We Have A House

So yes, we have been terrible at keeping you all updated to our life in Uganda. I think mainly for me, I don't love to write (i know, I know, then why do i have a blog!? i’ll let you know if i ever come up w/ an answer to that one), so it takes me forever to write a blog in the first place... & i would just post pictures but it takes hours to download a few pictures...so there is my problem, I don’t want to write & i'm too impatient to post pictures. But I will try to fight through my lack of gifts, and go ahead and catch you up with what's been going on with us.

HOUSING
I had no idea how hard it was going to be to find a place to live. We started looking the day after I got off the plane. Things here are so much more expensive then we thought they would be. Basically it costs just as much here as it does in the D.C. area. There are many suburbs that surround Kampala, so we were trying to decide where Rachel was going to go to school, and then try to see where we wanted to live while taking in consideration where IJM’s offices are. We decided to try to stay as close to the office as possible. Traffic here is terrible and we really didn’t want Jesse to have a 2 hour commute home. So once we narrowed it down to what part of town to live in, we hit the car w/ a real estate agent (actually i went around w/ about 4 of them) to see what was out there.

It was really interesting going out. It seems that no matter what kind of house it is they all cost the same. I saw really nice updated houses, & gross, dark, in great need of updating houses....but they both cost the same. I couldn’t figure it out. They would be in the same neighborhood and everything. Well anyway, early in our search I found a house that I loved! It seemed perfect. Jesse talked with the landlord, who told us he had someone else who was willing to pay X amount ($300 more a month than us) We thought he was bluffing. He wasn’t. House #1 lost.

A side note here. One of the things we were really looking for was a good yard. The weather here is perfect....every day. So we knew we would want to be out a lot. Also Isaac LOVES to run, so if we didn’t have a yard, I would feel like I was caging a large animal. The hard thing about that, is that Kampala is a city of hills. So a lot of the houses we looked at, either had no yard, or a treacherous cliff for one.

But the search went on. In the middle of June we decided on another house. It was a 3 bedroom, with beautiful gardens...Beautiful! Not a ton of running room, but was doable. Also it was only a block from the office, so it just seemed like we should do it. The problem, was again they were asking for more then we could afford. So we met w/ the landlord and negotiated. He was willing to meet us in the middle, we were thrilled. He said his lawyer would send us the contract and we could get in on July 1st. We waited 2 days and didn’t hear from the lawyer so jesse called him, and he said that he didn’t have internet the last 2 days, but he would send it tomorrow. By 4 the next day we still didn’t have it so jesse called again, and the guy said that he was having problems sending it but if jesse wanted to come get it aht he could. So jesse did. Everything looked pretty good, but being the good lawyer jesse is, a couple of words needed to be changed. we sent it back to the lawyer, who said it looked good, just needed the landlord to sign it, and then we could sign it as well. So we waited again. Everytime jesse would call the lawyer, he would have an excuse and say let me call you in 15 minutes, and then never would. Finally Jesse got ahold of the lawyer, who then tells us “sorry it’s been rented” WHAT?! I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jesse that mad. He calls the landlord directly, who said he didn’t know what the lawyer was talking about. The next day we find out that the Lawyer wanted a kickback himself, so he was showing the house to other people behind the landlord’s back. But he found someone to pay $700 more a month, so of course the landlord is going to go with them. House #2 lost. (after wasting about 3 weeks of our time)

At this point I can’t imagine going out and start looking again. Every time I would go out I would usually be driven to 5 houses that I have seen before, and maybe see 1 that was new. It was just so frustrating to see that everything cost the same (still over our hopeful budget). The guy (Sam) we had recently been working with knew a Gardner who gave him a call saying the house he worked at was going up for rent. So we hurried over there so we could be the first to look at it. As Sam showed me around, I was getting annoyed b/c this by far was the nicest house we have seen, and so there was no way we were going to be able to afford it. I was a little annoyed that he would waste our time. But he said it doesn’t hurt to call the landlord and tell him what you want to pay. So Jesse hurried over to look the place over, and called the landlord. Now although the landlord wouldn’t agree to the budget we were hoping, he was willing to come down enough so we could swing it. He gave us the contract 2 days later. You can imagine how much we were sweating it. But everything came through great. & we are loving living here! We often feel guilty living here, but then we remember that again, it didn’t seem to matter where we lived, we would be paying the exact same price as we are for this place. & there is something to be said for feeling like you have a safe, comfortable home to come home too when the stress of living overseas gets to you.

Other really cool news, is that our shipment of stuff (our couch, beds, etc) arrived 3 days after we moved into our place. I mean timing could not have been any better! How awesome is our God?!