Our Home (part 2) Di Luar Rumah Saya = Outside My House

You've seen this picture before if you've been following, but I thought I
would post it as a reminder of what the front of our house looks like. What
you can't see, is a tiny grassy area in the front of the teras (porch) which
would be on the left side of this photo. Below is a picture of it.

Wow, I didn't mean to take such a long break from posting. Life is crazy busy with language school, homeschool, and living life in a third world country. There have been many things I have wanted to post, but I knew I needed to do this one next as promised.  One of the problems is that I have SO many pictures outside, that it is hard for me to choose which ones... and as you may have realized, I often have problems narrowing things down!  I took new pictures today just to help get this post done!  Not all the ones I post will be from today, but here it goes...

This is our little grassy front yard that is to the left of our house if you are standing in the road.  (Yes, that is trash in our yard...that is "normal."  It isn't ours.  That is part of life here.)

This is the "warung" which is to the right of our house. (Another post is coming soon about this.)

This is the side yard between our house (landlord's house) and the wife's parents' & brother's house which you can see to the right in this picture.  This is behind the warung.

In the picture above where the boys are playing soccer, you can barely see this little "house."  It is a house for resting, but the kids sometimes get up in it and play.  When we first arrived that seemed to happen more often. Nowadays, it isn't played in as much, but in the picture below, you can see some of the kids singing with Miss E6.  I posted a video of them singing back in April or May on Facebook.

Aren't they the cutest?

Now this is behind our house... or actually behind the landlord's side of the house.  You can see the little resting house, the back wall to the left and their drying racks (for clothes), and to the right, you can see their back door and the front bumper of our car.

This is the rest of the backyard behind our side of the house.  Dano is sitting on one of the covers to our well pump.  Behind that little white wall behind Dano is a "bak" which holds ground water and rain water.  I'm not sure exactly what our neighbors do with this water, but they do use it for something. Below is a picture of the bak with water.

This is one of the pictures I took today.  It finally has some more water in it.  It has been so dry that this was almost completely empty.  But with the recent rains, it has started to fill up again.  I would estimate that right

now it is only a foot or 2 deep.  When we first moved here, you couldn't see that little dividing wall in the middle.  Thankfully, there is this little fence to protect Miss V2, but obviously, we still have to keep a close eye on her!

Okay, now I am standing in the yard taking a picture of the back of our house, which I guess is obvious!  To the right is the bak with the water.  The little fence is made out of bamboo strips.  The back patio is also our carport.  I can't even believe Dano can get the car back here & park it!  He is pretty amazing.  He has to back it all the way around from the front yard!  The little overhang was actually built per our request when we agreed on a renting price for the house.  The PURPOSE of the overhang was for us to be able to put our drying racks for our clothes there when it was raining.  But when we bought the car, our landlord asked us to park it back here (for safety reasons), so we do!  He even cut down a tree so Dano could drive it back here!  (Can you see Miss V2 sitting at the little picnic table?  She's playing with our cat.)  The next picture is the back patio which is to the right in this picture.

If you walk out our back door, this part of the patio is to the left.  Normally, it is occupied with our drying racks covered in clothes, but this is late afternoon and the racks are folded as are the clothes!  The gray columns and the white rectangles all have to do with the water system.  That is a different post yet to come!

In summary, the outside of our house here is berbeda sekali (different very= very different) than any place we have lived before, but it is a place we enjoy!  The kids love playing with the neighbors' kids and riding their bikes.  We enjoy spending time with our neighbors and chatting with them.  We do our best to spend some time every day building our relationships with them and practicing our language.  Of course, after an afternoon of playing outside, all the kids need a good foot washing followed by a shower!

And here is a beautiful bonus we don't see very often... but this is looking out our front door.