they are catty-corner to each other.

The main entrance to the chapel is behind the large pine tree to the left. Our apartment is on the side of the chapel facing you, and the upside-down-L-shaped window is our bedroom. The brick cylinder with the cross on it is where our stairs are and the part that goes above the roof is where our water heater is located.

Next, here is a view of the main road, taken from the same vantage point at the school:

When we go up* to town, we usually catch a bus on this road. The road goes in this direction for about three blocks and dead ends into the Pan-Americana Highway, which you can barely see in the background. If you go left, you go to the main town of Tacna, which is about 4 miles away. If you go right, the road continues south to the border with Chile. The buildings in the foreground are part of the school--primary school offices with the blue doors and the cafeteria in the right hand corner.

Also, pictured below is the park that is adjacent to the school and to our little chapel apartment, which is a popular place for afternoon soccer games and general hanging out.

Next, a view of some of the houses and streets in the neighborhood:

The blocks are long and narrow, with a whole bunch of houses in a row along each side. Most of the houses are built two together, sharing a common wall. In the picture above, the building on the left has the two doors--each is to a different home. The basic house has a living room, dining room, two bedrooms, a bathroom and a back patio. After the houses were built, many people have built on in the back, sometimes with multiple stories.

Here are two pictures of homes who are building on in the back.
In the background of the picture above you can also see a multi-level, multi-colored addition to the house. While most of the fronts of the houses have stayed the same, some people have painted or added a front gate, but I don't have any pictures of that.

Hopefully now you can picture what it is like when we wander around in the neighborhood. On a final note, it is usually much sunnier than this here--I took most of these first thing in the morning, and we often have early clouds and then sun a few hours later, which lasts until it gets windy in the afternoon.


*A note about going up to town: Tacna proper is literally uphill from Habitat so when people talking about coming and going from town it is always "voy a subir"(I am going to go up) or "voy a bajar"(go down). These are the same words you could use to talk about going up a hill or a staircase, but when used in general, everyone assumes you are talking about town.