Conveniences we take for granted in the US

Throughout our trip we have had two consistent thorns stuck in our side.  First, internet.  We have had 5 good/reliable days of internet our entire trip.  The good days were in Rio, from there it went down hill.  When we arrived in Garapua we had no internet at all and were continually told that it would be working the "next day".  Well that went on for over a week.  Finally Brad took matters in his own hands, went to a bigger town, found an internet guy and paid to bring him to our house.  For the next five weeks in Garapua we had great internet... when it worked; off and on for 3-4 hours each day.  When we arrived in Ilheus, we thought we would get great internet; we were wrong.  Our house is in Olivenca, which only has internet through a 3G phone line.  It doesn't work at all since the influx in users is go great right now, there is not enough band width to support all the tourists.  Luckily we met a family at church that has good internet in Ilheus.  They set up an account for us and let us connect to their router.  It is a 15 minute drive to their house, but we are so grateful to have the option.  We park below their house on the street, sit in the car and get our work/ social networking done.

Thorn #2, laundry.  We have done our laundry by hand for the past 8 weeks, with two to go.  It is a very laborious job and dependent on the weather.  If it looks like the possibility of rain you can't do laundry.  Our last few days in Garapua,  and the first week in Ilheus it rained nonstop.  We were not able to do laundry in over 8 days, so we lived in our swim suits.  One good thing has come from it; the kids magically don't have as much dirty laundry to since they have to do their own and by hand.  When we arrived in Ilheus we discovered two great laundry sinks with built in scrub board, a real upgrade, but no laundry line to dry our clothes.  We had to go to the store and buy rope and clothes pin to make create a laundry line.  We are actually getting more efficient in the process of soaking, stain treating, scrubbing, rinsing, squeezing as much water out as possible and hanging it on the line.  Still, a huge pain.

Our highly upgraded double laundry sinks; they have built in scrub boards.

That's us parked in the silver Fiat connected to the internet.  The router is on the back side of the white building.

Laundry hanging on the line trying to dry in the rain.