Home improvements

Now that we are in our final abode we have started on some minor home improvements.

The first I hailed some weeks ago, the now infamous 'bucket shower'. It has had pride of place in the bathroom for a couple of weeks or so now and has made a significant impact on comfort (and no doubt smell!).

So here it is (there's a picture next for those of you using Lotus Notes):

Le Bucket Shower

Normally you would lower the bucket to fill it and then pull it back to the correct height. However, this one is tied in place for a number of reasons - primarily being that the L beam in the roof looked like it would cut the rope and the most frequent user isn't strong enough to pull up the bucket and tie it securely on their own. So it hangs there all the time and is filled using the laundry bowl, a dining chair and significant muscles - making up for our lack of dumbbells. In three bowls I can fill it to within one inch of the top and it will run happily for 10 minutes! I think I'm having the longest showers of anyone in the hospital at the moment and all for the princely sum of £20.

As you can see, I also spent £3 on a shower curtain that isn't covered in mould! Perfect!

Once I have acquired a couple of hot plate rings the interior renovations will be complete from my point of view. Geoff is keen to try and cover the windows with mosquito net (this is tricky because of the opening mechanisms and bars) to 'stop snakes coming in'. I have pointed out that they are unlikely to and that probably the biggest threat is spiders. We shall see what happens!

The garden

My next project was a garden. When we arrived there was just a scrubby patch behind the house and the view was open straight to the Rondavel opposite. Living on the ground floor with ill-fitting curtains doesn't provide much privacy at the best of times, without having a busy path and a neighbour's window right outside. So I decided that I quite fancied being "Thane of the Outside Toilet, and that little gravelly patch next to the garden shed". [This is a quote from the best of 80s TV, which anyone that knows that Orange Peel is the only thing to rhyme with Neil will know. And before my brother tries to correct me - I looked up the exact quote...]

Garden before

View from my office

The first step was to locate a gardener - there are lots of people that want to help out with sweeping and gardening at the doctors' houses. We knew one had worked for a long time at Nat and Will's house but they had taken someone else on, so he was unemployed. He's called Moffat and, I'm told, has 5 children.

After I'd already told him what I wanted I realised I should probably ask permission! Thankfully this was forthcoming and I was deemed very generous for offering to commission a communal garden. Work started in a typically African style - I'd been promised a fence by Saturday morning and on Friday morning all I had was a pile of fence building items and some sticks to use as posts. However, the fence was mostly completed by Saturday lunchtime!

Moffat hard at work!

Since then he's added a washing line, 6 beds for growing things (we didn't ask for these but it seems that growing stuff is the only conceivable use for a garden if you are African), a pile of manure (in the middle...) and a very deep hole. I'd asked for a fire pit and gestured with my hands a bowl shape, maybe 6 inches deep, what I got was about 3 feet deep and looked more like a grave. He has subsequently half filled this in but left the extra earth round the edge - I'm not sure he understands that we want to be able to sit around the fire at night! These crazy muzungus - what will they think of next?

Garden after