Getting Settled

We survived the 24-hours without a toilet easily, and it prompted me to go outside and clean the squatty potty.  I washed the walls on the outside and the floors on the inside.  While scrubbing the acutal squatty, I found some "residue" tucked under the edge that had been there for awhile, which was probably causing the smell.

So glad that's over!

Also that first night (as we experience every night at some point), the power went out.  We had the solar lanterns lit on the dinner table, and just as I got ready to snap this picture, the power came back on.  But you get the gist.

After one night sleeping on the doshaks, Doug was prompted to walk down the street and investigate mattresses.

Lo and behold, he returned within two hours with a truck following him.

He was a little disappointed that he didn't get as much discount as he thought he could have gotten, but when the only thing you know how to do is point and look at a man's calculator when he types in numbers for you,  you pretty much get what you can.

We like the mattress!

Also, on this day, we went to a government office (think "closet with one man and a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke hanging in the air") to have copies of our passports made and stapled to another sheet.  That's it!

I had my mobile taken away and a full pat down to go to that office for a total of 3 minutes.

Then, we headed to a clinic (on the other side of town) run by the government to have our blood drawn and tested (for malaria, HIV, bilharzia, etc).  We paid about $50 and then stood in line for the needle.  The sign says "Blood Withdraw Exit", but it also happens to be the entrance, which makes it quite crowded and complicated.

We were told to return to the "Smoking Man's" office in two days, and he would have the results of our blood test and we could get our permits.

Well, that didn't happen...

But to continue on with setting up our house, the next day, Doug went walking down the street again, and this time when he came home, a truck followed again very quickly.  This time it was carrying a washer and dryer.

I love this man.  He knows the way to my heart!

The dials have pictures on them, so I don't even have to know how to read the language yet to operate it.

 The amount of dust on top of the packaging was enough to give anyone pause.

But the following day, a very nice man helped us hook them up.

That's the nice man, climbing out the inner second-story window to get to our water heater and some pipe he needed access to.

Since the door to the laundry room (that's what I call it) opens to the inside, the washer and dryer wouldn't fit in there, so Doug and the other man re-situated them under the stairs.

I'll be honest.  I hated to lose that under-the-stair storage.  Or on second thought, I could have put Keira's bed under there!! :)  However, since I will only need the dryer during the winter months, I could, realistically move it up to the third floor landing and retain some of the space under there.

We'll have to see.

To finish up our week, since this was Thursday (their Friday), we went to pick up our permits at the government office.  Smoking Man had our papers and it showed that we had had our blood tests done, but he said he needed to see our receipt for the $50.

We took a taxi back to our house.  Found it.  Took a taxi back to the office, and Smoking Man released us to go upstairs to see the "Big Man" who makes all the decisions.

The Big Man couldn't decide if he should charge us a lot of money, so he sent us home and told our translator to come back the following week.

Long story short (and awesome), today our translator went back, and he said we were only charged a fee to process and laminate our ID cards (about $17).  Nice, huh?

No more paper work or blood given for one more year :)

End of the week also meant homemade pizza and a movie.

I have some tweaking to do to get these better, but it was a good first start.

 

 We all sat at the kitchen table and watched a movie on a laptop while eating pizza.

Sounds like a good night to me.