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...

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...