SOLD!

My Mérida home, the realization of a dream that began to develop on cold Arctic winter nights more than twenty years ago, is no longer mine. I sold it this week.

It all happened quickly. The house was never put on the market. I mentioned to a tour group from the Mérida English Language Library that I was going to sell the house, and an offer resulted. It has been a hectic month or two getting ready for the closing.

The goodbye resembled the hello. Monday morning before the closing I sat on the floor of the empty house one last time to contemplate and drink in the atmosphere much as I had ten years ago, nearly to the day, when I first took possession of the property.

I remembered the family who lived in the house when I visited with a real estate agent for a first look. There were four generations of Yucatecan women living there together. The great-grandmother was resting in her hammock in what became my bedroom, and we didn't disturb her. I didn't actually enter that room until I owned the house. The youngest addition to that family, a tiny baby, also was asleep in a bassinet in what became my living room. The dog was loose in the back yard and the owners told me he would bite. So I didn't get to walk to the back of the property, either.

I liked the place, and bought it anyway.

I reminisced about the neighbors I met and friends I made in this neighborhood. Soon after I moved into the house, one neighbor began to bring over plates of Yucatecan food for me to sample. Another neighbor seemed a bit abrupt when she introduced herself to me and then told me I'd paid "way too much" for my house, but we have become good friends.

I thought about how I met the closest friend I have ever had because of this house.

I recalled one hot night when I left the doors open as I slept and bats flew into my bedroom, circling near the ceiling beams as I stared in wide-eyed amazement from my bed.

And, as was not unusual in older homes in this neighborhood at the time, there was a flimsy latch on the back door but no lock. In traditional extended families here, homes are rarely left empty. In these family neighborhoods in past times, crime such as burglary was a rare thing.

I remembered the many challenges of maintaining the integrity and feeling of this traditional home while renovating it to modern standards. I was frankly surprised by how well it turned out.

The new owner stopped by over the weekend to look around, excited and motivated, with a measuring tape and paint chip book in hand. I wish him well and hope he appreciates the place as much as I have.

I lived the happiest years so far of my life in that house, and the home I made and the life I led there, the good and the not-so-good, were rich learning experiences.

I will miss the house, but am moved on by the pull of new plans. I'll post more about those soon. 

Text and images copyright 2013 by Marc Olson

Face Lift: The Old House Gets a New Look

It took five weeks, but it was worth the time invested. The facade of my house is finished, and I suspect that the place has not looked better since the day construction was completed 90 or so years ago.

It started back in September, when I signed a contract with the "Programa de Rescate de Fachadas del Ayuntamiento de Mérida" (The Facade Recovery Program of the City of Mérida). In the contract I agreed to buy all materials for the renovation of the front of my house, with the city supplying the skilled labor free of charge. When the work crew appeared as scheduled in mid-October, the supervisor brought me an itemized materials list, with retail prices, and we talked about the details of the unfolding project. Scaffolds went up immediately, and under the hammers of the work crew, the cracked and crumbling original facade of my home was quickly obliterated, chunk by chunk.

As this began, the head albañil, a soft-spoken middle-aged Mayan man named Luis, began measuring and hand-cutting cardboard templates of the architectural details so they could be accurately reproduced as the wall was resurfaced. Despite careful placement of plastic sheeting on floors, windows and doors and constant cleanups, the entire house, along with those of a few of my patient neighbors, was enveloped in a thick cloud of fine, beige Yucatecan dust.

New concrete was mixed with modern adhesives to assure that the carefully-applied layers of the reconstructed facade will adhere well and be long-lasting. First, a rough coat was thrown onto the now-naked mamposteria stone walls. When this layer had cured sufficiently, a finer layer was troweled and smoothed on, to be followed when dry by the finish coat of silky-smooth white cement. At the same time, the facade's adornments were recreated using molds cut from sheet steel following the cardboard templates.

Every few days, Luis or the supervisor, an engineer named Marcos, would notify me of the materials needed for the coming stage of work, and I would walk five blocks down to the nearest building supply store to place and pay for the order. The materials would be delivered the following afternoon.

Which brings up the topic of patience. When materials were delivered, they were piled into my front sala, or living room, which had been emptied of furniture for the duration of the project. The sala also is where workers kept their tools and works clothes, and where often they ate lunch and rested out of the sun. When a homeowner decides to participate in the facade renovation program, he/she agrees to provide work space, storage for materials, a source of water, and a bathroom for the workers. They take over part of the house. They were polite and careful, but still there were half a dozen strangers in the house for more than a month. Doing the facade correctly is a painstaking process, and patience is required.

The house had been painted pink with white trim and ironwork when I bought it, and it remained that way for ten years. I'd decided to give the house a more dignified color scheme with the renovation, and am very happy with black metalwork against a white and cream background. The results give the place a more traditional, colonial appearance. My costs for this project were about $9000 Mexican pesos, or a bit less than $700 U.S. dollars.

Following are a couple more images of the final results.

Read an earlier post on the facade project here.

Text and images copyright 2013 by Marc Olson

Wild Neighbors: Parrots in the Patio

I've written about these guys before. 

One of the beauties of the inner-city block on which I live is the large contiguous tree-filled green space which is not visible from the street. Most of the neighbors' back yards are full of plants and trees, providing ample habitat for a large variety of wildlife, particularly birds.

I love watching all of the birds here, but I think my favorites are the parrots.

These Red Lored Parrots come and go as the various fruits and nuts ripen. They've been hanging around lately chewing on the seeds of my neighbor's cedro tree. They'll drift away and then return as other seasonal food becomes available in the area.

These photos were actually taken last spring near the end of the dry season, when some trees are bare of leaves. Right now, it's pretty hard to get clear shots of the birds because they blend right into the dense foliage. Most often I know they are here when I hear their high-decibel chatter.

I've seen as many as forty of these parrots flying together. This flocking usually happens in the evening, when they head to their sleeping and nesting areas in a park a few blocks north of here.

Often when they are nearby, their mutters and shrieks are my morning alarm clock. Some times I will grab my first cup of coffee and sit in the patio to watch their interactions.

In any case, the parrots are entertaining and always interesting to observe. And I don't have to leave the back yard to enjoy their company.

Read a related post here.

Text and images copyright 2013 by Marc Olson

Wanderings: Sidelined in San Cristobal

One afternoon in July I was riding northward, descending through the mountainous highlands of Chiapas towards Palenque, homeward-bound to Mérida. As usual on bus trips, I was not paying much attention to the on-board video screens, until the familiar roar of a single-engine Cessna aircraft and voices speaking American English emanated from the bus speaker system.

The entire busload raptly watched an episode Flying Wild Alaska, a Discovery Channel reality show about the day-to-day adventures of a regional air service in northern Alaska. My fellow passengers appeared fascinated by exotic arctic vistas, the lives of Native people and the daring deeds of bush pilots in Unalakleet and Barrow. I ignored Zapatista signboards and spectacular scenery passing by the bus windows for thirty minutes and watched the show for another reason -- I was seeing images of people I've met, places I lived, and aircraft I may have traveled on when I lived in that region and flew with this air service some years back. It was a surreal ride.

This was only one of several novel experiences of the prior few days.

I had journeyed south from Mérida to see my niece Brittany Burton, who worked for Natik, an NGO in Guatemala last summer and came up to San Cristobal for a few days on business. Brittany and I never lived in the same town while she grew up, so I don't know her terribly well. And I'd never spent time with Brittany apart from her parents, so it was very worthwhile for me to visit San Cristobal to do a little sightseeing with her and tag along while she worked.

Brittany Burton, left, inventories and sorts products with other Natik associates

I was able to accompany Brittany and two other associates of Natik to the nearby pueblo of Zinacantán, where they met with an organizer of local artisans to inventory and pick up a load of handicrafts for Natik online sales (here and here).

Another day we visited San Juan Chamula, a semi-autonomous Tsotsil Maya pueblo near San Cristobal. The remarkable church there is run by the Tsotsil, who observe their religion and healing rites with a blend of Catholic and ancient traditional practices. Hundreds of candles placed on the floor illuminate the building's interior. There are no pews inside. The floor is covered with pine boughs, and their aroma mixes with that of incense as people kneel to pray aloud in their dialect to the statues of saints which line the walls. Visiting this place and observing this blend of traditions is a privilege and a moving experience.

Photography in Chamula is strictly regulated. Taking pictures inside the church or of traditionally-dressed individuals, ceremonies or dances without permission is prohibited, so I left with just my memories and a couple of self-portraits we made in front of the church. We explored the market where I stocked up on delicious organic Chiapas coffee, and had a nice lunch before taking the bus back to San Cristobal.

My most vivid memories of Brittany as she grew up include images of her bundled up on a sled being pulled behind one of her parents' dog teams. And I think that kind of life growing up helped form the confident young woman I met in Chiapas who shares interests in Spanish and this region with me. The person I hung out with on this visit was a competent young professional traveling alone in Central America, speaking good Spanish and adept and creative in her work.

Wandering and hanging out with Brittany for a couple of days, I realized that I would find her interesting and her company enjoyable even if she wasn't my niece. That's a good feeling.

I enjoyed myself on this trip despite feeling a bit under the weather. Being ill resulted in another first. After a couple days of feeling mediocre and toughing it out, I decided I needed to see a doctor. In Mexico, often the easiest thing to do in this circumstance is to go to a Similar. Similares are a chain of Mexican generic-drug pharmacies. Each Similar has a licensed general practitioner on staff who will consult with walk-in patients for $30 pesos, or about two and a half U.S. dollars. I wouldn't go to a Similar to deal with a serious illness, but when you have an upset stomach in a strange town, it's just the thing. The doctor was professional and efficient, and in about 20 minutes I was back on the street with a couple of medications that had me feeling much better within a day or so.

And as it turned out I had plenty of time to rest and recover. On the morning I was to return to Mérida, a series of civil protests closed all roads out of San Cristobal for several days. Brittany couldn't head south and I couldn't head north. We whiled away a couple of extra days waiting for authorities and protesters to work things out. Finally, on a morning when highways were reported to be open I hugged her goodbye, only to receive a message later saying that her bus had been turned back near the Guatemalan border by new protests and that she was returning to San Cristobal. For another day or so, Brittany kept up with work from Internet cafes. We drank a lot of coffee and a few beers, ate some nice meals and had more time to explore this fascinating city before finally heading on our ways.

On the way home to Mérida I ran into a friend in Palenque. But that's another story.

A friend of mine says he loves living in Mexico because he wakes up each morning not knowing what novel experiences he may have before the end of the day. This trip to Chiapas was a perfect example of what he's talking about, what I've come to think of as "The Mexico Effect," in which daily surprises and challenges keep us active, thinking and living in moment. At home or on the road, life is always interesting and rarely dull around here.

Face Lift: The Beginning

At long last I have gone and done it. After ten years of avoiding the issue, I am getting the house a face lift.

I actually liked the patina that the front of the place had developed over the years. My house has a pleasant, traditional design. It's a classic of its kind with a stately presence, but with the wear and tear it has endured over the years, it has blended into the street, and I like that.

I always figured that an unkempt facade provided a small measure of security, assuming that any potential house robbers would be less attracted to places that did not look well-to-do. And these old stone houses are notoriously difficult to keep fresh looking anyhow. It's easier just to relax and not fret about frequent touch ups and repairs. After all, if a house is this old, why can't it look its age? Those of us humans who are at peace with the aging process decide to take care of our health but not worry excessively about normal wrinkles, sags and graying or falling hair. Cracks, peeling paint and mold streaks add character to an old house in the tropics and can be gracefully ignored in my book, at least to a certain extent.

But things deteriorated beyond the "gracefully aging" stage. This was brought home to me not long ago when I walked out the front door one morning and found several chunks of the facade, each about the size of a large candy bar, laying where they had fallen on the sidewalk. I realized that despite my affection for the house's patina, for reasons of safety it was in need of a face lift.



Actually, for years neighbors had been asking me why I didn't redo my house. "I thought gringos liked things nice and new," one said. A number of buildings on the block have been redone and freshly painted over the past couple of years, and in its scruffiness my place was beginning to stand out from the rest.

The city has a program to preserve and restore the city's architectural heritage, officially called, "Programa de Rescate de Fachadas del Ayuntamiento de Mérida." Literally that means, Facade Recovery Program of the City of Mérida. The program employs a squadron of skilled artisans who repair and carefully reproduce deteriorating facades of historic buildings in the city. The work is done free of cost. All a building owner has to do is get on the list, wait for the work to be scheduled, sign a contract, and provide needed materials. It's very organized. A detailed budget of materials and their costs is delivered beforehand and the contract describing the building owner and city's responsibilities during the project is explained in detail.

That's a pretty good deal, and the quality of the work is top notch. Construction makes a bit of a mess of the house, but will be worthwhile in the end. The historic facade will be renewed and ready to accumulate another few decades of patina before it needs serious attention again. I was a bit tired of living with the pink prior owners had painted the place years ago anyhow, so now I can make a change. And more important, no innocent passerby is going to get clobbered in the head by a falling chunk of my house.

Wild Neighbors: We're Expecting, I Think

Rhinoclemmys Areolata, known as Furrowed Wood Turtle, or Tortuga Rugosa de Bosque

I wondered for several years if the pair of tortoises that have the run of my property are girl and boy. It's hard with some species to tell the difference, especially when they are juveniles. However after several years of living with me these natives of Mexico are now sexually mature, and behaviors I started noticing last spring convinced me that they were getting ready to produce offspring.

In the past these Furrowed Wood Turtles did not seem particularly social and would often wander separately in the garden. Then suddenly a few months ago, like a couple of teenagers going steady they were always close together. The smaller one (presumably the male) trailed closely behind the larger.

One thing led to another, I guess. On a sunny day in May I saw two small eggs partially interred and covered with leaves in a damp, shady corner of the garden. I took a picture, started a blog post about the discovery, and checked the eggs daily for a couple of weeks. Then one morning the eggs were gone without a trace. I checked carefully around the garden and no signs of tiny tortoises or egg shells were evident. If they had hatched, debris would have been left behind, so sadly I assumed that the eggs had become a night-time meal for a possum, cat, iguana, rat or other opportunist, of which there are many around here.

Then two days ago, another pair of eggs appeared, once again loosely covered with earth and leaves. This time, I am not taking any chances. These I have carefully removed to a similar shady, damp place in the security of the interior patio of the house. Here, larger animals will not have access and I will immediately notice any changes when they happen.

Meanwhile, by chance yesterday afternoon I noticed that the romantic couple are still at it. It's possible that additional clutches are out there, as yet undiscovered. And it certainly looks as if the parents-to-be are working hard to produce more. I'll keep you posted.

Living Here: This Old House

My old house in the Mérida barrio of Santiago will soon be for sale. I'd never planned on selling this place, necessarily. It is by far the most comfortable house I've ever lived in. Some of my neighbors have become treasured friends, and this has become my home. I love living here, and never looked upon it as a financial investment. It was more like an investment in living comfortably and well; it was an investment in a future to be enjoyed. It has been all of that.

I thought perhaps I'd continue living here for the rest of my life. With that in mind, I noticed when I first looked at this place in the spring of 2003 that it had wide doorways, few steps, bedrooms on the ground floor, and many other features that would make it a comfortable place to grow old in.

However, interests, needs and neighborhoods change. And that is the story here.

I am ready for a smaller place in town with less to take care of, clean and maintain.  I'd like to stay in Santiago or at least the centro historico -- the inner city of Mérida -- but I am considering also a move to a nearby older suburban neighborhood where houses are on larger lots and where the streets have more trees and less traffic. In addition, I've got a lot more rooms here than I really use, and it's time to scale down and devote more of my energy to other interests.

So for the short term I have a big project: taking care of a long list of details, getting the garden under control, de-cluttering and doing repairs, painting, cleaning and polishing before putting my home of ten years officially on the market before the end of 2013.

Meanwhile, after several busy months of travel and decision-making, which kept me from doing much writing, I plan to get this blog rolling again, concentrating as always on the interesting and fascinating aspects of daily life here. There are plenty of interesting "We're redoing an old house in Mérida" blogs out there, and I'm not turning this blog into one of those. But it's possible for the next few months that some of that sort of thing will creep in here. I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

Finding Clarity Along the Way

People have emailed me lately. They are asking if I am OK and why I have not been writing much for this blog.

I am fine, and all is well here in Yucatán.

Travel, unexpected events, lots to do and my changing interests all have contributed to the infrequent appearance of new posts on An Alaskan in Yucatan.

My recollections of the first half of 2013 are a fog. I am not sure where the time went, but I was busy. Too busy. I don't like the kind of "busyness" after which I can't seem to recall what I accomplished, but that's how I spent some months, dealing with details, riding on trains, buses and airplanes, putting out small fires, and waiting around for others to get things done.

I have had plenty of ideas for blog posts. Just now I looked at my drafts, and see that I have started seven different posts since I last actually published one. I keep being interrupted and distracted and can't seem to finish them.

I thought about this as I spent hours in the pueblo of Mucuyche a week and a half ago, waiting for help with my broken-down car, which with eleven years and 100,000 kilometers of use has begun to experience typical problems of age. It was very hot when the car stalled, but fortunately it died in the shade of a small tree near a friendly tienda which sells cold drinks and snacks.

The day started out with the good idea of visiting some friends in Abalá and having lunch with them on Fathers Day. It's a long story, but in a nutshell, we burned a couple of hours waiting for one mechanic who never showed up. Finally we reached the very agreeable and friendly llantero, tire repairman, from Abalá who drove over in his broken-down car with a bucket of tools to see what he could do. Appropriately named Santos (Saints), he was knowledgeable enough to help me figure out that the problem was an electrical short that could not easily be repaired alongside the road. Santos went back to the pueblo and borrowed a long rope (the tether for someone's cow), and very kindly pulled my car at slow speeds all the way to the house of my friends in Abalá. Although we were not able to fix the car, at least it was in a place where it would be secure until I could get someone to look at it the next day.

And that brings us to the young parrot pictured above, which greeted us when we arrived tardy at the house in Abalá. Actually the bird is one of a pair rescued after a nest was knocked down, either by winds or a predator, some weeks ago.

I spent the nicest time I had in several weeks simply observing and feeding this delightful bird, and then eating a home-cooked Fathers Day meal with my good friends in Abalá. Near sundown Santos gave us a lift the four kilometers out to the highway, where we caught a bus back to Mérida in the evening.

It was this day of forced down time spent alongside the road and tranquil hours with friends that helped clarify the facts. Some of my "busyness" is necessary and unavoidable and I'll just have to deal with it. But a fair portion of my cluttered lifestyle is of my own making. I moved to Yucatán in search of a simpler and more fulfilling life, and I have made long strides in that direction. But old tendencies are hard to change and after eight years of becoming very comfortble here I find myself falling into some of the old patterns.

I've been restless and pondering these things for some time, but during this Fathers Day interlude I realized that I am ready to work on changes. I have had in mind this quote from an unknown author:

"Sometimes in the winds of change we find our true direction"

Change is in the wind, and it's hurricane season in Yucatán.

Details to come.


Other related posts:

Contentment: Inspired by the Birds
Contentment: You Get What You Need

Renewal and the Art of Roof Maintenance

As time psses I am less inclined to dive into large house maintenance projects, preferring to pay others to do them, or doing them mañana. Eventually in my quest for simplification, I suspect I will move out of this roomy antique and into a smaller and easier-to-maintain home. But I love living in this house, and for now I manage as best as I can.

However there is one recurring project that I enjoy a great deal. I love to do the roof.

Roof maintenance in this land of flat, concrete roofs is very different from what many of us who've owned houses in northern climes are accustomed to. Up north, a roof leak in a wood-frame house like my old one in Juneau can mean costly repairs that are best left to a professional. In Yucatán, if you start out with a roof that has never been left to deteriorate for too long, with a little bit of attention every couple of years you can keep expensive problems at bay for a long time.

The folks I bought the house from had deferred some maintenance, so for the first several years I owned the place I had a few leaks. Little by little I identified the sources of these problems and repaired them, and since that time I have had no leaks at all. The roofs are original to the house. That means that they are probably ninety years old. Because of their age, they need a bit more TLC than newer construction.

Annually during the January to May dry season, I inspect the entire roof surface, identifying new cracks or spots where the waterproof coating, called impermeabilizante, is lifting or cracking. Some years things look pretty good, and I just scrape loose coating and apply a fresh layer in those places. It's only a few hours of fairly easy work. Other times, like this year, much of the surface needs to be recoated, so I scrape the entire roof and attend to any new cracks that have appeared. 

Sometimes thin layers of old cement, used to level out or smooth over repairs, have become soft or have stopped adhering to the layers beneath. These need to be carefully scraped off, so as not to damage the remaining surface. Occasionally this is quite a bit more work than expected, as layer after historic layer, decades of accumulated coatings and repairs, begin to peel like layers of an onion. You've got to be careful in these circumstances that you don't take off too much and leave a low spot where water will puddle, causing further problems down the line.

Small cracks, if left unattended might allow seepage and cause deeper damage and leaks. To repair these, I drizzle in a thin mixture of roofing tar and then trowel the surface smooth once the tar has begun to set. For larger cracks or hollows in the surface, I mix the tar with a bit of sand. The benefit of using a stiffer tar-sand mixture is that it can be troweled and smoothed much like concrete, but sticks well even on dusty, dry surfaces.

While the patched areas are curing, the scraped sections get a good workover with a wire brush, followed by a thorough sweeping of the whole roof to remove as much dust as possible. Then comes the part I like most.

There is something about rolling on the luscious, creamy roof coating that I find very satisfying. I suppose that knowing my roof will be waterproof and the rooms beneath dry and secure during the daily rains and storms of the coming hurricane season is part of the reason for this.

But there is more to it than that. I love the repetitive work, dipping the roller into the bucket and rolling out the milkshake-thick liquid, over and over. It's a great pleasure to watch the sparkling, fresh surface quickly spread out before me. I enjoy doing things I am good at, and I've figured this one out. When I am done, the roof is perfectly clean and blindingly white. It's a good-sized roof.  It may sound funny, but the results are impressive.

After finishing, when the sun is down and the roof has cooled I sometimes climb upstairs to sit in the midst of this plain of pure, spotless white to watch the sky. I might bring a small lounge cushion and lie down up there to watch for falling stars, owls, bats, satellites, airplanes and distant storms. Even on a moonless night I can see perfectly well on the newly-coated roof.

Spring cleaning, for some, achieves not only household cleanliness and organization but can represent a new beginning and readiness for the coming year. In agricultural communities, tilling the soil in preparation for planting can mean about the same thing. I know devout Catholics here who feel refreshed and renewed after attending mass and confessing.

I don't mean to imply that working on the roof is anything like a person's faith, but for me, the annual ritual of attending to the roof  is something that achieves a similar kind of result. It's a renewal of a sort, a tabula rasa. The house is ready for another cycle, and so am I.

Business: Quinta in the City For Sale

As I have done occasionally in the past, I offer for sale an interesting piece of real estate in Mérida.

A quinta is a country home, often with sufficient space to keep a few animals or have a garden and fruit trees. In Yucatán, the term is typically applied to a place smaller than a ranch, but larger than the average city lot.



This quinta is a slice of the countryside in La Ermita, one of the most popular neighborhoods in Mérida's centro historico. The atmosphere of this large urban property is green and tranquil, despite being located in a mixed-use area on public transportation routes and within easy reach of downtown's cultural activities, shops and services.



For a person who is torn between country and city life, this might be the perfect solution.

Set back from the street there is a small, one-bedroom, one-bath house with kitchen/dining and living rooms. The sala retains its original pasta-tile floor in good shape and an interesting archway leading to the kitchen. The house is in habitable condition and everything works, but most buyers probably would install modern upgrades. Attached to the house at the rear is a covered workshop area with a second full bath.

The lot itself measures 11 x 83.5 meters, or about 36 feet street frontage with 274 feet in depth. A large entry gate on the street opens to allow parking for several cars inside.

And the great depth of the lot is what makes the possibilities so interesting. There is ample space for the construction of a private home in the rear away from the street, plus room for guest houses or to accommodate a small business, such as a plant nursery. Or the property could be enjoyed as it is, with lots of open space for pets, a garden and fruit trees.

Speaking of plants, here is a partial listing of mature trees on the land: lemon; sweet and sour orange; mandarin; avocado; anona; guayaba, guanabana; guaya; cayumito. There also is nance, ramón, ziricote and a large flowering plumeria.



One of my favorite things here is the antique Chicago Aermotor windmill, used to pump water from the hand-dug well. The motor needs to be rebuilt (and I am told the estimate for this work is about US$1000), but the tower is in excellent condition. The windmill was originally installed to fill a large square water tank, which is in good shape and suitable for use as a swimming pool. The 12-meter well also is set up for installation a submersible water pump (at the cost of just a few hundred dollars) in order to fill the pool and water the garden.

The house has a large underground water cistern to catch and store roof runoff for use in irrigation during the dry season. An old cement block hen house could be demolished or easily renovated for use as a dog kennel.

All paperwork is up to date on this property for a trouble-free transaction.

Lot: 11 x 83.5 meters, with fruit trees, well, windmill, and water tank suitable for pool.
House: Living room, kitchen/dining, bedroom, full bath, with cistern and attached workshop with second full bath.
Price: US $79,000.

If you have questions or would like to see the property, please contact me at:
marc_olson@hotmail.com

Click on photos below to enlarge.