A Photo Introduction

So I’m not sure if you are ready or not but here are some long overdue pictures of where I’m living in the Kenet.

This is the street I live on with the main road directly behind me. I live right  before the brick building sticking up on the left. This is how far I have to walk to get to the little corner store. It’s a long way I know…

I live behind this gate. There are 2 houses in the right half of the picture. I live on the second floor of the one in the back (you can’t really see it). My landlord and his family live below us and his mother and brother’s family live in the house directly behind the gate.

This is just a typical road in the neighborhood. There is only one paved road so the rest look pretty much like this with homes along it and a lot of stores (which resemble houses from the outside).

Houses are built over longer periods of time here depending on how much money you have. Many people leave the country to work and come back. Build as much as they can with what money they have made and then if they run out, they wait until the next summer and keep working until they can finish the house.

Below is a house that hasn’t been completed yet. They usually try and finish at least one floor so the family who stays behind can live on that floor.

There are a variety of animals here (horse, oxen, dogs, cats, etc) but the most common are chickens and roosters. They seem to be everywhere you go.

There are open sewage canals where I live but to get from many streets to another section, you have to cross over them so there are small bridges you must walk over. I pray that I will never fall in because some are a little shaky and you can only cross one person at a time. There are three types of bridges I have discovered.

1) The first (and worst) is the kind that makes you start praying before you step foot on the bridge.

2) The second kind of bridge looks decent but as soon as you step on it, you feel the wood give and start praying as you walk across.

3) The third kind of bridge I will go out of my way to find. It is the best. Instead of praying for help to cross the bridge, you praise the Lord as you cross because these bridges are strong and you can cross in a group if you wanted to.

So anyway, hopefully this can give you a glimpse into what it at least looks like where I live!