23b

We have been in Zambia  a year now....here is a photo of our home at plot 23b Mwambula Road, Jesmondine.  It is the third and hopefully last home we will live in here.  It is rather large, rather nice and rather leaky and cavernous.  It has stone walls, dark wood floors, arched doorways inside.  There are heavy bars on all the windows and doors but the doors are usually unlocked and wide open!  It is unusual for Lusaka in that it has three levels --a sprawling ranch is more the style around town for expat housing.  We are slowly filling it up with everything we brought from seattle and everything we are acquiring here, although there are many empty closets and whole rooms we do not use.  We 'inherited' the lease from good friends who are next month moving to Arusha...they have been 6 months in the Netherlands waiting to see where they would end up.  We were very lucky to get the house when and how we did but we miss them so.  It was very strange to move into 'their' house in October but also very nice because we came already with such a good feeling from the time we spent with them.

We have a huge yard/garden but pretty normal size.  We have a nice big swimming pool and the best swing in town (hanging from the giant tree out front).  We have a beautiful garden with lots of big trees, tons of fruit trees, a vegetable garden and a great big strawberry patch.  Owen can ride his bike all over the place, finny can skateboard down the drive thankfully without getting too much speed.  This is very nice considering there is not a single public park in Lusaka.

The house sits on a little slope and the property is along an open stretch of land owned by the University of Zambia with two streams running through so we are so lucky to have a view of more than just the neighbor's giant fences and also lots of wildlife.  

Even with all this space, we are, of course, almost always in the same room sitting on the same bed or bench or couch together fighting about who gets to be in the middle.