Homes Sweet Homes
on Tara's Ethiopian Adventure (Ethiopia), 11/Feb/2010 14:02, 34 days ago
Living as a volunteer you expect to be living in fairly basic accommodation, although our accommodation is often considerably better than those of our colleagues. When visiting other volunteers we normally have to ask if there is any special trick to flushing the toilet as it is rarely straightforward. The houses often come with holes in the ceiling, strange and often uncomfortable furniture, basic kitchens with no ovens or fridges and sometimes not even electrical points, as well as a number of other quirky things unique to each individual home. You very quickly get used to this and indeed it seems normal. In fact as I said earlier we often feel very lucky compared to other people we know. Certainly nothing worth moaning about or writing home about. So instead I would like to tell you the story of one VSO friend and the extraordinarily bad luck she had with both her house in Ethiopia and her house in the UK (while she was volunteering in Ethiopia). Valerie and the Criminal Masterminds...·        In Ethiopia she found out that some local people were siphoning off her water supply and selling it when she received her quarterly water bill which more resembled a large hotel’s bill than that of a small house.·        When she went home for Christmas she wanted to check up on her house that she had rented out. She tried ringing loads times to get an appointment while the tenants but in the end she had to give up and let herself in. When she opened the door she found her house had been converted into a cannabis factory. Fluorescent lights had been attached everywhere and she even found that had removed her fitted wardrobe to make more floor space for growing the plants!Can you believe her bad luck!? And she is not the only one to have problems. Another VSO couple who I am particularly close to have had a nightmare with housing this year... not only did they arrive in country to find no house ready for them and were then shifted from one temporary accommodation to the next but last month they had a monumental disaster with their cottage in England. A cold water pipe in the attic of burst. The force of the water brought down the ceiling into their bedroom. The weight of that then led to further collapse as their bedroom fell into their living room. Obviously with all that water the house became flooded and many of their possessions were ruined. David has had to head home for 2 months to sort out the damage. I guess the only saving grace was that they were in fact in Ethiopia at the time and not in their bed when it happened! It makes me feel very glad that I don’t have a house to worry about back home and that I seem to have landed on my feet somewhat with housing here. Although obviously quite depressing, I hope the first story at least amused you a little and that neither story put any of you off volunteering and leaving a house behind!