My little house

I love my little house. I moved in after three days in Gabs, into a little neighborhood near Broadhurst, in the northeast of the city. It is a two-bedroom house that I share with one of the other UN interns. I did not know what this neighborhood was called for a long time, because it is in between two neighborhoods, and every time we asked a taxi driver to clarify the name of the region, we got a different answer…and I never could remember any of the Setswana words. I do know one of the names is the Setswana word for “baboon.” That one is my favorite. I finally clarified it with our new favorite taxi driver--we live in Ledumang. It sounds French, but isn't.



The house is inside a gated compound, and our landlady, her husband, and kids live in the house next door. Around the corner is a pre-school, so on our way to work in the morning we see lots of cute little children walking to school. It is also (randomly) around the corner from a Sikh Temple. I know nothing about the Sikh religion, but their temple is beautifully lit up with multi-colored lights on some evenings. We are a few blocks away from the Choppie’s supermarket, and a bar that looks somewhat gritty, but definitely warrants exploring.

The neighborhood:


Sikh Temple and Street at Dusk:



Here are some more reasons I love my house:
-It is furnished! This includes towels, kitchen table and cooking ware, fridge, and beds. It also includes an oversized curtain in the kitchen window. There is no living room, but that’s ok. My favorite room is my room. The theme is safari, which I did not ask for, but find perfectly fitting. As you can see from the picture, there are giraffes on the curtains, and leopards on the bedspread:



-Gas stove—hurray! Everything cooks so well with butagas.



-The shower is HOT! This is no Peace Corps service, let me tell you. No bucket baths in the freezing cold of winter, oh no. The water pressure is mediocre, but the water never ever gets cold. And I could even take a real bath if I wanted to. This hasn’t happened yet, but it will.



-There is a magical housecleaning service! I also did not ask for this, but it came included in the rent (a mere 1750 pula ($250) per person a month). Every Monday, a housekeeper comes in to clean our bathroom and kitchen, take out our garbage, and (wonder of wonders) she does our laundry and presses our clothes. She comes while we are at work, so we have yet to see her—-this is why I find the whole thing somewhat magical.

I must admit, at first I was a little uneasy about the prospect of a housekeeper, even though it’s always good to be able to feed a little bit back into the local economy. I don’t actually mind doing a little housecleaning every now and then, and I am also somewhat particular about my laundry. Part of it is that I don’t want anyone to mess up my laundry and feel responsible for it—if someone’s going to destroy my clothes, it might as well be me. I also remember how hard those Berber ladies in Morocco scrubbed laundry and, not knowing if Botswana was the same way, I was afraid to turn over my clothes for fear they would come back significantly worn out, or with holes in them from pressing them on the wrong setting.

But I have gradually come around to being ok with the situation. It took some time—I didn’t leave any laundry for her the first week, just to see how my housemate Lauren’s turned out. First thing we learned from her experience: the magical housekeeper does not do underwear. Relief—I’d rather wash my own anyway. So week two, I decided to put out my clothes that could stand a standard wash, and take my chances. And…wow! This lady is good! Everything was pressed to perfection, and folded as if I was buying it off a store shelf. I was missing one of my favorite grey t-shirts, though this is probably just a mix-up in the wash. I have hope I will reclaim it.

So yes, I love my little house. Sometime soon, we’ll invite people over, but we need more chairs first…