Baxters in Africa: Our New Apartment

     After staying with Elder and Sister Moss for 8 days, we finally began the process of moving. Elder and Sister Oborn came up from Johannsesburg on Sunday night to bring our new furniture and things for our apartment. They are the couple responsible for the apartments for the missionaries. They pulled a trailer with our couch and chair and bedding, along with his tools to fix whatever needed fixing. They stayed with Elder and Sister Nichols on Sunday night. Monday morning, the Nichols' loaded their car and headed to Johannesburg on route to Kenya to visit some former members where they served a few years ago. (I'm always amazed at how many couples have served 2 or 3 missions previously). Sister Oborn brought a lot of bedding down to the Moss's apartment to run through her washer as the electricity was about to run out in our apartment and it was a holiday today and the office where you buy more electricity was closed until Tuesday or Wednesday and we she didn't want to use all our electricity running the washer and dryer. She informed me that I might want to go in and clean a little before we moved our things in. Having been to the apartment a couple of times earlier, I already knew I would need to do that. (Some people just don't seem to be as particular as I am)

     I started on the kitchen first since that seemed to be the biggest or worst area. It was worse than I thought! I took everything out of each cupboard and scrubbed out the cupboards and then washed everything that was in them and rearranged things to my liking. I wiped of bottles and containers before putting them back in the cupboard or fridge. We worked until about 7:30 that night, and had the kitchen and fridge done. It was dark and seemed too dingy to tell if I was getting it clean or not, so we decided to call it a day.

    Sisters Moss and Oborn made a trip to the stores earlier to get bedding, throw rugs, and toss pillows to give the apartment some personality. I was amazed how well Sister Oborn did with choosing out colors that were something that I could live with. The couch was a light beige suede with a matching ottoman, and a medium blue chair. We chose to keep the winged back blue chair that was already here. It was a little worn, but looked great with the other blue chair, though a different style. It seemed to give balance to the living room. Elder Oborn hung a new mirror in the main bathroom, and put a new light cover over the light in the second bathroom. They were supposed to leave to go back to Joburg by about 3:30, but didn't even leave to go have a bite of dinner at the Moss's until 6:30. We encouraged them to stay overnight, but she had a doctor appointment the next morning, and they were bringing the Nichols' luggage since they couldn't fit it in their car. So they had no choice but to leave and drive during the night. It was a four and half hour drive. We felt badly for them to drive so late, because we knew they were tired, but we really did appreciate all their help in getting things done in our apartment.

     We also appreciated Sister Moss's help in preparing lunch and dinner for all of us while we worked that day. We had asked her if we could stay another day so we could finish getting things cleaned before we started unpacking them. They told us of course we could. It seemed nice to go to a clean apartment and be able to shower and sleep after being in the dissaray of our apartment. The Moss's have also been expremely helpful while we have been there by taking us to different areas or shopping places for groceries etc, to help acquaint us with the area. We would have ben totally lost without a clue as to where to go or what was available.   They have been terrific mentors and great friends. We have had a lot of fun times while at their flat. Sometimes we hae laughed until we had tears running down our faces.

     The next day, we got ready and headed to the apartment for some more of the same. I finished hanging some drapes in the bedroom, cleaned the bathrooms, wiped out shelves in the bedroom and bathroom so we dared put our things away. About 8:00 that night, we went back to the Moss's to pack up our things and transfer them to our new apartment. After unpacking our clothes and some of our bathroom things, we got the bed made up and hit the showers, ready for a good night's sleep in our new flat. You'd think that after all the hours that we'd put in, I'd be asleep before my head hit the pillow; however, that wasn't the case. I lay there for several hours. It was nearly 4:30 before I could finally go to sleep. The next morning, a litle after 6:00, the sun was shining brightly in our window, despite the drapes being closed, so that was the end of my sleep.

     This day wasn't so productive! I had been cleaning out the hall closet and washing towels and sheets that were in them, and my washer stopped in the middle of the cycle, and the door was locked so I couldn't do anything to get it unlocked. A little later, the water went off. We didn't know why, so without any water to clean or wash, we decided to go do errands and get some groceries.   When we came back later that day, we had water, so we were able to get the floors mopped, (actually Lynn did all the mopping, and with all tile floors, that was no simple task!) and get the rugs down and now the apartment was beginning to look like a real place to live. It was worth all the effort!

     Voila!! The finished product!

Hanging the drapes in the extra bedroom.

The finished room, just waiting for guests. Any takers???

Nice to have a maid to help with the difficult chores!! :)

So much fun shaking those comforters into the duvae covers!

Our finished room. I like the bright green.

Our patio looking from the outside in. Notice the barred doors. This is typical everywhere.

The view from the patio looking out. That's the row of flats on the row just below us. We're on the bottom level. (They think we're too decrepid to do stairs.)

Our front entry. Notice the African Wall hanging. The African that I bought it from told me it was a window shade to keep the flies out. Our African guest tonight told he had never heard of such a thing. Oh well, it does make a nice wall hanging. (Tha carved wood hanger was already there. There's a mirror on the other side of the room to match.

The right side of our kitchen. As you can see, we're fairly modern. At least we don't have to scrub our clothes outside in three buckets.

Our kitchen, with a small utility room at the end. Do you like the hand made mahogony bowl that I bought from a young man from Zimbabwe on our way to Nelspruit?