The apartment blog!

For all of you avid blog followers, the blog you have been waiting for is here! It's the apartment blog! It's only about two weeks after I originally wanted to post this, so thanks for your patience... 

After Ian spent two weeks looking at 20+ apartments, from dingy studios to pimpin' penthouses, we settled on a nice 2-bed 1-bath that wasn't even referred to us from Ian's vast networking of local real estate agents, the landlord is the best friend of one of my colleagues. Fortunately Ian doesn't see it as time wasted, because he got a good idea of the market and knew to snap this one up when he saw it. I'm glad he did because it's perfect for us. 

The location is only five minutes away from where I was in the Build Change apartments, so it's a good distance in between work and Petionville, the part of town where we normally go out for dinner, drinks or to parties. The landlord is very nice and putting in a BBQ pit, so we'll soon be able to have cook outs! We're surrounded by Haitian neighbours, which is nice because it makes me feel a lot more connected with my surroundings than I did living in a poppy palace in Kabul. Plus there aren't any helicopters flying 100m above my bed. 

Here is what I know you’re really looking for thought, the photos:

View from the front door

The living room

Our balcony! We eat here almost every meal... 

The master bedroom. The cleaning lady was washing our sheets.. 

Our landlord said that when the earthquake hit, they were renting these apartments unfurnished to Haitian families. Many moved out because they were afraid to sleep under a concrete slab roof (it took some people up to a year to be able to sleep inside again, so don't take this as a shot against the structural integrity of our building), and the landlord decided to furnish the apartments and rent to expats. Our landlord is actually a young guy and so he took extra furniture from his parents house and put it into our apartment and showed it off to potential clients like a model home! We still have our "model home" furniture, but actually it make the place feel quite homey and has a Haitian flavour, I really really like it. 

In other fun news, Ian got a job! He’s going to be working as a Finance Delegate with the British Red Cross. He’s very happy with his choice and I’m proud of him – Red Cross jobs are hard to land! He actually flies to the UK on Saturday for a week of orientation (during the Olympics!) and then will start in earnest Aug 13th. Inshallah he will continue to be able to live with me, pending the outcome of a security assessment, but the Red Cross don't seem to bothered about it and I think it will all work out. I'm actually going to miss his first few in-country days, as I'll be back in Ottawa for a VERY short R&R trip, I fly in at midnight on Friday the 10th and fly out mid-day on Weds the 15th.... 

Last weekend was a holiday in Haiti as well as the Canada, for a just-as-random holiday, le Carnival des Fleurs. Since Monday and Tuesday were off, we took advantage of the possibility for some in-country travel and went up north to Cap Haitien. That blog to follow...