Money, that's what I want

Thank the lord, we have money again. We were down to some wanton wrappers, spices and half a package of noodles. We just went to the market yesterday and stocked up, so now we're back in business. You think moving is hard back home, try starting from scratch on a volunteer's "salary." Salary is in quotes because we've been told by the Peace Corps a million times, we are not employees of the Peace Corps. It's like we're covert ops over here. If we are caught they will disavow any knowledge of us. Yet, they still tax our non-earnings. How can you tax it if it doesn't exist? Somehow the government has found a way.

We have a few last things to buy for the house, the two biggest being wood for shelves, and a bbq. We've had books and other random junk sitting in boxes on our floor for a month because we had nowhere else to put it and no money to buy anything, but we're going to buy some planks today to build some quality cinder block and plank shelves. They're going to be beautiful. I'm really excited about the grill though. It's good grilling weather here all year round, and it's a nice change of pace, having grilled meat or veggies. Plus then we don't have to heat up the kitchen to near sauna-like levels. I have to cook with my shirt off because I'm dripping with sweat by the time I'm done with a meal. Of course my shirt is always off because I'm always dripping with sweat, so that's nothing new. It was pretty funny, speaking of meat, the other day we were watching a cooking show on cable, and the lady was making steak. She was talking about the different types of steak you can buy, and both of us thought of our options here. We have beef short ribs and a giant leg hanging off a hook. If you don't want ribs, you tell the guy how much beef you want and he whacks it off the leg. It's good for kabobs though, and tonight we're making beef bourguignon. For all the bitching we do to each other about the food we miss, we eat really well here. I think it was mostly last month though because we had no money to buy meat, or anything other than veggies, noodles and rice.

In other news, we got a kitty! We were totally against getting a pet, but the stars aligned perfectly, so we couldn't help ourselves. Our next door neighbor's pseudo-pet cat had kittens, and they offered one to us. So we looked around, and you can buy cat food at this one "pet" store (mostly pig and chicken feed), we can get sand for the litter box, they have free vet service here so we got her de-wormed and can get her a rabies shot (and fixed), and one of Abby's coworkers already has a cat, and he volunteered to take her when we leave. So we just couldn't help ourselves. She's a little orange and white cat we've named Beatrix. She's really playful, learned her catbox on the first day and sleeps with us under the sheet every night. It's nice having a cat again.