Home, Sweet Home

    Jones and I have finally moved into our "permanent" residence. It is nice to have a place of our own, although we are still working on getting everything we need. Over the past two weeks, we have packed and unpacked our bags more than 5 times. We stayed in a hotel two days, and in the temple housing for two days.

    At this very moment I am waiting in our apartment as our new armoire is being put together. Later today we will go to the supermarket to buy soap, sponges, trash cans, pillows, and more.

    The manager of the Employment Center, Irajá, took us out on Monday to look at a couple of available apartments. It was hard to decide where we wanted to live. The first apartment is close to the beach and ten minutes from the employment center. It is a decent, two-bedroom apartment, for the most part better than any place either of us had stayed in while in the mission field. It is also only a couple of blocks away from a large supermarket.
    The second one is actually in a hotel. Each room in the hotel is owned privately, so some people rent it as an apartment and others rent it as a hotel room. It was very nice, very clean, and had good security. It also had a pool, fitness room, and business center with computers and high speed internet. It was a little smaller and had only one bedroom, but the couch in the living room was a hide-a-way. It is on the same block as the employment center and ten minutes away from the beach. But it is in more of a commercial area.
    We thought long and hard and weighed the options. Both apartments were the same rent. We liked the idea of being close to the office, having internet in the apartment, and being in such a nice place. But we ended up deciding on the first apartment close to the beach because we had really planned on living in the culture rather than being tourists. Besides, it will be good for me to get away from the internet for a while; I'm too spoiled! ;-)

    Moving into the apartment has given me the chance to reflect on some other differences in our cultures. One of the most obvious things that has I have long been accustomed to is that very few houses in Brazil have carpet. This is most likely because of the humidity, which would explain why the houses that have carpet always have air conditioning also. It makes for easy clean-up of spills and washing the floor is easy because you just pour water all over the place, scrub, and sweep it over to a drain with a big squeegee.

    It is hard for me to describe the general differences without saying that it is just a lower standard of quality. That isn't meant as a criticism or a statement that should be understood as "the U.S. is better." We Americans (and English, and maybe even Spanish and Italians) have set a higher standard of quality for ourselves. That has it's positive and negative points. It makes for longer lasting, more aesthetically pleasing furniture. On the other hand, the Brazilian standard is more economical and practical. I mean, who really needs a heavy, hand-carved, oak dining room set when a light-weight, plain wood set serves just as well?

    Another interesting thing is that the bathroom has a little mini-shower right next to the toilet. What for? You guessed it: As Crocodile Dundee said so eloquently, "To clean the back side." Personally, I have no idea how to use it, but Jones loves it. I guess learning how to use it would save me the trouble of remembering to put the toilet paper in the trash can, rather than in the toilet.