Our house, in the middle of the street

I just uploaded a few photos I took this morning of the area around my house. I thought I should post an entry explaining small-small about what I might variously refer to as “my house,” “our house,” “the house,” “T’s house,” or “Hey, it keeps the rain off.” I lose track of what details I’ve blogged vs. what I’ve emailed, so I thought I’d post a snazzy all-in-one point-of-reference, complete with our highly-detailed, exactly-to-scale, super-technical floorplan, from which to orient yourself.

I say “our” floorplan, because I share “our” half of the building (it’s something like a duplex) with another teacher. For now I’m just going to refer to her as “T”, until she says otherwise. She’s lived here alone for the past four years, so when I moved to school housing, I really moved into a room in her house. This had (has) pros and cons, as you may imagine. Suffice to say… I believe we both are adjusting well. Things are working out, but I reserve the right to vent my one-room-frustrations here in the future.

A few notes: As is common in Ghanaian architecture, the rooms in the house are oriented around an open-sky courtyard. This means that I can lock my room door without restricting any of T’s access to the rest of the house. It also means that we can hang our laundry to dry in the privacy of our courtyard, instead of outside. Also, regarding the toilet and shower room: we don’t have indoor plumbing, but we do have a toilet - to flush, simply pour a bucket of water into the bowl. The shower room is more appropriately called a “bathing room”, and is just a concrete room with floor drain. There are no showers without plumbing; I’m proud of the fact that I can bathe with half a bucket of water.

One more thing; when viewing the floorplan, you might wonder “who’s ‘???’?”. Good question. If you find out, please let me know. (Apparently, the room belongs to another teacher, who uses it a few times a term - another teacher whom I’ve yet to meet. School Powers That Be are said to be moving “???” to another room in another house on campus, in order to give me access to ???’s room in our house, but that other room has yet to be vacated, though the teacher who lived there retired last term. Confusing? I know.).