Tanzania Tiny House Part Deux
To be technical this is actually a tiny apartment not a house. Many of you told me how much you enjoyed my stories or cringed during my discussions of living in the tiny house at my previous site. So many were happy about my living conditions with the new site, that I hated to tell everyone that house actually would be used by the incoming headmaster for the school. The original idea was that I could use one room in the house, but he came with two kids (one newborn) and a niece that was helping his wife out. It did not seem the right thing to move in with them all, so I have been searching for a new place to live either in the area of the work or the nearest town, Moshi.
The first couple of weeks I stayed in a hotel after I negotiated a better weekly price. That was a nice set up seeing how they had air conditioning and with it being hot 22 hours a day that was a nice touch. But alas, I refused to allow myself to stay there as the negotiated price was decent it still was about double what I budgeted.
I started my search online to quickly find most postings on AirBnB and apartment sites refer to a private room meaning I can lock the bedroom door in a room shared with others. The offerings made near the site were not much better. The first house they showed me was falling in on itself and the exterior bathroom had already fallen into the latrine hole. The second was in much better condition but similar to those I found online being a small room of 40 square feet and I was allowed to lock the door to it. The bathrooms were standing and in decent shape for an exterior latrine/bath house. The water source was over half a mile away was a major drawback.
So those were the bad finds. I did fortunately find one I though was very nice for the cost. It is pretty close to my budget, has electricity and running water (flushing toilet yes!). It is actually a modern style apartment with a small kitchen cabinet area, gas cook stove and a refrigerator. No more hot Coke Zero but more importantly real cheese (not cheese powder) and real butter. My cooking got a lot better very fast. While no air conditioning it makes up for it in so many other ways like that flushing toilet thing. You have no idea how big a deal that and real cheese are to me. It comes in at a whopping 300 square feet.
It is in a different part of town for me so I had to do one of my favorite things, go get "lost" and find all kinds of new stores. Including an eyeglass store that is open (the other I found earlier was never open) so I replaced my broken pair of glasses this week. It is nice to see again.
I love doing the wandering thing though I found out I am near a lot of the "local art" stores so I get harassed a lot to buy bracelets. Hopefully in a month or two (when I am moving out) they will get the idea that I don't want them.
One drawback is that I will most likely not be building things for the apartment this time since it has the basics I need and it belongs to someone else.
The first couple of weeks I stayed in a hotel after I negotiated a better weekly price. That was a nice set up seeing how they had air conditioning and with it being hot 22 hours a day that was a nice touch. But alas, I refused to allow myself to stay there as the negotiated price was decent it still was about double what I budgeted.
I started my search online to quickly find most postings on AirBnB and apartment sites refer to a private room meaning I can lock the bedroom door in a room shared with others. The offerings made near the site were not much better. The first house they showed me was falling in on itself and the exterior bathroom had already fallen into the latrine hole. The second was in much better condition but similar to those I found online being a small room of 40 square feet and I was allowed to lock the door to it. The bathrooms were standing and in decent shape for an exterior latrine/bath house. The water source was over half a mile away was a major drawback.
So those were the bad finds. I did fortunately find one I though was very nice for the cost. It is pretty close to my budget, has electricity and running water (flushing toilet yes!). It is actually a modern style apartment with a small kitchen cabinet area, gas cook stove and a refrigerator. No more hot Coke Zero but more importantly real cheese (not cheese powder) and real butter. My cooking got a lot better very fast. While no air conditioning it makes up for it in so many other ways like that flushing toilet thing. You have no idea how big a deal that and real cheese are to me. It comes in at a whopping 300 square feet.
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| The kitchen area with refrigerator. Vicki should notice the shiny SC outline decorating the cabinets. |
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| The sitting area already covered by my crochet project |
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| my first wardrobe in Tanzania-no keeping my clothes in suitcases to keep the rats from eating my socks |
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| A working safe which is important when I have to keep large sums of money for the site on hand. |
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| stiff but workable bed and a fan (they have not asked for it back yet so I assume it is a part of the apartment) |
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| shower, toilet and sink . my knees touch the wall when sitting on the toilet but they normally do here. |
I love doing the wandering thing though I found out I am near a lot of the "local art" stores so I get harassed a lot to buy bracelets. Hopefully in a month or two (when I am moving out) they will get the idea that I don't want them.
One drawback is that I will most likely not be building things for the apartment this time since it has the basics I need and it belongs to someone else.
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