It gets worse before it gets better

We were hoping to paint today. That didn't happen. Instead, we sanded, and took peeling paint off the walls, and ran errands, and cleaned. . . Here's a look at our house in progress, and the way things are done just a bit differently here, as evidenced by our buying paint.

There are bars in the entryway and a narrow staircase leads upstairs. The downstairs room is full of bags of powder, a giant mixer, some unidentifiable machinery and 5 gallon buckets of paint.

Sara and I go the first time. An older man leads us up the staircase, seats us in front of his desk, and shows us all the color swatches. After deliberating forever, we finally try to figure out how much we need of each color. "How about you just come back tomorrow?" he asks. "I'll send Alejo with you and he can tell you how much you need and give you some tips"

Gonzalo and I stop by the paint shop the next day after Luz y Vida. Alejandro is no where to be found. Pablo, the man we talked to the day before is at the doctors. We decide to come back later.

Tony, Gonzalo and I all head back to the paint shop in an hour or so. Alejandro has just left. We debate what to do, wait around for a bit, and then he shows up. We walk the 3 blocks back to the house with him, and he spends the next hour and a half there, helping us decide how much paint we need, and asking us things we'd never thought of- are you painting the ceiling in the kitchen too? What about this door? What color are your base boards upstairs going to be? Gonzalo mentions we are missionaries and it turns out that when Alejandro isn't working in the paint shop, he co-pastors a church.

We finally have our list of prices and sizes. "Stop by tomorrow morning" he says, then you can show me exactly what colors you want and leave a downpayment" He's in a bit of a rush he tells us, because he's preaching at the church service tonight.

Doris and I stop by in the morning. After carefully noting down all the colors and prices, eating the mandarin oranges that Pablo offers us, we make a down payment on the paints. We watch as Alejandro hand mixes the almond we chose for the baseboard in the guest room. He starts with white, dips the paint stirrer in some yellow and some black. "Let me know how dark you want it" he says to me. He slowly adds a bit more color each time until I'm satisfied. "I'll drop by the ceiling paint and the trim this morning" he says. I think I can have most of the others done by this afternoon. Is it ok if some of the colors aren't done until Monday?" We assure him that it is, and head on to the glass shop to see if they can someone out to measure our broken windows and cut glass to size.

Alejandro delivers the first batch of paints while we're out running another errand. Apparently when he arrived they were having trouble with the water tank on the roof and asked for advice, because while we were eating lunch he showed up again with the pieces we needed to fix it and an explanation.

Wrapping up towards the end of the day Alejandro showed up one last time. "Here are the paints for the bedrooms. We're just missing the green for downstairs and the purple bedroom paint. I should have them ready for you by Monday. I'll drop them by." He shows us how we should put the stucco on the walls where the paint and plaster were peeling off and there's nothing but cement block underneath. He leaves behind 2 small plastic spatulas for us to use. "I'll be by on Monday" he says, "but if you need anything, just give me a call"

Slower than a trip to Home Depot and their automatic color mixing machine? Definitely. But way more personalized. And now there's a familiar face in the neighborhood. Sometimes in the past few days as I've seen myself run what seems to be fruitless errand after fruitless errand I've found myself longing for the convenience of home. But, mostly, I love walking out of my house, walking for a few blocks. having a conversation with someone, and then finding out from them where I need to go and what I need to do to complete my next errand.