NAFASI THE BLOG

I admit, we did do some more fun house accessory shopping even though our walls were crumbling. There is some urgency when your walls are crumbling, yes... but there's also urgency in the small touches that can make a home feel more like a home in the meantime. I'll get to those later and let's all just pretend we worked on the walls right away like good home owners!  So surrounding almost the whole house, at the bottom of the walls in these older homes, you'll see the  wall bubbling out just at the bottom. In one area in our hallway, I curiously touched the bubble, and poked right through the wall, dust and pieces crumbling to the floor! We called maintenance.  They came through and crumbled all the walls back and re-cemented them. There is a lot of moisture in the air when you live in the jungle! And the walls are made of cement, and then painted directly over with paint. The water fills the cement and collects at the bottom, and the paint seals the

We quickly realized there were a few fixes the house needed more urgently than the 12 indoor plants and the pink dishware I originally prioritized. The most important being the roof. Just for aesthetic purposes I initially wanted to raise our roof, and expose the beams... And then I heard some noises up there. While I am all about a high ceiling, I am NOT ready to take on the challenge of what was lurking up between our roof and our sub-roof. Luckily the maintenance staff was brave enough to go up there and check it out for us! :) And my curiosity led me up the ladder just to snap a few pics too... The ceiling tile is beautiful, and those beams are great... and then the 6 years of piled dirt and wires and who knows what else- not so much. I let go of the dream to raise the ceiling and decided to keep the mess hidden. Instead, now I want to paint our current ceiling white and create an exposed joist look by adding white beams to the interior like this: We'll see if th

So right away during our first week here, we took a trip to Kigali (the capitol which is about 2.5 hours away by car.) You can get a lot more variety with purchases there and we figured we needed a LOT! Mostly what we needed was convertors for the walls so we could charge our computers and phones and everything, plants to decorate with, and then just basic household items like dish ware and that. It was fun. Tiring at times too, but really fun. This is us checking out. We got wine glasses, water glasses, mugs, plates, bowls, bathroom mats, pots, a pan, hangers. Hangers were important to get us out of our suitcases and into our closets! This trip really helped us settle in.  This is T-2000. It's basically like the Walmart of Kigali which has anything you can think of all shipped in from China All those hangers! Then they box it all up for you because it is illegal to use plastic here! We loaded up the car as you can see! The back of the truck was all filled wit

There are a nu mber of staff houses that are huge and lovely and perfect and new. Those are the kind of houses that I was expecting. I now get the impression that seniority matters to get those newer homes though, and since we're the newbies, mine and Patrick's fate led us to our cute little fixer-upper. It's been here longer, it's a little more vintage, going for the tiny-house hip vibe! We were surprised, but working with the infrastructure and design teams on our renovations is what it's all about. Let me walk you through our humble abode! The Living room area which opens to the kitchen.   The kitchen We have a hallway! Where our bedroom and bathroom are off of. The bedroom Our bathroom of relaxing neon ocean blue. Our front porch... That porch is our sanctuary. It's the best area of the house that we don't have to touch. And the view is incredible. Our house has THE best view. While we may not have the

Well, we're here! What a wild ride. For the past month and a half Patrick and I have been preparing in all the ways we know how to put closure to our DC lives & livelihoods, and pack as much as we could into farewell parties, closing projects, and 7 overweight suitcases. All the while we have been planning our wedding in September too! I think that April was probably the busiest I've felt since the start of NAFASI when I would spend 12 hour work days figuring everything out. It is funny looking back at our DC April right now from my bed at 11:00 in the morning while leisurely writing a blog update and staring across rolling hills at Lake Kivu. The birds singing, cows mooing, nice breeze. I just started Party of Five season 1 on Netflix. ;) It sounds nice doesn't it? It's all I dreamed of while pulling my hair out trying to get work done last month! Yeah, I wish it were that easy. I worked straight through until the Friday that we got on the plane to l