Starting the Apartment

We got up early this morning and started working on the apartment, after what felt like weeks of waiting. It was overwhelming when we first got there, and saw the large holes at the bottom of the wall that were previously hidden by Maribel and Sergio's stuff. All I could think about for the first half hour was how much I wished my parent's were there to help us. I wanted to get right to cleaning and then painting, but I had to be patient and get the holes patched.

We went to the paint store to get the wall cement, and were told to come back in an hour. We went back an hour later, and were told to come back in half an hour. We went back in half an hour, and no surprise, were told to come back in half an hour. By this time we had gotten the walls cleaned and we had nothing else to do but patch the holes, so we walked until we found an open hardware store. We got the cement and were quickly filling holes like professionals. We're lucky to have my dad who has taught us enough about construction that we can get right o fixing up the apartment on our own.

On the way back from the hardware store, we walked through the tiangis, which is like a flea market on the main street. Finally, I found used furniture. There was a beautiful wooden shelf, but by the time I had convinced myself to get it it was gone. I did find a metal hutch for the kitchen for only 12 dollars that will look nice in the kitchen when painted. Tomorrow we are going to go back and walk the entire 1.5 mile tiangis and see what else there is.

Our only major confusion today came from the primer we bought. We were expecting white primer like we use in the United States, but what we have is kind of like a putty. It turns out it needs to be mixed with a lot of water, and then it turns into white water. We painted it on anyways, and the walls now look like they have a coat of oil on them. It is more of a sealant, but that is what we need because the walls were so dirty.

Tomorrow we just need to put "primer" on a few big patches and then we are ready to paint. We are also going to order the floor tomorrow, and hopefully it will be installed a few days after. Its all starting to come together!

-Emma