Home Sweet Home- For real this time!!

(written 6/16)

I have a house! And I'm living in it! Right now! And it has furniture! After sitting around the District Health Office bumming around and playing on the internet and generally making it known that I wouldn't do anything of importance until I had housing, the nurse in charge of my housing came in at about 2pm yesterday and declared that that she had procured a truck and that I would be moving into my house immediately. Of course this is Peace Corps Botswana, so nothing about the move was as simple as it should have been, but the important thing is that it happened. Geri and went outside to find the truck and met up with our very impressive moving crew- 2 nurses, a not very strong looking driver, Geri, and me. We went first to pick up the furniture from the previous volunteer's house, which took forever. With just our little group, we moved 2 couches, a big cushy chair, 2 coffee tables, an oven, a refrigerator, a wardrobe, a vanity set with mirror, a full size bed with a boxspring (!!!) and an enormous headboard with attached drawers, 3 full propane tanks almost as tall as I am, and all of my kitchen cabinets, along with all of my stuff. While all this furniture means that I'll have a pretty sweet house set up once it's all clean, it was not fun to move. After a little convincing and translation, I got the driver to bring me to Mike and Geri's to pick up my suitcase and food, and from there, we went straight to my house. I was excited to finally be at my house, and thrilled to find that the living room and bedrooms weren't quite as orange as I'd remembered them to be (they're actually more pink), but my excitement didn't last long. Our little moving team managed to get all the furniture into the house (mainly piling everything into the living room for me to figure out later), and then promptly left me alone in a house I hadn't spent more than 2 minutes in. As I looked around, the high of finally having a house quickly sank into the low of realizing what I'd gotten myself into. Glancing at the sawdust and exposed wires and tools left everywhere and the ladder in the kitchen, I quickly realized that I had moved into an active construction site. The water was not connected, the gas was not connected to the stove, the lights in the kitchen, the bathroom, and one of the bedrooms didn't work, everything was covered in a thick layer of dirt and spiders, and to top it all off, my furniture (still all piled in the living room) still smelled like the previous volunteer's cat. As I've had to do more than once since arriving in Botswana, I allowed myself a moment to freak out and then collected myself, remembering that I am a Peace Corps volunteer living in Africa. I resisted my instinct to pick up the phone and tell Mike and Geri that it was a mistake, and that my house was not ready to move into, and that I needed to spend another night at their house, and set about trying to figure out how to get through the night on my own. With the help of a guy who apparently lives on my compound, we got the gas hooked up to the stove and brought the construction equipment out to the porch. I moved the bed and the loveseat and tables and shelves to their rightful places (Ever tried to move a couch through a doorway by yourself? I don't recommend it.), and swept the floor for about an hour. At this point, I realized that I still had no water, and would need to do something about it before it got really dark. I sought out the landlord's son who had just gotten home from school, and asked him to bring me to a store where I could buy some bottled water and maybe a snack. Remember how I went on a 'short walk' with my host brother and sister during my first week in Molepolole, and it turned into a long hike uphill in flip-flops and we didn't get back until after dark? Well, this experience was eerily similar. We started walking along the tarred road with about a half hour until sunset, with me thinking that we were headed to some nearby tuck shop or general store. Once the paved road ran out, however, I began to question our destination, and was informed that there was no store in our ward, and that we were going far. I probably should have turned around at this point, but the son reassured me that we would be home before it got really dark, and I really needed the water. I also was enjoying the walk. Before I moved into my house, I was not thrilled about living in Mahalapye. It's a large village, and not really scenic at all, and not at all what I'd envisioned my Peace Corps assignment would be. But last night on our walk, I discovered that I am living on the outskirts of Mahalapye, where there are no malls and no streetlights, but wide open spaces and a river instead! Of course, it's the dry season, so the river wasn't very impressive, but it was enough to make me happy. We also passed some of the most blatant examples of Botswana's income gap, with mansions built next to tent settlements. Sometimes it's easy to forget the poverty that still exists in Botswana, but I don't think I'll be forgetting it here. Eventually we came to a large building, which the boy informed me was our destination. To my surprise, he'd brought me to a hotel! I guess I really am pretty far away from the shopping district, which I'm not too upset about. Thankfully, the hotel had bottled water to sell, and we headed home having accomplished our mission. By this time, the sun had set, but there was still enough light for me to feel okay about the walk home. The only unnerving part was rounding a corner and coming face to face with a bull- those horns can be intimidating when they are pointed straight at you! Luckily the bull was just curious and grazing with his herd, and we passed without incident.
When I got home, I decided that my highest priority was to get the refrigerator working. I started to play around with the outlet, thinking that was the probably, when to my surprise and utter dismay, all the lights in the house suddenly went out. By this time it was really dark out, and my house was pitch black- thank goodness for the flashlight on my cell phone! I was surprised at how calm I was, facing the potential of a night without electricity or running water in a brand new place, but I guess by this time, I had already had my moment of panic hours ago and was prepared for anything. I lit a candle, and headed to the landlord's house. Once again, the son came to my rescue and discovered that there was a problem with my electric box, which he reset without complication, and my lights came back on immediately- along with the refrigerator! With that problem solved, I got back to heavy duty cleaning and unpacking. Opening my bags was a bit like Christmas morning. I found photos and books and even a framed picture of the Montauk lighthouse! With food in my cabinets, furniture in place, and my Irish blessing plaque over the sink, I felt more at home than I have since arriving in Botswana. There's still a lot to do, of course, which is why I am home and not at the clinic today. I'm actually writing this entry as a break from cleaning. I've done laundry (because there's running water today!!!), cleaned the bathroom thoroughly, discovered that the kitchen sink leaks, dusted the bedroom furniture, and am about to head out to the stores to get everything else I need to make this house my home for the next two years. It's actually a really nice house, bigger and nicer (and pinker) than the one I had in New Paltz, although with workmanship that would be unacceptable in the United States (doors that don't quite fit, cracked tiles even though the tiling was just done this month, loose window locks, curved walls, etc). I think that in a week, it'll look amazing and be ready for visitors. Until then, I'll be playing house and cleaning like crazy!

Addendum:
A new desperation-induced Peace Corps recipe for you. I have a feeling this may become a recurrent piece in this blog.
What do you do when you come home from the grocery store all excited about cooking the food you bought and having a real meal with meat and vegetables, only to find that you have no water (AGAIN), and after sighing and starting to make grilled cheese, you realize that the gas for the stove is also no longer working?
1. Get angry.
2.Look over and over again through your cabinets desperately for something that doesn't need to be washed or cooked, hoping that the selection will change, because you've now had either cheese and crackers or bran flakes for 4 meals in a row.
3.Accept your situation. Welcome to the Peace Corps.
4.Get creative. Start with a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Add crushed bran flakes and raisins. Finally, sprinkle some salt on top, and close the sandwich. Yes, salt. Don't make that face, let me explain. The peanut butter here is very sweet, while the peanut butter in the US has some salt in it. We all like salted peanuts, don't we? So it's not that strange. The result is surprisingly tasty, and it satisfies cravings for sweet, crunchy, and salty foods, and it's (kinda) filling.
Not exactly a genius, gourmet solution, but it worked for me. Here's hoping there's water tomorrow so I'll be able to have some salad and grilled chicken for the first time since arriving in Botswana!