Monday night I was sitting in a taxi with Lidia and Noelia two of my language teachers who are also good friends, Noelia's cousin the taxi driver, the Realtor who was showing me an apartment and her 7 or 8 year old son who was crying about something. I was sitting between Lidia and the Realtor with her son on her lap thinking I am positive this would not be happening in the US. On the other hand I probably would not have had as much fun looking for an apartment in the US where I probably would have been doing it alone and am sure without the son thrown into the ratio. In Bolivia a mother bringing her child to work is completely normal here which is a definitely reflection on the importance of family in the culture here.
Tuesday I fell in love with the first apartment I saw and went on to sign for the apartment this morning and am going to move in the end of next week. But because I was not going to make a decision without talking to my Bolivian supervisor Johnny and wanted to have at least 2 options just in case I went ahead and continued to check out other apartments. The next apartment was a fairly normal place for Bolivia but was somewhat of a shock to me since the setup of the place was so different from what I am used to. There was a small courtyard in the middle and all of the rooms were built around this and opened into it. One of my first thoughts was that I would have to walk through the courtyard at night to get from the bathroom to my bedroom and there is a house next door that looks down into the courtyard. My Bolivian friends were like yeah this is nice place and it is bigger, but all I could think was that the only thing I would be able to see from my windows was the other side of my apartment.
Thursday I went to 2 more apartments with Johnny and kinda of hated them but finally went to my apartment to check it out again. This is where communication may have worked in my favor and especially since I was the one who should have said something. I had told Johnny that I really liked this one place but didn't mention which real estate company I had gone through and didn't bother to ask about where we were going when we met up to check out these other places. This would not have mattered except for the fact that we went to the same company as I had been before and I had told the guy there on the phone there the day before that I could not come back to look at the place I wanted until 4:30 and it was about 2. Now when we drove up it would have been the perfect chance to say something but no I could not possible do anything that smart could I. So I waited in the car while Johnny went in to talk with a Realtor and I sat in the car feeling kind of dumb and wondering what the odds were that it would be the same Realtor from Tues. and of him actually remembering me. The problem is as a gringa here I am somewhat of a minority and tend to stick in peoples memories because of course it was the same Realtor and even remembered my name and wanted to know why I hadn't come in with Johnny and was it because I was scared to go in. I know this should not matter but being rather human it made it worse that he was a he about my age who I kind of thought was cute. So there is my confession of the week and I am assuming it is not terrible shocking. =)