Home Improvement!

As some of you know, we moved out of the dorm (thank goodness) and into a new apt at the end of last term. This is a great apt with an amazing view! I wouldn't hesitate to say it's one of the best views on the island.

The best view on the island is not without its price, however. There is no air conditioning...no air conditioning 11 degrees north of the equator! So, we use the lovely eastern sea breeze to keep our house cool. And, unfortunately, the breeze brings with it about 15 different types of mosquitoes (depending on the time of day). An outward bound experience indeed!  The windows are screened, but the doors are a problem because they are slatted. Needless to say, we spent much of this afternoon and evening trying to mosquito-proof our cottage. We went into the local hardware store to see how we could manage this, and boy did they get a kick out of us.  By the end of our shopping spree the woman helping us looked at Dave then turned to me and said, "Good luck with this one, honey." We walked out with 4 large wooden dowels (each 6 ft long), 20 ft of rope, a electric bug zapper, all-natural bug spray, industrial strength bug-bomb, an eyehook, and a mop.  We proceeded to parade through the local grocery store (which is busy on Sundays, btw) with these items to buy the bare essentials-coconut milk, bananas, and green apple licorice. Then, we went home and got straight to work.  

We made our own screens out of mosquito netting to cover all unscreened windows and doors (7 in total), and we readjusted our mosquito netting over our bed with the 4 long wooden dowels. Dave is a genius.  It took about 3 hours, but both are much better now. and I've only seen 2 mosquitoes in the past few hours...big improvement! The homemade screens definitely add to the decor of the rooms. Take a look.

This was quite a sight. We used pushpins, scotch tape, and by the end staples. Here's Dave modeling our stapling technique. The part of this picture that you don't see is that he was precariously standing on the toilet to reach this window 

We tried the bug zapper in many places...

Then Dave decided on the bedroom. As you might imagine, I thought this would be unhealthy...he thought it would make the perfect nightlight. It now lives in the bedroom with us.

So, hopefully this helps you get an idea of how we spent our Saturday night. At least we got a lot of laughs out of it. Tomorrow holds another adventure I'm sure.