Our New Home

John and I went to take a peek at a potential house for us all to stay in a little ways out of the main town.  It is called Allentown.  It has two stories and also a little house out back.  The top story is where Chad and Robin are going to stay.  It seems very nice!  3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.  There little kiddos will like that!

A picture of the top story of the house...

I'm thinking that John and I will stay in the level below that which you can kind of see in the picture above.  The only thing is that we weren't able to walk through it lol!  The guard had somehow  lost misplaced the key and will get it soon.  I am told that it is two bedroom and two bath.


We were able to see the house that is behind the bigger house.  It also had two bedroom and two bath.

The Kitchen

It is not much... Robin and Chad have a 4 burner gas stove and oven for us to use.  We may need to get some shelving and cabinets made.  Possibly some extra counter space.  Luckily woodwork is very cheap here... for labor and material cost.

Here are the tiles in what I'll call the "back house".  Apparently they are made locally IN Sierra Leone.  I think they look really neat!

You can see in this picture and maybe some of the others but the walls need a fresh paint!  We put that in the contract for the landlord to do before we will commit to renting it out.

This is the view from the back house.  You can see the huge water tank.

Our neighbor in the back and our landlord work for the water company so he promised we will always have water.  This is his house... It looks nice! 

I think there is a satellite on top of his house for TV.  We won't have that but we may put up a satellite for internet.  The internet here has been really sporadic and slow.  We jokingly call it our SLOW-dem instead of modem.  The satellite will be a lot faster, but still maybe not as fast as high speed internet in the states.  Unfortunately it is really expensive!  The actual cost to run the satellite isn't too bad but the government here charges and extra $2500 a year! Its ridiculous! The government considers it a luxury so they tax it crazily to make a little extra.  They don't see that to really rev up businesses and economy that have to make some of these things affordable for local people or things won't improve.

Please pray for the government here that good leaders will be put into authority positions to make decisions that will better the living conditions for the people here instead of with the goal of making money for themselves.

Here are a few more pictures of the houses from different angles.

This is a neat plaque on the house... It is the name of the house

COURAGE!!! (I don't know if it takes courage to live there or why its named that but I like it!)  We are very blessed to find this house because it is a good deal per month and very nice quality.  I think we pay under $300/month for rent for a 4 year old house.  Hopefully the cheap rent will out-weigh the pricey internet each month.  I am willing to skimp on some other areas in order to be able to talk with our friends and family via email or skype.

And finally a view of the river that is on the other side of the street from our home...

I hope to be able to take walks alongside this road.  It is a very green and beautiful area to live!

Sorry this post is a little out of order... but the next post will be about our trip after staying at the rutile mines to look on a couple of villages as potential sites for medical clinics for Willamette.