Moving house

Moving house anywhere in the world is not the most pleasant of experiences, and here on the edge of the Kalahari is no different.  Although there are maybe some factors that are unique.

To clarify, I am talking about moving house in the context of renting as opposed to a house we would own.

The first issue is actually looking for a house, and that is a 'procedure' in itself!  Unlike Australia, where a real estate agent takes you in his/her car to various properties, here you either pick up the agent at their office and take them with you in your car or else you meet them at some landmark place and then follow them in their car to get to the house to view it.  This process is complicated by the fact that you can no longer buy a Street directory for Gaborone so the agent doesn't have one and most times the prospective tennant doesn't have one either (thankfully we have been here many years and still have the one that we bought many years back).  And in the process of looking at many, many houses at all corners of the city our fuel bill this past month has been quite a bit more than average!

The next issue is viewing the house - well not the viewing as such, but what is viewed!  The housing market here is a bit different because a large proportion of renters are foreigners who's employer is actually footing the bill in British Pounds or US Dollars, so the prices over the years have been a bit inflated and many landlords have expectations of what they want to charge based on that kind of history.  

But the rental landscape is changing as more locals move to the city and gain higher paying jobs, and rentals are starting to get a little bit more realistic.   However, we are still not in the bracket of being able to afford the kind of house that the average foreign executive would rent.  The consequence of this is that we have looked at many houses where the landlord wants a high rent price but the condition of the house is way below par.  So we began to realise we were caught in a kind of dilemma that what we could afford gave us an older house in run-down condition but probably with a couple of big trees and large dirt yard that with a lot of work could be made into some kind of garden OR a newer house in excellent condition but on a small block with no trees, grass or garden and instead entirely paved with a 6ft wall around that was only about a meter or two from the house wall!   With me mostly confined to our plot, the thought of never seeing anything green day in and day out was depressing!  Mind you, some of the insides of the old houses were quite depressing as well.  We looked at one house that had a patchy form of five different types of tiles on the bathroom wall and another that been freshly painted inside by the landlord in a kind of horrible military green colour ready for the new tennant!

This time as well, we have had to consider the fact that I need reasonable wheelchair accessibility and somewhere to have my 'day bed'.

So....we really praise the Lord that we have found a house that is neat, clean, painted a neutral white inside, tasteful tiles on the floors and walls, nice garden with trees and some grass, quite practical for the wheelchair etc, compact enough but still space for guests to stay, a helpful landlord and for a price that just fits within our budget at the moment.  (It is also standard practice that rent has an automatic increase of 10% per year here, but we'll just have to trust the Lord for funds on that one!)

Of course the issue after that is the moving part!

We will have to downsize a bit to make the move so we have had a bit of a garage sale and also issued an 'expat moving' list of items we are selling to all our friends.  

One of the first things we have to consider is the issue of curtains because houses don't come with any window coverings here, whether one is renting or buying.  So measuring windows and working out what curtains we already have that will work in the new house and what new ones we will have to get, is on the 'to do' list.

Of course there is the packing!  Boxes, boxes and more boxes!  - packing boxes, stacking boxes, moving boxes! A fellow missionary used to describe this by saying my husband was playing with his blocks again! (note that's not my husband in the photo - its just a stock photo! - those boxes are obviously empty or full of popcorn - our boxes are actually heavy when we pack them! ) We praise the Lord that some folk have come to help with this, including assistance to 'be my hands' since there is almost nothing I can do re packing from a horizontal position!  It's way too much for my hubby (who is struggling with a sprained knee also at present) to do on his own.  We praise the Lord for some of our 'sons' having some time off work or study, to be able to help.

The next thing that is quite different here is that any plant that a tenant plants in the garden or other garden improvements, they are allowed to dig up and take with them.  Since almost every piece of garden we have in this house, we have planted over the past 5 years, we can take as much of it with us as we want.  And we can take all the garden edging, paving, gravel we have put down on pathways etc etc.  And since this house will be demolished and won't even have a tenant coming after us, and we paid for the gravel and pavers and we can use it all at the next place, we are going to take it with us!  

This is also a crazy time of year to move - right on the lead up to Christmas, as it is normal here to move month-end.  But because most companies are closed for the Christmas and New Year period and many of our friends will not be around for that time, we have to be fully moved before that. It also doesn't help that this time of year has the weather swinging mostly between the two extremes of excessive heat and thunderstoms/rain!  So either the extra work can dehydrate you very quickly if you aren't careful, or else your furniture can get drenched!

There is then the process of sorting out transfer of our utilities accounts to the new place.  This is one of the most tedious parts of the process and requires physically going into each utility office for power, water and phone and then having one of their staff physically coming to do a final reading on the meters and ensuring the process is also done properly to have first readings at the new house.

Once all that is done,  and we have moved in, we hope to be able to finish unpacking at our leisure, and be able to put up a Christmas tree before Christmas Day!