A Place to call Home

I've been meaning for ages to write about our new house!  We've been living here more than a month now and it's soooo nice.  Not that the other place was horrible, but living here really feels like home.  I get to hang out with some pretty cool housemates too which is always a bonus.  My room is about half the size, and the construction (adding on a living room) was pretty rushed and messy, but I don't care at all.  It feels like a home and that's all that matters!  There are two houses on the property, the big main house with 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms (!!!) and our back house, which formally would have been for servants.  It is so quiet and peaceful, except for Mogli the cat who sings the song of his people on the windowsill every day!

Another happy event has been the weather.  It seemed to go from ridiculously hot to cool and rainy overnight.  I am cherishing every moment snuggled in my blanket because it won't last forever!  "Cool" here is 20 degrees....sooooo blissful!  Many of the roads are just dirt, which become mud really quickly when it rains, but this is the only downside I can think of.  I've even been able to wear jeans and covered shoes!!!!  It is rather hilarious when my students complain about being freezing and ask why we can't have heaters..haha.

Here are some more pics of our pretty new place.

The super impressive gate into our compound...complete with doorbell!

The big house looking from our back house

Mogli the guard cat comes to investigate my photo taking....

Yes Mogli I love you :)

Super amazing and fun to be with housemates Rebecca and Taylor

My homely sanctuary :)

Over the holidays a window will be knocked in this wall.
It will be great for when it gets hot again!

The living room

Our bathroom area. The toilet and shower are separate rooms
which is great for a shared house!

The hallway: Rebecca's room, Taylor's room and
 my room at the end

Flatmates photobombing my kitchen photo!

Visitors to our house!  Vicky, Francis, Grace and Laura come for lunch

Moving into a house before it was completely finished has taught me something funny about life in Tanzania: Before getting something "fixed" one must assess the likelihood that the fixed version will be actually better than the non-fixed version.  Presenting:

Door fails!

Problem #1 A huge gap under our front door.  Success!  Gap was fixed with wood and a piece of rubber.

Problem #2 My door handle was wobbly.  Failure!  New door handle doesn't have one of those sticky out bits that make it stay closed.

Problem #3 Security door is installed backwards so lock bolts are on the inside.  Failure!  Fundi (workman) changes the door so the hinge is on the other side and then removes and welds the lock bars to the inside so once again, they can't be used to lock the door from the outside.

Problem # 4  In order to have the door open at any time we need a flyscreen.  Failure!  Fundi attaches a screen to the existing security door, which has a big gap at the bottom.

Problem # 5 We still have no way to lock the security door when leaving the house.  Failure!  Fundi comes up with the idea of putting metal loops on the door and door frame so we can padlock from the outside, but alas, there's a wall in the way so no way to get the padlock through said loops.  Oh well, all part of the fun!

In other news, I've taken out my hair braids now.  Three weeks without washing my hair seemed sufficient!  I also wanted to see if it had pulled out my hair as I've been told can happen.  It only took an hour to take them out and there was no lasting damage, other than really frizzy hair!  I love the frizz almost as much as the braids...haha.  I'm already planning my next braid style. Fun times!

Rocking it...I couldn't resist wearing my hair like this to church!

One bin full of rasta.....