Mi casa

One of the biggest perks of the Foreign Service is that you get free housing. The housing is sometimes owned by the State Department, but I think generally they have the houses on long term leases. Foreign Service personnel come in many varieties, some married with three or four kids. Some in semi-retirement “second careers” and some young and single like me. A combination of security concerns and high standards (by other folks, not me) leads this housing to be super posh. And most houses are ready for at least a couple with a kid or two, so there’s lots of extra space for a lonely single guy like me. A funny quirk is that some American (buy America act) furniture company supplies all the furniture for all Foreign Service housing worldwide. So, it may be a different type of house in a totally different environment, but everyone has the same tan/green/yellow couches. Not only do I not have to pay rent anymore, but I’ve got my own bathroom, walk in closet, full size fridge to myself and very nice brand new washers and dryers. Please keep paying your taxes. 

One thing you may note are the bars on the windows, and the cage that surrounds the upstairs bedrooms. Security is a big concern for our residences, more so in some countries than others, yet the standards are pretty much the same worldwide, so our homes are outfitted with additional security measures. Most of them don't cause many issues, so it's a nice have-especially in a town where home robberies are fairly common, it's nice knowing there's really no feasible way of breaking in without causing all sorts of damage and noise. 

Sorry about the lighting, I took the pictures at night.

My house is in a (loosely) gated community called Puerto Azul. It has somewhere around 8,000 residents and a wide variety of housing. There are veritable mansions with tennis courts and 6 car garages. There is also a big apartment building and a few sets of 1-2 bedroom townhouse complexes. Most of the houses seem to be of the 3-4 bedroom single family home variety. Very few garages as you’d think of them in the U.S., but more just carports. Almost every house has a cement wall or wrought iron gate, or combination around the entire property. Some houses have very well manicured gardens and yards. There are also a fair amount of vacant lots, overgrown with weeds. I’ll do a neighborhood tour blog at some point.

My house has three bedrooms, each with a full bath and walk in closet. One is downstairs, right off the front doorway. The other two are upstairs. It has an open foyer and stairway. The main floor includes the kitchen, breakfast nook, laundry room, a storage room with a tiny full bath attached (maid’s quarters), a family room, and dining room. There’s a back patio, with paving stones and a garden along the wall. Patio table and chairs included. The State Department does set up the houses with a welcome kit, which includes things like some flatware, pots and pans, toaster, microwave, broom, small trash cans, and things like that. Once my final shipment arrives, I give almost all of those things back. Or so is my understanding. 

The other bedroom upstairs came with a bed, so that’s the guest room. The one downstairs has only been entered once or twice since I moved in, to put some extra stuff in there, and to take the picture below. I’ll explain more about shipping things in the Foreign Service in another post, but needless to say that all of my pictures and maps for the walls haven’t arrived yet. So, you see the house mostly as it came, except for my room, which is still pretty sparse though. Because of the ample storage space in my closet, I have almost nothing in the two dressers. Just some books, files, and magazines. But I have file cabinets coming for those. 

The house is in pretty good condition, there are few parts of the kitchen where you can tell they kind of just slapped the cabinets together. It’s tile floors throughout the house. There are wall air conditioners in most of the rooms. I feel super fortunate to be living in such a nice place, it’s quite a luxury. Hopefully my shipment will arrive sometime soon so I can feel a bit more at home (and have some bowls-there were oddly none in the flatware provided). 

From top to bottom, we move from the bottom to the top of the house. Don’t get lost. The front doorway (taken from the family room), looking up at the cage, the landing at the top of the stairs, the second bedroom, the second bedroom’s walk-in closet, and the bathroom. 

The living/family room and the dining room. One of the big chairs was up in my room, but I liked it better down in the family room. My TV will go on the left side of the picture, where you see a little DVD player on that cabinet. The dining room table has leaves to expand it, but there are already five too many chairs. 

Sorry, not the greatest pics, some of the angles are a bit hard to get. But this is the downstairs bedroom, and the walk-in closet that is off of the bathroom. 

Top, from the kitchen, looking into the laundry room. Middle, looking from the laundry room into the storage room and bathroom/maid’s quarters. Bottom, the downstairs bathroom.

The kitchen. Each photo taken from the same spot, just turned around. To the left of the middle picture is the breakfast nook. Or to the right of the top picture. The laundry room is opposite of the breakfast nook. That's all, thanks for scrolling all the way to the bottom.