Mud Mansion

When I first arrived with my 6 roommates to Mahadav Besi, we arrived to our mud house and were overwhelmed with the amount of work it needed. Our task of the first few days in the village was simply to make our home liveable. The house sits in a beautiful location with views of mountains/hills from all angles. Their are fields everywhere and it is on "the road" in this small part of the village. We have neighbors attached to our house and the next nearest house is where the Nepali staff of my program live. Other than that, there is a "Rye Village" about 10 minutes away, another "Rye Village" past that, and those living in the stone quarry down by the river. There is one school at the top of a hill where many of the "Rye" children go to school and farms everywhere. It is absolutely beautiful. It felt like cleaning out someone else's garage as we pulled everything out of the house and layed it out front. We cleaned and went through everything, deciding what to throw, what to keep, and how to make this place a home. The structure is made of wood covered by mud. After all the clean-up, here is what it is like. From the road, you walk down a path, which is more like a "walking trail", lined to the right by sugar cane and to the left by fields waiting to be churned and replanted. Now, we had begun our garden, which is along this path. We are also building a small fishpond in this area. In front of the house is a porch and open area, which is shared with our neighbor 'hajur buwaa', an old man who is slunched with missing teeth and an cathedar, but still tends the sugar cane fields and works with the grains. What a tough old man. On the front of the porch is a hammock, built by one of my roommates who I swear can build ANYTHING and really has the innovation and energy to do them all (hence the fishpond). Approaching the front door, on the left is another door that leads to one of the rooms. You duck your head through the front door (the whole place is built for people no taller than I) and to the right is the "living room" and kitchen. It is basically a mud room with a table, a couple blankets and pillows to sit on, a 2 burner stove, and a fireplace made of mud (which we don't use due to poor ventilation techniques). A little forward, and you run into the wall, but to the left is the ladder. Going up the ladder to the second floor, you are exposed to a bigger room, filled with 3 beds. There is an attic area above there, but it's hard to get up there and I'm not interested in whats up there. Then through the doorway takes you to a large balcony separated by a doorway. One guys sleeps on the balcony sometimes, but started to get cold. To the right, is another door, which leads to my mud room, which I share with another American. The beds are are basically wooden boards with a few blankets on top. I don't sleep well. I keep warm, but when I sleep on my side, I feel like my ribs are crushing into me. I must add that it is not the worst bed of my life and my bed in Mongolia was much worse! I mostly stay awake from the mice. The mice on the metal roof and in the walls is absolutely insane!!! I've tried earplugs, I think I put them in wrong. I've tried listening to my Ipod, the stimulation to my brain keeps me awake. The mice are most active between the hours of 11pm and 6 am. They drive me nuts! And up until the other night, dew fell on my face as I was trying to sleep in the morning, which gathered on the metal ceiling. My builder roommate put up plastic to stop this. So nice of him. He's also build a fire oven outside and an outdoor "shower". It's quite impressive the things he comes up with. I think I learn just by watching him. We also have an outhouse... which is..... an outhouse.

We are making the most of our mud mansion.