Halloween 2012

I couldn’t wait for Halloween! This was going to be the first Halloween that Jackson truly could grasp the idea and concept. I had a doctor’s coat made for him from the local tailor and had planned to take him to the school’s Halloween Party. That was until it became the moving day…

All of our questions that we asked the new landlord the night before (Tina) were simply hushed away and told not to worry about things will work out. She told us that we needed to move before the start of the month so he could not claim we were still there and could not claim that he should not have to pay us back. Here in Sierra Leone, expats required to pay for one year upfront. Typically two or three years upfront can be demanded. Therefore, we had been at the Goderich house from August to the end of October but had paid until the end of July. We were in a sticky situation needing to get refunded from the crappy landlord to pay the new landlord.

Anyways, she insisted that we move the next day, which happened to be Halloween. It was either that or stay in Goderich. That decision was a very easy one to make. We went home the night that we spoke with Tina and started packing! Things were thrown in random bangs and nothing was slowly packed! It was a mad race to get back to sanity!

Halloween came and I went to work as normal with Jackson. Hawa, our maid, met us at the school to learn about the new developments. I couldn’t tell who was happier, us or her that we were leaving Goderich. She often told me locals live in better conditions than we were living there and tried to convince we several times to look for a new place.

Luckily, Mo did not have to work that day and was able to pack the car with all the belongings that we had with our driver, Kofi. Together they brought everything we owned from Goderich to Bottom Mango to our new house. By the time I off from work and made it to my new place of residency (I walked the first day because the boys were still in transit bringing the last of our things), Hawa had already unpacked a lot of things and attempted to make the house look as homey as possible! It was so sweet that she cared that much. 

Later that night, Mo, Kofi and I had to go to town to buy a refrigerator and a stove. We bargained the total price to 2,000,000 Leones ($465). Somehow the Nissan Pathfinder was able to pack everything inside her and carry us back home safely. The refrigerator was stood up, rested and turned on 5 hours later.  The propane tank was bought the next day and cooking in our new kitchen was now complete!

Gradually over the next few weeks items got added to our apartment: a leather couch, a dining room table, a custom made bed frame for us, and decorations on our wall. This time, we felt like we were home. We had moved from Hell to Paradise in less than 24 hours. This was a Halloween that I will never forget.

Time in Sierra Leone so far....The first house

I knew keeping this blog thing would be impossible for me...but here I am again, trying.

To Recap:

We moved to Sierra Leone from Sheikh Zayed, Egypt on August 2, 2012. We made this trip as a family. My husband, Mo, our almost 3 year old son, Jackson, and our almost 6 year old Chihuahua, Colossus.

The first house we lived in was a nightmare. We cried almost every night. It was in Goderich and in the ghetto. Once we turned off the main road we traveled on an uneven ditch-filled, water pipe busted, "local" road.  We drove past tin roofed shacks where the local poor people lived and the local dunk men would often shout at our car demanding money for the "security" they provided for us. This was never the case. My husband every now and then would roll down the window and offer 5,000 Leones to them. This seemed like a nice gesture but only encouraged them to increase the harassment. Once we made it around the final turn a red, rusted, wired held together gated greeted us. This was our new "home". Once inside the gate the local black and white dog named Blackie would greet us. We parked the black 1996 Nissan Pathfinder on the uneven terrain and then walked up to the house through another gate. Our house was very small. Usually you would describe a house as small and cozy but that latter word is not one to describe this. The house was hot, dark, dull, uncomfortable, insect ridden, and depressing. Of a typical 30 day month we did not have electricity 25 of the days.  It was too small to move around in even with our small family. There was 2 bedrooms a kitchen which only one person could fit semi comfortably in at a time, a dinning/living room, and a tiny bathroom in which the door could not be opened fully due to hitting the sink. The landlord (half Sierra Leonean/half Lebanese) lived on the same compound and across stoop from us. There was also a "security guard/gardener" that lived on the premise too in a one room shack.

While living in the house we hired a maid to help with the house work, even though the house was tiny the bugs would overwhelm me. We had her come into the house Monday to Friday and used gasoline to mop the floors to keep the ants and other crawling critters away. Nothing worked though and the landlord often told us, "This is Africa what do you expect?"