Tanzania 2014: Our housing

The family we are staying with are very nice. The father, Eglah, is the drummer for the New Life Band. The mother, Lulu, works in an accounting position and goes to school for more accounting education. She goes 7 nights a week and gets home about 730 or 8pm every night. On weekends she has discussion group all day Saturday and class Saturday night. There are 2 kids - Irene is 7 and Ian is 2.
They have a very different way of living. Their house is built in between 2 stores. They actually have a dirt area that they can drive their car into and it is protected by the stores on either side and has a gate that closes. The front of the house is at the end of the drive. This is considered their 'yard' where the kids play and laundry hangs to dry.

Their home is nice, but very small. They don't have much furniture or chachkis laying around. They do have a tv and nice entertainment system. They watch the Tanzanian equivalent of C-span most of the time. It is very loud!

Living Room

The kitchen is very narrow. They have a small 2 burner stove that sits on a table right inside the doorway. They do have a decent sized refrigerator/freezer. Pretty much any food that gets stored has to be stored inside it to keep rats and bugs out. Yes, I said rats. They have rats and it is acceptable. Lulu (the mom) told me that they were all afraid of cats so didn't get one (give me a cat any day even though I don't care for them). They actually ate through the straps of E's backpack one night when we left it in the living room. There is a sink at the end of their kitchen. There is no such thing as a hot water heater so water for dishes and showers must be heated on the stove. They do have a small microwave oven, but no actual oven.

Kitchen

Meals are served on a small table in the dining room off of the living room. All dishes and pots and pans are stored in this room. You fill your plate at this little table and eat in the living room. The kids have small chairs that they use in this room.

Dining Room - china cabinet with all dishes and pots and pans

This family does have a toilet, many only have holes in the ground. Many places you go do not have functioning toilets at all. The school that I am at has toilets but they haven't flushed since I have been here. Toilet paper is an option that most people go without. We have learned to carry it with us everywhere we go. We also make sure to take advantage of bathrooms where we know they will have a toilet. The size of this room is about the size of an airplane bathroom.

Toilet

Showering is always interesting - as I said before, there is no hot water so we have to boil water then add cold water to the wash tub. We then use pitchers to pour the water over our heads. When I got here and asked for towels we were given 1 small hand towel for both of us to share. I saw that Lulu used a Kanga to wrap in before and after showers and mentioned that E and I would like to go shopping and get one. She loaned us each one. We can use those to help us dry off a bit also. This is also a very small room.

Shower

Our room is decent sized. It has a bed, a chair, and a small table in it. The window to our room is open and mostly screened only. There is a door to another house about 2 feet away from our window so it can get very loud sometimes.