Little by Little

We moved into an unfurnished house in May. I had about 3 weeks before we left for the States in June to figure out how to fill the gaps. Nights looking at Home & Garden by the fire. Ah. Some furniture of ours was shipped here: couch, our bed, an end table, a couple of kid chairs and dressers. I wanted to make this house seem like ours and not just a temporary residence, but most things we will probably not be able to bring with us, so no point in investing in something terribly nice or unsalable. So here's some of what it looks like thus far (a work in progress).

The "lounge"...our living room / den...is the largest room and is both the formal and informal family gathering place. 

We need something bigger over the fireplace and more on the walls. The teak coffee table and wicker seats are new. We have a matching love-seat in the office. The bookshelf is one of a few things we had made by a local carpenter...by far the cheapest option.

Replacing the curtains was my least favorite project - but here they are.
Better than rose polyester with silky mauve tasseled trim. 

Kid's corner.

Love seat in the office.

One of our new local paintings,

Veranda off lounge...where we eat meals, do homework, socialize. Life in Zimbabwe is spent on the veranda.
All this furniture is locally made: simple and cheap.

We bought this old wicker set, had it patched up and stained, then reupholstered the cushions.

We were going to rip the bar out and make a den, but then we had a big party and decided it was useful.

We moved the bed under the window which means no view of the garden but morning reading light.

And space in the bedroom for the art deco vanity with cane chair, essential equipment for playing dress up.

Domesticity

I feel like I'm just playing house half the time.


Me in my robe, house-shoes and glasses helping the kids in the car, checking that backpacks are remembered and everyone has clean faces. Kisses all around. To Miles: remember to be considerate to others. To Eliza: be a good listener and do what your teacher says the first time. To David: be productive; don't play computer games.

I carry a large flowery cotton tote that can serve as a shopping bag. I purchase a vase for cut flowers from the garden. I make bar cookies for guests of the soccer tournament at the school as part of my PTO responsibilities. I wear an apron on the weekends. And yoga pants. 

I organize play-dates in the afternoon, coffees with other stay-at-home-moms late morning (after the early morning workout), and make arrangements for dinners and parties. I ensure the children make birthday cards for their friends. I pick them up at school and drive them to swimming lessons.

I make dentist appointments for the whole family. (Well, in theory...I'm working on it.)

Most of the time, I'm on autopilot. I make my lists. I drive around. I draw lines through the items on the list. I check the schedule. Have I forgotten something? (the groceries in the trunk again? the meeting with the school counselor? pick up time?)

But sometimes - like when I'm wearing the apron and stirring muffin mix, and my husband comes in and gives me a kiss on the cheek, and I say, how was golf? - I think WTF. This is hilarious. Somebody get the camera.

Settling Down

The good news is that our second shipment is in Harare, and David’s got his residence permit to claim it. So any day now…That shipment includes some basic furnishings like a couch, chair and end table for the living room, a bed and bedside table for us, a kitchen table and two chairs, some dressers… We didn’t ship everything in storage from the States, and it looks like that was a good decision in the end since our staying in this Chisipite house (that Rob and Nadia had rented) has fallen through. The owner sold it just days before we left Amman, but we are allowed to rent it until June while we look for another place.

That means that we could potentially find a furnished or semi-furnished house which will relieve us from the financial burden of furnishing a place from top to bottom. I had been looking forward to creating a space that felt like ours and was an investment in our future, i.e. furnishings we could take with us around the world. But MC’s policy is to support shipments limited by weight instead of a container, so it’s not really feasible to plan for that anyway. It’s one of the few drawbacks of living abroad. I don’t want to sound like an unappreciative whiner…I feel lucky to be living our dream life. It’s just that when we go back to the States, the contrast in our lives and most everyone else’s there is always a bit shocking. While we’ve been flitting around here and there, they’ve grown up and moved into houses full of furniture and matching curtains.

Where we are now...

So we’re still at the Bronte… The food isn’t terrible. The people are friendly. It’s not too busy, big or formal…as family friendly as a hotel without a playground can be. But Miles got sick. There is a virus going around, I hear now. At first I thought he’d been sun-poisoned. I let them play at the pool from breakfast to lunch without sunscreen. My excuse? 20 kg per bag…there was so little we could bring with us, so much to sort through…and the kids’ bathroom was the very last to get packed. One can’t travel with a bunch of heavy bottles of liquid that will likely explode everywhere. One buys toiletries when one arrives…if one remember… Anyway, would a kid really vomit and not eat for 2 days because of too much sun? He wasn’t even burnt that badly.

Meanwhile, paradise awaits…

With the tropical gardens just outside our room, the colorful birds, cheap beer, wireless connection (!)…being holed up in the hotel isn’t too bad. We even got a large basket full of stuffed animals and toys left behind by Rob and Nadia’s girls. The trunk of xmas gifts has dwindled as we’ve doled out bits here and there to help them through the transition, but there’s probably just enough to make xmas morning seem special.

That said, xmas has not been on our minds at all. What’s on my mind are the following:

• Moving out of the hotel and into the house so that the housekeeper who lives there can watch the children so that I can practice driving on the left side of the road without the kids in the car.
• Monitoring the status of our shipment (from Amman) and helping, when possible, to get it released from customs…in tact (cross your fingers for us).
• Getting my own phone.
• House-hunting
• Seeing the Chisipite house to figure out what we need at minimum to stay there until we find our permanent house.
• Shopping for the things we need for the Chisipite house.
• Finding out where to shop.
• Finding a nursery school for Eliza to start in mid-January when Miles starts KG.
• Decide on some places…or place?...for the family to check out during the xmas holidays while d's office is closed for 2 weeks and the kids are out of school for 3!…overnight trip to the mountains? Wildlife reserve? Victoria Falls?
  

Actually New Furniture

I came across the furniture store Qerat (his name Tareq backwards) in the early days of being here, but it was obscenely expensive. Then last week they had a huge sale just before renovating their store! It's apparently his original design and made here in Jordan.

Lamp, side table and cube.Heavy-ass chair

Confused stool (legs go in on one side and out on the other - it's totally steady though. I love it!