Keeping House in the Developing World: Sacrifice, Improvisation, and Innovation

Despite the fact that other interns have stayed here in the past, our house was definitely not ready for us when we arrived. The bednets (necessary deterrent for malaria-carrying mosquitoes and other critters) weren’t up yet and we didn’t have materials to hang them with. The toilet was broken and the bathroom floor was already flooded when we arrived; the fluorescent bulb flickered incessantly like a strobe light – bathroom rave, anyone? The light at the top of the stairs didn’t work at all. We had no hot water whatsoever, and our campstove wouldn’t hook up to its propane tank (read: no way to cook food!). Our mini-fridge wouldn’t turn on. Our employer had provided us with pots, plates, and spoons only – apparently Malagasies don’t use knives and forks much! And, best of all, two COLOSSAL spiders reside outside the kitchen window: the kind of thing out of nightmares, bodies the size of gumballs, legs two inches long!
How did we deal with all this?
We rigged the bednets on our lights and some wooden poles the office guard gave us, using a little masking tape; I keep mine closed at night using hairclips! We held our bladders as long as we could between bathroom stops at the office next door, decreasing our water and food intake (since we couldn’t cook anyways!). Sprayed the bathroom floor with Raid in case mosquitoes tried to lay eggs in the pool of water on the floor (the bathroom window is only covered by a sagging net, which we had to tape up as well). Flashlights to get up and down the stairs (mine is wind-up, so it never runs out of battery!). Didn’t bathe the Thursday we arrived, or Friday (disgusting, I know, especially after the 8 hours in the cramped and crowded taxi-brousse!), but finally Saturday night we gave in and took icy-cold showers, squatting in the tub so people couldn’t see us through the window! The guard next door helped us hook up the stovetop, and we had a triumphant meal of spaghetti with ketchup (made in the United Arab Emirates and purchased by us at Supermarché 3000, a tiny grocery store) – the pasta + ketchup is a favorite comfort food of Francesca’s, and though I am a purist and marinara sauce fiend, I’ll admit it wasn’t bad. We ate it using two tin forks we bought at the street market; later we bought a knife at a tiny shop. In the past week I’ve started sautéeing vegetables, so I finally feel like myself again; Francesca can subsist on pasta and bread, but I definitely cannot!
We figured out the problem with the fridge, in which we now store all foods, even dry goods, for fear of bugs and rodents. I boiled a pot of hot water to wash my face. The neighbors helped up figure out the leak that was flooding the bathroom (turns out it was coming from the shower head and running around the edge of the tub to the floor) and fix the toilet; they also gave us a new fluorescent bulb to replace the old one.
Despite the kind efforts of the plumber called by our next-door neighbor, the hot water tank is still non-functioning; however, we have gotten into the routine of heating a few pots of water on the stove in the morning, filling a large plastic bucket, and carrying that to the bathroom to wash with.
Today we went back to Supermarché 3000 and bought, among other things, rope, so we now have a clothesline hanging in our upstairs room to dry our towels.
And, perhaps one of our crowning achievements (those of you who know we well will be impressed), we decided to spare spiders, indoors and out, on a case-by-case basis; after all, anything that eats mosquitoes is a friend of mine! We named our kitchen window friends: Francesca’s is Shelob, from Lord of the Rings, and mine, ironically, is Ron Weasley [pictured above with a tiny friend; we can't figure out if it's a baby, a mate, or a mooching neighbor], whose character is notorious for his arachnophobia in Harry Potter. We now watch with morbid fascination, cameras at the ready, as they descend from their respective lairs to eat an unfortunate flies!