New House

I arrived back home last week. We had been planning to move for a while but the timing of my traveling didn't work out well and, since I had to stay longer than I'd expected, the date that we had to be out of our old apartment came and went without me. My wonderful friends packed all of my stuff and moved it for me so that when I arrived back home I didn't even know where I was living. Good thing they picked me up at the airport or I would have been totally lost!!

So now I'm living with some friends while trying to play catch up from the last 3 months away and trying to unpack my new apartment into some semblance of normalcy...it's pretty crazy! The workers supposedly had finished my apartment and only had the few little 'touch ups' to finish. They worked really hard and they made a serious effort to make it nice and to add in the little things that they thought I would really appreciate.

For instance, they put in a round sink. Around here I've only seen square sinks. I'm not real sure where they got this round one and I appreciate the effort, I really do. But when I was washing dishes and the kitchen was flooding I just wanted to say 'can I trade this round sink for any shape of sink that has a pipe underneath it?' That's right. They were so focused on the sink that they forgot to hook up any plumbing underneath!!!

Then there's my room. They let me request what colors I wanted to paint the walls and, without seeing the room or the colors since I was living in the bush at the time, I chose some and figured that if they even got close it could work. Now my room has 2 walls of dull paint and 2 walls of shiny paint and I guess some people would say that they almost kind of got the colors close. Althought at this point I just want a place to live so I could care less, but it's kind of funny!

There are plenty more of these little things that just make life funny. Air coolers that require water without any water hooked up, doors without handles that are impossible to close without them...really the list goes on. I guess that's what happens when you move houses in Africa, no matter if the house is new or not!!!