House Hunting Post #1

We left Coban on Monday morning with the Parker's heading three hours north to the town of Sayaxche'.  This is the town where we plan to live for this term.  It was our first time to go looking for rental property and I think it will be the first of many, lol.  We arrived in time to eat lunch and stopped by a local place we saw and decided to try it out.  There are only "local" places to eat there.  We enjoyed fish and chicken plates. 

first family trip to Sayaxche'

inside the restaurant

Cruz had a fun time playing while we waited on our food.  

We then spent the rest of the day driving around town and looking at properties.  We were able to see four houses.  We took photos of three of them (one was not even worth taking photos of, ha) but I'm not going to post them just yet.   Of the four, one is not an option, two could be last resort possiblities, and the other was occupied so it was hard to tell and get a feel for it.  We plan to look at it again once the tenants move out (we are just not sure when that is going to be).  We quickly learned that any place we find there will need A LOT of work.  Neither of the four houses had a kitchen.  By that I mean no cabinets, no counters, no sink, nothing!  Just four walls, and a few had a pila.  Below is a photo of a pila. 

I asked at the first house (before I realized the norm) where the kitchen was and was told, "anywhere you want it".  I knew then what we were dealing with. ha   I don't feel like we accomplished much except getting a better idea of the area and lowering our expectations waaayyy lower than we had gone with.  :-)     Believe me, we were not expecting much to start with.  We've been to that area before.  We're not asking for much.  We are trusting that the Lord has just the right place for us to be and we are praying and waiting on him to show us.

By the time we made it to our hotel we had been on the go for 10 hours.  Poor Cruz was a super trooper.  He did so well all day.  The Miller's were heading north and stayed over for the night with us in Sayaxche'.  They joined all of us for dinner at a really nice coffee shop/ gift store/ hardware store in town.  We had a good meal and visit together.  Afterwards we showered (Cruz's first time in the shower, and first experience with cold water) and fell in the bed. 

Tuesday morning we walked to a local comidor for breakfast before returning to Coban.  We said our goodbye's to the Miller's, loaded our car, and headed back. 

David, Glynis, Wendall, Jane, Cruz, me, and David outside of our motel. 

It was our first time to use this motel and we were very impressed.  I didn't take any photos but will on our return trip next week.  We plan to be back up that way at the end of next week for a few days looking and getting the word out some more.  Please pray for us to find safe/ suitable housing!

We spent Tuesday night in Coban and then headed back to Antigua on Wednesday.  Here are a few photos I took of Cruz with the Parker's before we left. 

Cruz and Mr. Wendall

Mrs. Jane, Cruz, and Mr. Wendall

Sergio was there and got to see him again as well

We didn't have any road hazards on our return trip but took photos of the landslide near Salama that held us up on Saturday.  It was still one lane. 

We'll spend the next few days finishing packing our things, getting haircuts, getting our teeth cleaned, visiting/ saying our goodbye's, and hopefully resting some before we leave this area for good next week.