The Tiger House

"Hallie, where do you live now?"
"Who me? I live at the Tiger House."

That is the official name of my house, as known throughout my community, for lack of an actual numerical address.  Why? Because once upon a time a little girl painted a big tiger on it.  But more importantly, this means that yes, I am at last living on my own, in my own house!  As much as I enjoyed living with my host family,  it was time to move on.  No more living with 12 people, 50+ chickens, 32 cows, 12 horses, 10 ducks, 8 pigs, 4 dogs, and 3 cats.  No these figures are not exaggerated, it gets a little loud at over there.  Now, I am able to chill on my hammock in the morning with a cup of coffee, listen to the creek and birds, and get some privacy.

This is the aforementioned tiger, well half of a tiger.  People ask me all the time if I'm scared living alone, because they say the witches will come and get me at night.  I say it's cool, I have a tiger to scare all the witches away.

This is me, every morning, chilling in my amazing hammock.

I have lots of frogs that hang out with me.  Also cockroaches, spiders, termites, rats, and bats.  So you see, I'm really not alone in my house.

This is the front view.  I feel like it's my rustic summer log cabin that I come to for relaxation.  It's very tranquilo.

The first night at my house my solar panel lights weren't working, so I spent the night watching the full moon.  It's incredible how bright it gets.  I was almost able to read under it.

The view from the house looking out at my yard.  This picture is kinda old.  I recently had people over to machete my lawn, and in return I killed a chicken and made a soup to feed them.

A tree in my yard.  They use these leaves to make the roofs of some of the houses.

More views.  I'm lucky to have a cement floor, it's one of like 3 houses here that have them.

My room, kind of messy at the moment.  I have an extra bed for when people come visit me.

I don't have the entire house to myself.  The room all the way to the left is filled with the landlords junk, and the other doors are to my room and kitchen.

This is inside my kitchen.  I have a another sweet painting to look at as I cook.   I recently put a horn on the horse to make it a unicorn, kinda giving the house my own little touch.  And just maybe one day I'll paint more random junk on my walls.

This is the other side of the house.

I have a cacao tree.  When it fruits I'm going to try to make chocolate from the seeds.

A little creek runs right next to the house, wonderful to sleep to.

More of the yard.  The casita pictured there is where the previous tenants would cook over a fire.

This is where I wash my clothes and bathe.

I have some banana trees.

This is the casita that's obviously falling apart.  People haven't lived at this house for a long time.  I've cleaned all that junk up since this picture.

Some plantains.

My kitchen again.

An awesomly furry flower in my yard.

This is culantro, in the same family as cilantro, and tastes exactly the same.  It grows like weeds around here and everyone uses it in their cooking.

Coffee (the seeds still in their cherry) is drying out on big tarps.  They used to be bright red, and after drying for days they've turned blackish.

This is the pregnant dog of one of my former host families.  I told them I'm taking of the puppies when they come, because everyone knows I need a compañero at the house.

Some houses dotted in the landscape.

The kids are finally not terribly afraid of me.  And most of them finally learned my name, no longer yelling and pointing, "Gringa! Gringa!"

A little chick hanging around on my arm.

One of the gardens I'm helping with.  Pictured are cucumbers growing.  Right now the sun is so intense because of the dry season that a lot of the plants are drying up and dying.

This is the technician that I'm working with.  He's looking at some tomato plants.  He doesn't like his face in pictures because, like many Panamanians, he believes in witchery, and tells me that a long time ago a witch put a curse on a photo of him, which brought him terribly bad luck.

One family here has a squirrel tied with a string for a pet.

More beautiful gardens.

We have gotten lots of harvests of cucumbers already because they grow so fast.

So remember the pregnant dog in the other picture?  This is her litter, only 3 days old in this picture.  They found a little cave-like place to hang out for the meantime (until I steal one).

The little pups rolling around.

The mom with her pups.

I've finally gotten some people to continually take their food scraps, cow/chicken/horse manure, leaves, grass, ash from their fogóns , etc and put it into big piles to make compost.  But most importantly, they're starting to do it on their own now, without waiting for me to come and help them.

The technician and one of the farmers in the garden.

Some chickens from the project as well.

Some sweet girls I was visiting.

Some beautifully growing tomato plants I planted in an old wheelbarrow at my house.  I later planted some garlic around them, to hopefully serve as a repellent and keep the bugs from eating up my plants.

Back to my house, after I had people over to machete my lawn.  Now there's just a bunch of dry grass everywhere.  Also that structure over there contains the large hole I poop in.

More of my yard and hut.

This is my fogón, which I made a big soup over.  I recently had a lot of fun destroying it.  I'm going to use the lumber to build something else.  Besides, I bought a gas stove- it saves the lungs.

This is my worm box, from which I'll eventually share with my neighbors once I have enough worms so we can all make rich rich fertilizer.  They're multiplying very quickly, and I'm going to have build a bigger box soon.

One day on my hammock I saw my neighbor pass by with a cow's head sticking out of a sack.  He said it was our lucky day, someone killed a cow and was selling off the parts.  Red meat isn't very common to eat around here.  If people have cattle, it's usually to sell in the city to get the cash instead because it makes good money.  Here it was smoked and dried and sold off to whoever came by.

These are a variety of green beans, pretty much ready to harvest.

Some healthy squash.

One example of a chicken coop.

A cluster of houses in one area.  All of them are extensions from the same family.  A long time ago I lived at one of the houses here for one month.

The Adventist church.

One family that wasn't part of the garden and chicken project still wanted to raise chickens but lacked all the fancy food and water dispensers that were given away, so she was clever and cut up some bamboo to make a food dish.

One of many crazy bridges in these parts.

One of the families involved in the garden project.

Taking care of their chicks...

...and cats.