Apartment #7

After attempting to post this tour of our cozy abode for days, I think it might finally work! Ella is playing outside with our neighbor and Sam is taking his afternoon nap. A perfect time to write.

Welcome to Apartment #7. You can find us on the ground level right in the middle of our building. We are surrounded by families from all over the world who are working here at Tenwek. Two of the families have small kids, and there are more kids in the houses just down the grassy hill. It's a perfect set up for Ella and for this mama. I can sit in the house or on the porch while Ella plays and Sam naps and still see Ella as she runs laps around our building with the kids. I also spend a lot of time sitting in the grass with a couple of the other parents in the morning. We talk about all kinds of things, including what it's like to live here for years and years while raising kids. Obviously, that's very helpful information for me. Someday I hope to do the same.

On to the tour. We start in our bedroom. Here you can see our double bed with a mosquito net. We tie it up first thing in the morning so the little bugs can't get inside, and then we pull it down over us as we crawl into bed. It gets pleasantly cool at night, so the heavier blanket is just right.

Ella and Sam share the other bedroom, which is actually working very well. Sam sleeps in his little tent that we've bought just after he was born. We wanted him to get used to sleeping in it before getting to Kenya. It's far, far easier to travel with than a Pack n Play. And we can completely close it to keep the bugs out.

Miss Ella wanted to show off her room. There are her "Acita" dresses that she loves to wear. 

 

We are fortunate and have a very nice size bathroom. The pitcher next to the sink is for brushing our teeth since we can't use the water in the faucet. It would likely make us sick.

I'm so happy to have a bathtub! Giving baths in it is a little funny, since the water comes out a little muddy. Dirt remains in the bottom of the tub when we drain the water. Ella goes in so dirty that even having dirty water is an improvement for her, so it's not a big deal. I'm thankful it gives us nice hot water!

 

And this is our great big kitchen. Isn't it lovely?! I was quite pleased when I saw it for the first time. 

 

This is another view of the kitchen.

 

And here is our living room. This is the only room I've decorated since we're here such a short time. I wanted to make this a comfortable room, though, since we do spend a decent amount of time in it. I'll describe my simple decorations in another post.

 

Here you can see our table. We've had some great meals there. The door on the left leads to the kitchen while the door on the right leads to a hallway where the bathroom and bedrooms are.

  

And that is that! I do have photos of the outside, but I'm just hoping these will post for now. We are very happy with our apartment. It's much larger and more comfortable than we had imagined. That may not be in the case as we travel in February, so we're greatly enjoying the space we have.

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Do you have questions about what it's like or what we're doing in Kenya? I would love to hear them! I can either include the answers in future posts or write a post just with answers to your questions. Any question is great. You can either post them in the comments section at the bottom of this post or post them to me on Facebook. We do have a Little Olsen page that is dedicated to this trip. I'll put a spot there for your questions.

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And now it's starting to rain, so I'm off to play a few inside games with Ella.

Kwaheri!

goodbye

yup, bug bites on my face. oh well!