Our apartment

From Angela: After looking at a number of rental houses, we decided to stay at our temporary apartment for the rest of our stay. It only has 2 bedrooms and sleeps 4, so when we have company it’s a bit crowded. But, it is within walking distance of Scott’s work and downtown restaurants and shops. And after seeing several other places, we realized how nice our place is.

The apartment is similar to one in the US with just some odd little quirks. All the doors have keys and locks on them, so when we arrived I kept opening locked doors to find the bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen. We have a very small refrigerator in our dining room (with a lock and key on it, of course) and a very small stove (called a cooker) in the kitchen. Every appliance is plugged into a socket that has a switch on it that you have to turn on when you want to use it. The hot water heater has a switch in the hallway. Unfortunately, we thought it was a light switch and turned it off. When Annie was sick and needed a bath, I just thought we didn’t have hot water and boiled ten pots of water two at a time to give her a lukewarm bath. It took almost two hours. Later on I saw the light switch and after wondering, figured it out. You are supposed to turn it on when you need hot water and then turn it off after you’re finished.

Our apartment building has a very modern looking stairwell with tile floors and steps (we live on the 3rd floor). But each of the stairs is a different height and angle, so each of us has tripped more than once just walking up the steps. The top step is so tall that Charlie felt flat on his face running up the steps to see me after a day out with Scott.

We live right in town so at night there are a lot of noises: roosters crowing all night, dogs barking, music playing, cars, trucks, the sound of the big, metal gate to the complex opening and closing all night, and the prayers over the loudspeaker at the nearby mosque that start at 5:00 am. That is also the time when the drivers (and security guards) start washing all the cars in the courtyard to get ready for the day.

We don’t have a dishwasher or washer/dryer, so dishes and laundry are done by hand. There are women out on the neighboring balconies all day doing laundry and hanging it to dry. I have been washing some of our clothes in the bathtub and giving some to a girl here at the apartment building to wash. I have also hired her to clean our apartment, but this involves negotiating a price each time. The last time she cleaned our apartment she charged me 3,000 shillings – about $2.75. I was shocked and gave her 4,000 shillings. Unfortunately my laundry rates have now gone up. I learned my lesson. She does not have a vacuum so she cleaned our rug by brushing it with a stiff brush for what seemed to be 30 minutes. During that time, probably because of the spiral notebooks the kids had been playing with, she looked at me and said “Oh, Jesus Christ.” It was the only English I heard from her all day. Needless to say, I now try to pick up the little scraps of paper before she comes. I’ve also noticed that she and the apartment manager always take off their shoes whenever they walk across the 8’ x 10’ rug and then put them back on when they get to the other side.

Most shops are within a 30-45 minutes walk. I prefer walking to negotiating price with taxi drivers and explaining where we live. There are very few streets signs, no traffic lights and most drivers don’t understand maps. First I tried to explain which road I lived on and that didn’t seem to work. The next time I tried to point it out on a map and that didn’t work. After that I had someone take me to a major landmark in the center of town and gave him directions from there. If I don’t know a landmark, I am in trouble. I used to dread going to the large grocery store because it’s far away. But now I have my new favorite cab driver, Riziki who gave me his phone number. It makes everything much easier!

We have a nice, flat screen TV. We get four channels: Tanzanian parliament, Tanzanian parliament, VTN, and, wait for it, Al Jazeera. VTN showed John Tesh live from Red Rocks. We were rocking.

For decorating, I purchased two Maasai cloths to cover the tables. Red and purple to go with the black Chinese furniture. Combined with the mosquito netting it is a good look. It is not exactly the pottery barn style of 901 N. Oak, but memorable in so many other ways. Wish you all were here to see it!

From Scott: We are trying to upload pictures but experiencing glitches. We'll keep trying.