We will be moving house for May 1 to a more central location in Remera which is closer to shops, soccer and the airport. It is only $1,000 per month plus utilities and garbage collection which are about half the price in Toronto. Our current McMansion is costing us $1,500 per month plus utilities & garbage collection. We don't need all this space unless I were to have a grand piano sitting in the front window. The acoustics in this house are amazingly great with the porcelain floors and high ceilings. However, a Chinese family just moved into the other half of this semi-detached building and I fear there is no sound barrier let alone a fire wall! This morning I heard someone blowing their nose and yesterday there was the click click of heels across the master bedroom floor. Also, a couple of electrica switches are not working properly (i.e. shorting out) and the landlord just ignores us since he has had to make some plumbing repairs. At least the roof doesn't leak but the paint is starting to peel on the outside cement walls.
Our new place is a detached bungalow facing due west on a slope of one of the thousand hills in this city. We overlook a lush green park with trees and flowers where I will have to remember to wear my sticky Deet insect repellent. There is a huge master bedroom with en-suite and 3 other bedrooms. My housekeeper/student/interpreter has her own quarters with separate entrance at the back and there is a gate-keeper who has a small cabin. We need to buy a washing machine (LG model for about $400 plus tax). We signed a one-year rental agreement and the owner is actually a lady working in Ottawa. Definitely, she has made this house a "home" ... white ceramic tiles in kitchen and bathrooms. It's furnished with dining suite and lounge chairs in the living room. There's a huge garden at the back elevated into the hill supported by a 10 ft high stone/cement wall with steps ascending to it. Someone is growing cabbages up there that I could see from below. I plan to grow my own fresh flowers for decoration in the house with the white tiles as a backdrop.
Our car is to arrive by next Friday and we will not pay any custom duty as expected because we have a two-year TempResPermit. Zain flew to London, UK early Sat. morning for a Commonwealth Telecommunication Organization annual meeting all this week. Rwandair baggage tag came off between Kigali and Nairobi. Kenyan Airways told him his bag would be on the plane to London anyway...NOT! Zain is bagless in London but they're tracing it. This has happened in the past when his bag was left on the Tarmac in Dubai en route to Johannesburg a couple years ago. He did get it back in a couple of days so let's hope for the best especially since it was a new Heys bag from Toronto!
Attached, please find an assortment of pictures that I haven't posted earlier. Yusuf is fine and has a soccer friend, Fabrice, who comes to visit us. He wants us to adopt him and his mother, single mother since the genocide, has agreed (according to Fabrice). He's nineteen and the Immigration told us to talk to the Family Services department. I'm not sure that a nineteen year old needs to be "adopted" but rather needs career guidance and money for education. He's a fine fellow with no bad habits. There's a picture of him with Yusuf. By the way, Fabrice loves my cooking!
This is Yusuf's Division 2 team with Yusuf second from far left. They won with much composure and strategy. This is the college turf field where they train. Yusuf travels there and back on motorcycle taxi.
This is half-time when they were losing and the coaches gave them the confidence to come back even though they were tired...and these guys don't tire easily. The other team was just as strong and I was afraid they would win.
This guy was the "hornblower" making so much noise! He loved it when I took his picture.
Great shot of these two friends...Yusuf and Fabrice.
