Moving In

We finalized the deal on our new apartment (kind of like a townhouse or a rowhouse if you know what that is, tall and narrow) on November 15th and spent the following week getting the power and water turned on and functioning.  In the Congo the power and water are turned on after you pay to move in. You may thinking: "How do you check to see if the sinks, toilets, outlets, lights and AC work?". The answer is: You Don't. The reason for the reverse order has never been explained but our guess is that they want to rent the place, but have no money to fix anything, so they leave everything off.

The day we moved in two of the four toilets in the house worked. Of the 5 sinks in the house, only 2 worked (not including the kitchen sink). There was no hot water in the whole house and 3 of the 5 AC units were only blowing hot air.  If you are saying to yourself “How could you expect such luxuries in the Congo?” and “How many sinks and toilets do two people need?”, ask us in private how much we are paying per month. If you are saying to yourself, “Well obviously they didn’t check that everything worked before they signed the lease, so they deserve what they got”, you’re mean.  No, let’s just say that business transactions in the D.R.C. do not function in the same way as they do in the U.S., and we feel we actually did well despite all of the details we are sharing here. 

Here are some photos that did not come for free.  After taking these pictures the property manager showed up frowning and talking sternly. "Why are you taking pictures!?" "Don't take pictures!" "Blah, Blah, Blah . . ."

Our driver Aimee (pronounced Aymay) and furniture in front of our apartment.

Looking West toward the gates of our compound.

Looking East from our apartment.

Luckily, our landlord Jim (real Jim) is receiving our input well and is taking action.  He brought in the cleaning crew, the plumber and the electrician to have everything fixed.  In another week or so (a month more likely) . . . all of the bugs (not meant literally, but also a small problem(Toni Lyn wants to add that the Temple of Doom is not a small problem)) should be worked out. 

Matt has been in charge of inspecting the electrical, plumbing and air conditioning systems and explaining to Jim (as best he can through the language barrier and through Toni Lyn for the hard stuff) what the major problems are, how they should be fixed and who should be fixing them. He has also been buying and moving furniture from various sources and learning to find things like door sweeps, for example, to keep the bugs out(GIANT TEMPLE OF DOOM HOARDES OF COCKROACHES AND KILLER CRICKETS - as TL describes). How do you explain what a door sweep is in a language you don't know to people who may have never seen or heard of such a thing? And if they have seen or heard of a door sweep they may call it something completely different.  The short story is that he went to 8 different “hardware stores” before he finding them then had to bargain down the price from $50 per sweep to $10 per sweep (still a bit high but a more realistic price). The price of everything skyrocket when a foreigner enters the room and every transaction involves a bargaining process.  Anyway, some number of hours well spent. If only they actually fit the doors. Now to find “tin snips” . . .     

Toni Lyn is hard at work trying to respond to some pretty outrageous scheduling conflicts.  FYI to all managers, project coordinators, organizers, etc., 20 hours is insufficient notice to give to a person when asking them to prepare for and attend a 3 day workshop during which you are required to give a power point presentation, which nobody mentioned you needed to create from scratch the morning of day one.  She is trying not to tear out her hair with all of the work, making new friends, (re)learning French, etc., etc., etc.  She has also been the main translator between Matt and the Landlord.  Not an easy job. The construction industry has a lot of jargon that can be easily lost in translation. The process has involved a lot of pointing and gesturing and at times feels like a game of charades that nobody knows the answers to.

Kitchen

Living room and staircase up to 3rd floor

First meal in our dining room in our new apartment. Pasta Dinner!

In summary, we really like our new place.  Things are coming together we are starting to feel sane again.