Living for Disco

I had an enquiry quite recently as to the conditions in which I live and work, and I realized I’ve never really written about, or shown pictures of my little flat, or my office.

Generally, I’d say, I live and work in conditions not dissimilar to the UK, except for a definite lack of carpets. I went round to a friend’s house the other day, and was marveling at the wonder that is the carpet. They are so soft! So fluffy! So warm! It’s like having slippers, but on the floor, instead of stuck to your feet. Marvellous!

So, flat first. My home is a one bedroom granny flat, enclosed by burglar bars, within the grounds of a larger house. I basically live in the driveway. In order for me to enter my living room, I have to open an automatic gate, close it, unlock another large gate (a bit like the airlock system in space ships, I imagine), close it, unlock and wrestle with the gate on my burglar bars, which badly need oiling, and then open a set of French windows. Fort Knox. As I mentioned in a previous post, if I were to be broken into, I would be trapped, unless I could suddenly find myself vested of X-men type powers and squeeze through the bars that grace all my windows.

I love my little flat though, which is a haven, despite the horrible sofas that match my dog, and seem to be havens for maggot breeding in fly season. Fly season has just passed. It was disgusting. First there were the maggots that kept appearing from everywhere, including my broom. It’s a bit of a shocker to find that you’re making more of a mess by sweeping, and then to realize that the mess is… um… moving. Then I had a house full of dead flies. I’d come home to find at least 100 of them carking it all over the place, while the others buzzed desultorily around the living room like tiny defective missiles. I used almost a whole can of Doom in one week. I like to see those critters squirm.

Here is a picture of my flat.

 

It is not so messy these days, truly.  And I got rid of the basket of dead flowers. Just next to the fridge is a door that leads down three steps to my bedroom, which is on a slope, and my bathroom, which, thankfully, isn’t. I have limitless hot water, and a bathtub, which is fab right now in the freezing conditions I am being forced to withstand. My bathroom is my favourite room in the house, particularly now that I have decorated it with fake plastic orchids.

This is my patio, with my bike.

The large tree outside is now covered in just-ripe oranges. Some of them still have a greenish tinge, which, in the early morning light, makes them look as if they’ve been painted gold. Insert a fat dog chasing pigeons into the picture, and you’ll pretty much be there.

As for my office, it’s based in a residential house, because we can’t afford office space.  One of our staff members lives here, and honestly, I don’t know how he does it.  There’s no kitchen to speak of, and certainly no fridge.  I don’t think he eats at all.  There are seven of us here at various times.  At any one time you can hear conversations in a mixture of Oshiwambo, Otjiherero, Afrikaans and English.  I just stand there going ‘uhh?’ and looking confused.

All you need to know about my personal little shoe box is that I share it with a 30 year old toddler with ADD, who talks nonsense 95% of the time. The remaining 5% he appears to make sense, but the jury is still out. Earlier this week, due to the mysterious polio outbreak that has been dominating the news recently, he was convinced that he was dying, and so I have hardly seen him. Unfortunately, yesterday it emerged that it was simply a mild case of tonsillitis, which doesn’t seem to have impaired his ability to speak incessantly of nothing, so now he is back.

C’est ca. Any questions? It’s very dull really. I hope I haven’t bored you.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 9th, 2006 at 10:02 am and is filed under Under African Skies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.