34 Fisher

I LOVE our new home. It's small but has exactly everything we could need right now. It's a flat that's attached to the bottom of someone's house - Phil and Di Russell are our new neighbors and landlords. We found it through our friends Liz and John who we were staying with when we first returned to Zimbabwe.

The moment Jason and I walked in, we both looked at each other and knew we were going to take it. We would have been crazy not to - it's fully furnished and the bed even has a real mattress and not just one of those oversized sponges that are too soft and terrible for your back. So here's our virtual tour:

This is the back of the house and we are the flat one the first floor of the house.

There is a little garden right outside where we eat our breakfasts on the weekend. We're talking about getting a nice little umbrella so we can sit out here and have sundowners and enjoy the beautiful evenings.
You walk directly into the foyer with the dinning room on your left and the tv/sitting area on your right.
The TV nook is great - it even has a TV, courtesy of our lovely landpeople, so we can watch the SABC channels as well as our new favorite news channel France24. It's actually the only decent international news station we get. Two oversized chairs and if we're looking for a loveseat to add to the are so we can at least snuggle while we're watching movies.

We finally a have a table to eat our meals at! And it seats 6 so we can have a nice dinner party, although we only have a set of 4 dishes right now. What also makes it so great is the open bar counter that connects to the kitchen! Finally we have counter space and we can both be in the kitchen without stepping all over each other.

We had to invest in a gas canister and gas stovetop because of all the ZESA issues - they do a lot of power showering in our neighborhood right in the middle of the dinner cooking hour so it's nice to have the gas alternative. We also use a large black trash bin (that's never been used for trash) to store our drinking water, which is harvested rain water that's been treated. We do have water running out of the taps but it's not treated as much as the stored rain water so to be on the safe side we just drink the rain water. The municipal water comes and goes so most households have created back up systems like this one.

Across from the kitchen is the dressing room. It's a whole tiny room that has closets big enough to fit all of our clothes, although no drawers. Eventually we'll put a little desk in here so we can always have the printer set up and accessible. The window looks into the TV area.

The bedroom is kind of funny because there is no real separation from the rest of the house - you look directly at the bed when you're standing in the front doorway. There is a half wall that separates the kitchen from the room but otherwise, it's open. Because the house is set into the hill, the bedroom is basically underground, therefore no windows.

The bathroom is spacious with a tub and a separate shower that has EXCELLENT water pressure! Can't complain at all. The only funny thing is that the light switch, instead of being right outside the door is actually in the kitchen. A fun little quirk.


So that's our home. We love it, we're comfortable and it's the perfect price for our little budget.