There Goes That Idea...

Don't you love it when something goes wrong and you have to say, "Just kidding!  I didn't really want to do it anyway..."??  This happened to me this past week when I found out  -after the fact that I announced I'd be allowing comments on my blog- that I actually cannot technologically accept them from anyone logged on from another continent.... Soooooo... there goes that idea.  So sorry; still no comments allowed.

"Just kidding! I didn't really want to do it anyway..."

Hup, Hup Hoo-ray! Comments!

As they say in Zim, "Hup, hup, hoo-ray!" 

I've finally decided to allow comments on my blog... in fact, "allow" is a terrible word.  How about encourage?

Well It's Africa has certainly seen its evolution.  It's gone from a teeny lil' blog for far away friends and family in the states to a well-known blog supported by a growing, bustling readership from every continent (though, yes, Kyle, you may be the only one from Antarctica!) During this whole time I have had oodles ask me why they can't comment.  The blog got so big over the years that by the time I felt comfortable with knowing what was and was not okay to say online while in my country, my nervousness instead turned to how to manage commentary with a busy schedule...

Thank you, readers for your enthusiastic peer pressure.  I have finally decided to open the doors and see what happens. I hope you'll take a moment in your reading to give feedback, encouragement, or to just teach us all a thing or two... so dive into those posts from the past, present, and future. I am excited to hear from you amazing readers, learners, and teachers all over the world.  Please do comment now; I encourage it!

To celebrate, I'm posting a few funny, quintessential Africa photos this week, many of which come from 100 Things You Can't Do In Harare.  Enjoy!

   

Running on Rumors

It was with a sense of horror that my sister emailed me recently, "What the heck?!!! Is this for real???"

Below her questions she had pasted a link leading to a Zimbabwe Today headline about Disneyland Vic Falls. I, too, was horrified and clicked to read an article about the future of Victoria Falls that included a great deal of commercial venue/mall space/Disneyland-like theme areas.  But here's the thing: In Zim you cannot, cannot, believe everything you read.  Without the same responsibilities of free speech and truth-telling journalism as many other countries enjoy (and I do realize the irony of this, as my lil' ol USA is actually pretty horrible about this, too) Zimbabwean papers are notorious for creating tabloid splashes out of their headlines, dramatizing coverage, and printing the most bizarre stories first.  Imagine that what you see in the tabloids of your First World check-out counter is the only news you have available.

 A friend of mine recently posted a Zim-written article on Facebook.  Like nails on a chalkboard, I read the headline and saw the source.  It didn't matter if the underlying argument was true or not; it was a gross moment to read it and observe the lack of sources, recognize the lack of research, and count the large number of errors in just one little piece of writing.  It was as though I had just gone to correct a high school student's attempt at a news article.  I wanted so deeply to explain to her that when she treated this piece like a legitimate news source, it just encourages and supports a gross way of "informing people."

Still, where do people get their news?  What do you do in a society in which it is easy to question every single piece of information dangling on the wind??

News is a complicated thing in a place run by word of mouth.  In a country in which official press releases are few and assumption and rumor run the gamut, fear and chaos often tell the story.  What is not in the papers is often whispered behind walls and doors, and often evolves into different conversations according to the race of people doing the whispering.  The rumor mill of Zim is a full-time business.  It feeds fear and makes it an undercurrent in every business and home.

The rumor mill used to drive me crazy; my first weeks in Zim were spent in horror as the small circles I came to know revealed their gossip craze.  It was hard to handle and harder to discern fact from fiction until I realized that this is what happens in a society that is never fed the truth.  Like ever. And suspects that everyone, from the government, to the other race of locals, is out to get them. And please note, this is different than in many other countries in which we have research, studies, factual evidence, demographics charts, tables, and statistics.  This is a place in which a stat is considered true if someone bothered to make it up.  Many other countries are challenged in their inaccurate reporting and press issues, but in this situation I am referring to a place that has little statistically to back up any conjecture.

And yet we come back to the question: HOW do people living in a place like Zim get legitimate news? Without analytical research to back up a number of claims made on the situation of the country, its politics, and economy, narrative takes the place of number.  People's individual experiences become much more important to current conversation.  As American anchor Brian Williams could recently tell you, the challenge as individual narrative becomes relevant is how to control stories from turning into snowballing rumor or over-exaggeration for the sake of convincing others.  That I don't have an answer to!  

One of the reasons my blog is fluffy at times is that I refuse to write about something I don't know enough about. I have sooo much to say about politics and culture and the fascinating details of how anthropologically these things play out in a racially segregated system.  But I can't imagine crossing the line into conjecturing what I don't know.

The horrifying thing to me always is that thousands of people, educated enough to read but not quite savy enough to discern or fully identify inflammatory sensationalism (sometimes I fall into this category, too!), read newspapers without a background knowledge of understanding that sometimes the press does not present things in the most transparent way. It's a beast of a subject, whether in a democratic First World nation or in a tiny political entity run by dictatorship.  In all senses, truth is a tricky thing whether we put it in the hands of giant syndicates or our neighbor's neighbor's ear. But tying it to a fear so deeply rooted that it sleeps under everyone's bed/mat? Well, welcome to Zimbabwe!

PS: I get asked about articles often; for the sake of this blog post I just picked the most innocent news topic possible as an example.  If you're curious, here was the article my sister asked about, followed by a piece of my response to her: http://zimbabwe-today.com/2015/01/business/american-investor-to-invest-460m-for-disneyland-vic-falls/

"I do think it's a matter of time before they ruin Vic Falls.  That said, I hugely doubt it would be an actual Disney thing.  I wonder of that guy was just throwing the term around as an example or if he was serious, because the rest of the article never said anything about talks with Disney or anything related to it.  But YES, they are going to build up the falls. 

I think the complication to come -and soon- and what makes me so so so thankful to not be in Zim right now that all signs are pointing to the return of the Zim dollar.  The government is starting to reprint coins and from there, it will only be a matter of months before Zim dollars will be the forced currency... and then everything is down the drain again. People are very skeptical of its success, and it could put the economy to a halt again.  So we'll have to see.  I have no doubt Vic Falls WILL eventually be heavily altered by investors, but most of these giant projects have huge patterns of stalling and delays (there were two projects sort of like this in Harare that are still ongoing). 

The other factor is that Zim has laws about ownership having to be at least 51 percent black Zimbabwean, so it complicates things greatly.  Large companies like KFC have tried to come in in the past and have failed because there is too much "white ownership" to be legally operating in Zim.  So I am doubtful Disney would ever be there under those race based rules.  But other investors?  Yes, if they fit the qualifications... unfortunately these race policies never seem to be in place when China wants to buy things, it seems on the surface anyway pretty much just white Zimbabwean/European/American owners that get pushed away with these policies.  But I could be wrong, as I don't know all the facts- just the whisperings of the locals on this one.  My guess would be that a Chinese company will be heavily involved rather than an American one in Vic Falls investments... But in South Africa?  I could definitely see a Disney happening there eventually....

 This website (I'm familiar with it) never has a lot of facts going with its stories.  It's a rumor based paper, as so many are in Zim.  And there are truths to be found, but a lot of it is not total accuracy...  Just pat yourself on the back you have already seen the Falls when it was a little less spoiled!!"

I Take It Back, Trial Separation Over

Difficult?  Difficult is trying to give up this blog, as it’s kind of like the final nail in the coffin of admittance that I no longer live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.  It’s difficult when my readership continues to rise, despite my month-long break from writing.  It’s difficult when I realize that a world suffering from environmental issues, terrorist violence, and scares like Ebola needs more than ever to educate itself about other cultures and far-off places.  And it’s also difficult when I continue to read news about my former country of Zim and want to share my thoughts about the systems of corruption and renewal we saw over and over and over during our time there.

So I’m taking back what I said in my previous post. Perhaps it was my own personal second-guessing, saying to myself, "Who am I to have a blog about Africa anymore??" And perhaps it was the self inflicted deadlines and not the blog itself that left me feeling like I should give things up rather than to pull a slight bit back.  I wasn’t producing the amount I personally had in the past and so I threw the baby out with the bathwater. Much. Too. Hastily.

 So I’m making a new promise. I’ve stayed away from this blog for a month with great difficulty, and I’m done with the trial separation. I’m not giving up this blog; but I will admit it just won’t be as actively kept-up as when I lived on the continent.  This time around I won’t give myself deadlines, or make promises about how often I will post.  But when I find things relevant to African things I find fascinating or know a lot about, or when I feel like sharing a piece of my history, or when I recognize yet another way my Zim experience has flavored my own personal evolution, I promise to spend time sharing it with my readers. 

I’ve been doing a lot of job hunting lately, as well as showing friends around our (temporarily) European lives. It’s helped me to put into perspective things that I know and skills that I have.  Thus far in our new but very temporary Spanish lives, I have to admit it. I want to hang my head in shame when I think about how we’ve accessed a new culture here in Europe verses during our time in Africa. My limitations in my new life have revolved around my digestive needs (still battling that lil’ African stomach illness 20 months later), monetary restrictions, and linguistic frustrations.  And at the same time that these failings of mine have been highlighted, I have been able to recognize that I can be proud of what I learned in Africa. 

I can say that I learned a great, great deal about Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Malawi, Tanzania, and Mozambique over the last few years. More than most of my counter-parts in the same situation, I dove head-first into the cultures around me, tried new foods, enjoyed incredible adventures, and shared a part in thousands of stories currently creating new paths on what used to ridiculously be considered a hopeless continent.  I know my southern Africa.  And the piece of my heart that does not care about political safety or the comforts of a thermostat or proper healthcare or my child’s formal education will always live right there on its plains. So "who am I to have a blog about Africa??" I'm a girl who knows a thing or two, and, most importantly, is ready to keep learning.  That's who.  You won´t find me giving up as easily next time.

After looking at the wonderful world of cubicles and commutes, I’ve decided my dream job would be for someone to call me up and ask me to personally give them a tour of southern Africa.  I would do it well, and comfortably, and safely, and with a true knowledge of life outside of the colonial bubble that is most of tourist-made Africa.  Any takers? 

If you’ve ever wanted to go to Africa but don’t know how to make it happen, let me know.  If you’ve ever wanted to be connected with a legitimate African non-profit but don’t know how, let me know. If you want me to tell you what my first hand opinions are on some of the biggest needs of southern Africa, let me know. And in the meantime, while I desperately consider how we can eventually return someday-somewhere, I will keep Africa alive in my heart and at the top of my blog roll.  Stay tuned - whenever I decide to post again.

I Wish I Had Time to Tell You

A very smart person I know once told me that one of people’s biggest problems was that they didn’t do math properly; it’s impossible to keep adding things to one’s life without taking something else away.  As I look at my slivers of free time, torn between wanting to spend every second with my child and husband, just getting in a little more sleep, investing in future projects, and the two hundred other things on my list, it has become apparent.  Maybe it should have been apparent when I had a housekeeper and a gardener and still wasn’t always finding time to brush my teeth before noon.  Maybe it should have been apparent when I had no job and still couldn’t find the time in my calendar to go to the doctor when I needed it.  Maybe it should have been apparent when I had a kid in school for half days and still couldn’t manage to do that exercise regimen I always told myself I’d adopt if only I had a few hours to myself each day.

I never have enough time. And it’s because I have been terrible at doing my math.

Almost every white local I knew in Zim made their opinions of my family clear often; I really should be having more “white babies” if I could at all help it.  What a terrible shame that my son had no siblings.  In a land of large families, something was terribly wrong with my family according to Zim standards.  My response was always a long and complicated one, but needless to say, it always involved wanting to be able to provide my best for my existing child, who I didn’t know how to care for with the same level of competent care if I carried on with more children. 

“Oh, that’s simple,” I was responded to during the last time I discussed the matter in Zim. “You don’t take anything away from the first. Your love, your patience, etc, stay the same. It’s just time that you lose.  You just have to share your time more.  Easy.”  As if time was not already one of the most valuable, rare things in my life. 

It was, however, an easy thing for a Zimbabwean to say. This Zimbabwean’s math was influenced by the fact that she sent her children away to boarding school at five. Oh, and also she had never had any of her five children without also having three housekeepers on hand to help with nannying.  Sharing my time more, it is clear now that from my Spanish surroundings I have work, a child at home full time, and no staff, is tougher than ever before.  It’s no longer possible to share any more of my time without losing the quality of my ability to be a mother.  Or a human being. 

Time is a more precious commodity than I can express.  But lately I haven’t been acting like it.  And though I’ve said and thought over and over about how much I value it, the truth is that recently I’ve been adding a lot and taking away nothing… except quality.  And presence.  And energy.  It’s time to start doing my math again.

I should clarify that I am desperate to keep this blog.  It’s one of my last connections to Zim.  And I still have oodles to say.  And thousands of pictures to show.  I still serves its purpose in sharing the continent with those who have not experienced it themselves.  And it allows a number of Africans to commiserate on what they love or miss or want to change about their homeland.  It’s been wildly more successful than I ever imagined and now I feel a certain amount of obligation to keep it going.

But I need to start doing my math.

Here is what I wish I still had time to write about: the malaria thing, the recent farm take-overs in the Save Conservancy, Clean Water vs Harare’s City water, the never ending bloom of Zimbabwean cassia trees, the spread of the magical acacia tree canopy, and the craziness that is the giant millipede called the chongololo. 

I wish I had time to discuss with you the complexities of a Zimbabwean white minority that is more economically powerful than the black majority but has no political power, a fascinating anthropological study in the making. 

I wish I had time to discuss our experiences with the 2014 elections, the burning orange flowers of the flame tree, all the different uses of thatching, the craziness of police stops where window-smashing often occurs, the rules of the road around the pres. mansion, the fragility of the Zimbabwean electrical grid, the how-tos of surviving being passed by the pres. motorcade, the rows of toilets that line the countryside next to rural schools, the oodles of hospitable places we’ve stayed, how gardeners and laymen often grow and paint one long fingernail to be used as a tool, and the giant rat (it’s a real thing, which we actually had in our yard- look it up!). 

I wish I had time to tell you about “The Big Five” and “The Little Five,” the miniature size of parking spaces and how there are only a handful of car brands that make it into the country, what the Harare Airport is like and how it used to be before Zimbabwe made itself into a political pariah, what The Great Dyke is, and how children’s names and ages are often changed in orphanages to make paper-work easier.

I want you to know about Chiboku (the homemade street beer that often includes fermenting the likes of pieced apart animals, weeds, and car batteries, and is said to age a person five times faster than regular beer). 

I want to tell you about the Rhodesian Ridgeback, the out of control rumor mill that runs the country when the papers do not report truths, the loveliness that is The Farmhouse in Chimanimani, the endangered wild dogs of Zim, the awkward transition of renaming things back to Shona after having colonial names for a hundred years, the Shona totem (an inherited personal symbolic animal indicating familial lineage), the endangered rhino, a crazy assortment of encountered bugs, the taste of an African cucumber, and the future of a people who cannot seem to let go of the past. 

If you want to know more about Zimbabwe beyond this blog, these are great but tiny places to start.

Stay tuned for one more, last post on some of the things I have learned from Mother Africa.  And in the meantime, know that I am grateful to those of you who followed our journey through these last few years as we awkwardly but enthusiastically embraced this amazing continent we will always consider a piece of home.  It's been humbling to have readers follow our thoughts and adventures, and it is truly with sadness that we finish before the story feels entirely told.  The late and great Maya Angelou once said, "There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." Have us over for a cup of Rooibos sometime; we'll tell you anything more you want to know.

sunset photos by friend Lucy Fisher

For questions, comments, that cup of tea, or better yet a personal tour around southern Africa, contact us at: cherijohnsondesign@gmail.com

“The Africa Blog”

Today we fly out of a spectacular place we have been privileged to call home for the past few years.  As we fly off with our eyes brimming and our hearts a little emptier, it is hard not to romanticize a place we put a lot of energy into knowing through the eyes of our privilege, our special trips, our involvement in the international school system, our work in orphanages, and the local populations we came to know.  

As our move has progressed, oodles of people have been asking me, “Please will you keep writing your Africa blog?”  When I started writing Well It’s Africa, separate from my family’s personal blog, this blog’s purpose was to communicate with family and friends far away.  We wanted to introduce those in our lives to the new things we experienced, the places we have seen, -and for some- to show them just why they need not fear for us in a place so different from where we started our journey as white babies born in the heart of the American Midwest.  My readership has somehow grown from my sweet little group of family and friends to over fifty thousand to date, a number that often hurts my brain. As this blog has evolved, it has come back to me from friends of friends of friends to complete strangers, often saying things like

“This makes me sick for the Zimbabwean home we left!”

"This blog helped me prepare for my move to Southern Africa."

“I love seeing Africa from a foreigner’s eyes!” 

“Your blog reminds me of my African childhood!”

“You’re encapsulating the little things we don’t even realize are different from the rest of the world.” 

So let’s answer this question, "Please will you keep writing your Africa blog?" For better or worse, (hopefully better?!)  I will indeed to be continuing this blog until I have no more to share about Africa, however long that is.  

As we move on from this continent that still feels new in some ways, the process of detangling oneself from what we have come to know as “normal life” will take some time.  As we process the things we've learned and continue to share the stories we still have to tell – this time within the freedom of our American society instead of with the fear of our Zimbabwean big brother looking over our shoulder- I hope you’ll continue joining me.  Zimbabwe has a number of changes ahead of itself, and I can't wait to watch where it goes.  My life in Africa may be over for now, but there isn't a soul that could separate me from the experience.  Today I carry it heavily on my shoulders, in full arms, at the pit of my stomach, and deeply within my heart as we leave a magical place we've been blessed to call home, my beautiful Zimbabwe…

Cause to Pause: The Reality of Africa

Here we are.  One year in Africa today.  It's cause to pause and reflect on what we've learned in our now-not-so-new continent.  And one thing has been on my mind lately.

--But before I start spilling my latest thoughts, I must add a disclaimer... because every time I write anything (I hope to be) introspective on this blog, I have a few friends who immediately contact me and say, "Are you okay?  You sound sad.  Are you thinking of returning early?"  The answer is always a firm no.  Wrestling with challenges and big ideas is not at all the same as unhappiness.  We're loving this continent, all we're learning, and our continued new experiences!  Okay, let's move on to the one thing--

The shock of moving to Africa is not in experiencing how people different than myself live, the strangeness of new flora and fauna, or the awe of a new landscape.  The shock of Africa is continually the shift in reality.  As I explore the complex landscapes of African life I am confronted over and over by the relevance of things I have previously learned or paid attention to.  And the lack of relevance.

I have crossed paths with hundreds of people that will never know what it is like to travel thirty miles beyond home.  That will never understand how time-consuming Facebook can be.  That will never know what “Googling” something means, what a Kleenex is, or what chocolate tastes like. I have seen street vendors tie bricks to their baby's legs lest they crawl into the street. I have seen bricks used as produce to play store, and a public metal bench used as a chew to soothe a teething child.  I have seen a child turn a paint chip into a toy named Henry.

Until the minute we left our city home for the wilds of Chirundu, Zim, a few weeks ago, I was paying attention to things like an anticipated royal baby, a book on happiness, and my email inbox.  But as with every trip outside The Bubble, Chirundu once again reminded me of how irrelevant things I have put energy into can be at times.  It has become my struggle. And perhaps, to an extent, my fear.   

An excellent blog post I read recently, entitled What Happens When You Live Abroad, perfectly describes the tragedy of the ex-patriot.  “As you settle into your new life and country, as time passes and becomes less a question of how long you’ve been here and more one of how long you’ve been gone, you realize that life back home has gone on without you…. People have grown up, they’ve moved, they’ve married, they’ve become completely different people—and so have you…. So you look at your life, and the two countries that hold it, and realize that you are now two distinct people.  As much as your countries represent and fulfill different parts of you and what you enjoy about life, as much as you have formed unbreakable bonds with people you love in both places, as much as you feel truly at home  in either one, so you are divided in two…. You cannot be in two places at once, and from now on, you will always lay awake on certain nights and think of all the things you’re missing out on back ‘home.’"

My compliments to the writer, Chelsea Fagan, as this perfectly put into words my constant feeling of being pulled between my previous wonderful world of television, media, and more abstract expressions of art and philosophy with a more realistic “reality” of raw survival based only on that which I can see directly in front of me.  Putting words to these challenges is helpful, as I mourn my inability to live two lives at once. Or five. Or ten.

My fear is missing out.  Feeling left behind.  Recognizing I haven’t kept up with the things “real” Americans should know through their media barrage. Until I left the US, at least an hour + of each of my days were spent reading a book, listening to music, watching television or a movie, taking in advertisements, reading articles, searching online, etc.  In laymen's terms, spending part of my day in someone else's interpretation of reality or their imagined story-based hypotheticals.  And I loved it.  I felt connected.  Inspired. Energized. Knowledgeable.  Appreciative of others' stories and art. 

As I move away from the digital, pop-culture, imaginary world that daily flavored my past days, my surrounding reality grows.  The pieces of my life centered around re-learning how to live, how to operate, shop, drive, and speak in a new place, how to carry out every day activities like a child, have become the larger part of my daily diadem as time continues on my second continent.  These things are for better and for worse.  But they seem to have stretched me. More knowledgeable.  More aware.  Deeper into reality. Fundamentally altered.

Yet suddenly I've become uncertain of how to someday re-enter the culture from which we’ve temporarily stepped away.  As I experience new things in the realities of African life, as reality itself grows bigger and my American media world gets smaller, questions simmer. Are pieces of my previous life suddenly irrelevant?  Do they hold less meaning? More meaning?  What will happen when I don't understand the jokes being told on Late Night?  Or what a news anchor is talking about when they refer to something that happened last year?  Or who is being shown on the red carpet? What will happen when I return and don't recognize a single song on the radio? Thank God for my tiny time on facebook, or I wouldn't  know important things like the latest on Angelina Jolie's breasts.  What would happen if I returned to the US and didn't know about Angelina's breasts?  Can you imagine?!

I will never be able to play trivial pursuit again.

My literacy of American culture has surely already been changed and will continue to be the longer I am here. How will I combine suddenly feeling like two people, never quite at home in either place?

The only thing I can do is to remind myself.  Over and over. 

Two people can hold more than one. 


Related posts:
If Ever You Need Perspective
Becoming American
Geography

Well, It's Africa...

I've had many people ask me why I chose the name I did for this blog.

Well, actually, that's a lie.  Not a single one of my over five thousand readers have ever bothered.... Seriously.  But I'll answer the question anyway, just in case you're wondering.

There are a number of sayings here in Africa that are used to mean the same thing. "Well, It's Africa," "T.I.A. This is Africa!" and "You're in Africa!" These are all sayings usually heard at the most irritating, unfortunate time.

You've just had to stand in a five foot long visa line for eight hours. "Well, It's Africa!"

You have just found out that the forms you need from a bureaucratic office cannot be given to you until you drive home and bring the employees back some paper to print them on (common). "T.I.A!"

Your car has just broken down 3 hours from town a day after you've bought it. "You're in Africa!"

As though you need to be reminded.  Though the sayings should keep things lighthearted or add a little perspective, the frustrating part of hearing these sayings is that they are often used by people who are making dismissive excuses instead of choosing to help make things right.

So I have chosen to tackle the subject of infrastructure over the next month... and never is the T.I.A. topic more pertinent than when it comes to frustrations with infrastructure.  Last week our house got hit by lightening and took out our internet for days.  The day it was fixed our borehole pump broke, leaving us with no water beyond a small backup tank.  (Oh, why do I wait so long to do the dishes?!)  I won't mention our oven, front gate, electric fence, toilet, guest bath tub, kitchen sink, generator, or light fixtures, plural. All of which broke last week.  What would a week be without at least four hours of quality time with repairmen? Welcome to Africa, land of twisty ties, gum, and bricks... they can repair almost anything. For a day.

I am finally online again and will post again soon... Sorry for the delayed blog post but, Well, It's Africa....

The Bubble

We knew it would be a big thought on our minds before we even got here.  We hemmed and hawed about how we would fit into it.  But we never realized it would be on our minds more than finding safe water, or avoiding malaria, or learning that we have to de-worm our child like a dog every six months.

"The Bubble."

That's what my husband Kurt and I call it.  This surreal African juxtaposition of walls and shanty towns, manicured lawns and dirt roads...  And actually, that description fails to describe the jolt that is our new life in an African city of haves and have-nots.  We definitely have been dropped into a bubble.  It's an immediate challenge-- recognizing with gratitude the surreal lifestyle of expansive square footage and amenities anyone would love, while battling the sickening guilt that not everyone is sharing in the blessing.

Though it's not at all our intention to stay isolated among the walls of our new home, which many easily do, please be patient with us. This blog will start in The Bubble. Here are some pictures of our new home, on loan from the school Kurt works for :

 

Our living room, with fire place and a bar behind it. We are calling the bar area our "coffee house" room.  There is no heating or cooling in any of the homes here; just vents on the tops of the walls.  These vents help the house to breath and house large black spiders that come out every night to rest at the top of the walls.  Harmless but eerie.

 

Our back patio, where we occasionally eat.  We will use this space with our two year old a lot during the rainy season.

 

Looking through our living room to our dining room.  Sliding glass door on the left, kitchen doorway up on the right.

Kitchen, full of windows and very large. The back door opens in two pieces, so most of the day with the windows and at least half the door open, the kitchen feels like it's outside. Washing machine, fridge, and pantry on left.

 

Kitchen from other side. Breakfast bar in the middle, oven and warming drawer in back, stove on back right.

 

Master bedroom leads into a dressing room as big as our last kitchen. Two more bedrooms, unpictured, are slightly smaller.  Also unpictured is tons of closet space in every room.

 

Two newly redone bathrooms, both the size of bedrooms.

 

Pool with fountain (out of picture) looking at one of our patios.

Trampoline on the side of the house.  Our Jonas is in love.  I call it a death trap, but he's already used it for about three hours, so my hesitations have not meant much.  There are probably more dangerous things in Africa...

 

Looking to our back yard from one of our three patios.  A children's playhouse (again, death trap) sits in front with a large area of gardens, fruit trees, and stone benches behind.  Also unseen are the staff quarters... a separate cottage, shed, and burning area.  The yard is approximately two acres.

 

Kurt and I laugh that we had to move to Africa to live on our first cul-de-sac.  The black gate is ours.  We have yet to meet the neighbors, whose ferocious dogs have kept me at length.  Dogs here are for protection, not cuddling. We all live behind gates and walls, with barbed wire and electric fences unseen above them all.

 

Coming into the gate.  Every piece of green space is manicured... It hasn't rained since February, but you can't tell. Can't wait to see the water bill!