Life in our Flat

            We have been in our flat now for a little over a week.  If feels really good to get settled.  There are a few maintenance issues we are still waiting on but I would much rather wait here than spend even another day in the guest house.  You have no idea how important your independence and privacy are until you don’t have it for a month.  There is an electrical problem in the second bedroom, where Clint uses the wardrobe for his things, so the lights are not working and the light in his bathroom goes on and off randomly too.  He showered in the dark this morning.  It was a reminder of how bad it was in the guest house with the frequent power outages.  In our compound we have either the regular electricity, the generator or the battery inverters to supply us so we rarely are completely without lights anymore.

The front of our flat

             Our living room furniture here looks like wicker but it is plastic with cushions.  For the average American, like us, who spends way too much time on the couch this is not a comfortable arrangement.   We take turns sitting on the couch or the loveseat.  Most of our evening is spent working on school work so Clint has also taken over the dining room table.  I don’t mind because that gives me the couch and I can put my feet up.  The little coffee table is just large enough to fit my laptop too if I want to use it like a desk.

            We have a nice TV provided for us but to have the satellite dish with the best service it will cost $200 and then a hefty monthly fee after that.  We are experimenting with downloading some of our favorite TV shows from the Internet instead and then connecting it to the TV to watch them.  Clint has taken on this job.  Believe me it is a second job doing it.  It took two full days to download the NCIS season premiere.  It was so fun watching it.  Since then we have discovered my new mobile Internet stick is faster so he can get a couple shows downloaded in a day. 

Living Room

            We are trying to get used to grocery shopping and cooking here.  Unfortunately, our stove has not yet been replaced.  It had a gas leak.  We have one small electric burner right now and it only works when the regular electricity is on or the generator.  The generator only runs from 7 pm to 11 pm when the electricity is off.  What this means is we generally do not have a way to cook until after 7 pm.  Clint found a nice wok at the open air market.  It works so much better than the little pans the school provided.  I searched high and low for hot pads because the pans have metal handles.  I even tried to find just cotton diapers I could fold and sew together.  My principal’s wife heard I had been looking and gave me a couple extra she had brought.  
            Washing dishes is a big chore here.  We have one very small sink.  It is about the size of a bathroom sink.  There is only cold running water in all the sinks in the flat.  The only hot water is in the showers.  The showers have a tank-less water heater that hangs above the shower.  I was boiling water to wash the dishes but with all the power outages it was difficult to wait to wash them when you could get the water hot on the stove.  Clint volunteered to haul hot water in a bucket from his shower for me.  Now I can get them done a lot quicker.  There is just enough room for the dish drainer next to the sink.  The sink is rusty and the back corner of the sink cabinet is not secure so the sink hangs low in the corner.  I use a plastic pan in the sink to wash in and then remove it and place the pan on the floor to rinse the dishes.  I need to find bleach so I can start rinsing them in a little bleach water.  I worry about using the water since it is not safe to drink.

Our kitchen

Our produce holder

            We purchased what we thought was a blender but it turned out to be some kind of dry ingredient food grinder.  It didn’t work well at all.  We are going to try and take it back to exchange for a real blender if we can find one or a blanket.  We did buy one blanket but surprisingly we need another one.  It gets really hot and humid without the air conditioner on but with it on it gets too cold sometimes.  We cannot seem to adjust it for both of us to sleep comfortably.  It doesn’t help that it sits right over us.

            Our washing machine is also a dryer all in one.  With the crazy power fluctuations it stops and starts over every time so you constantly have to watch it.  Only the refrigerator and a few plug-ins work when we only have the battery inverters for power.  The machine is not vented like a dryer is in the States so when it washes and then dries the clothes take a long time to dry and then they still feel like they were in a steam bath.  We purchased a clothes drying rack to hang our clothes on.  I think it works much better than wasting all that time in the machine.  An average load is almost 4 hours and when you add the multiple restarts it gets pretty ridiculous.

Washer/dryer and battery inverters

            We found a foam pad for our bed.  I was so thankful after suffering on the guest house bed for a month.  When we opened the box there was a used slip in it.  I think it was a returned item in the US and was purchased and resold here in Nigeria.  The pad was obviously rerolled and taped and the box did look like it was retaped too.  We paid a lot for it so it was pretty frustrating to get somebody else’s returned bed pad but I have to remind myself I am not in the States and I need to just be glad I have it.  I try not to think about the possibility of bed bugs.

We have wardrobes instead of closets

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            Each day we are learning new things to try and adjust to life over here.  Overall, we are enjoying our time in Nigeria and trying to take advantage of seeing new things whenever possible.