Daily Report: First Night In The New House

Epril and I went out to Kingston Lodge (just for a change) for lunch, and then we hired a guy in the neighborhood who owns a van to drive us out to the jungle with all of our new stuff. Along the way, we stopped at Mandaue Foam where I ordered the foam cushions for the new couch. Then we stopped at the furniture maker where, unfortunately, I found that the plans (drawn exceptionally well, I can say... a skill I have, ask my parents) for the couch were changed/ignored. "It will be stronger this way," said the furniture maker. He knew he had made changes though without asking me, and when I insisted he do it the way that the diagram said, he shit-canned the whole thing and started over without argument.

We got to the house and I tried hooking my wireless router to the internet. Unfortunately, the ISP noted the change in hardware configuration from "Epril's laptop talking to the antenna" to "Epril's laptop talking through a router to the antenna", and kicked me over to a login screen. Unfortunately, when the service guy came to install the internet last week, he didn't give Epril a username or password. So I need to get one.

The water still isn't working in the house. There is a big cistern on the roof that is supposed to fill up but doesn't because the pump has been disconnected. The water pressure up on the hill in Jasaan is so low that when the cistern is empty and the water is fed directly to the taps, there is only a trickle of water on the first floor and none on the second and third.

Uncle Bob and Auntie Puring have been awesome during this move. Two nicer and genuine people you couldn't hope to meet. They've been helping out around the house, putting up the paintings I bought and cleaning up. They enlisted their son to put a coat of paint on the fence out front, and he has been doing guard duty at the house, sleeping on the couch in the living room overnight to make sure nobody breaks in.

Epril and I had the family over for dinner at the new house, and then we spent our first night in our new bedroom; a test run if you will, with our new sheets and comforter and pillows. The new bedroom... the new neighborhood actually... is very quiet at night. Quaintly so. It's the kind of small-town atmosphere you suspect your parents and grandparents grew up in: The warm darkness, with the neighbors sitting outside chatting together, kids watching television inside. In the distance, we could hear a religious gathering singing hymns at the bandstand in the park. The mayor of Jasaan came walking by on an evening stroll with a small group of other men, and stopped to chat with us for a few minutes. Some dogs barked here and there, and a scooter went by on occasion, but mostly it was just quiet.

Epril and I settled down in our new bedroom at about 10:30. There aren't curtains on the big windows yet, but the new air conditioner was installed and cooled the room, and very little light fell directly on the windows of our bedroom, so the place was dark and sleep was excellent.