Pages

Top Tens

Top ten reasons to move to another apartment


10. Ouch, you lousy beasts!: Mosquitos. They eat me day and night and I need to get off the ground floor and out of the gardens.


9. It's not a third bedroom: They told me the second bathroom was converted into another bedroom. What they meant was they took out the toilet and tub and made a closet.


8. It's your turn to switch the generator knob: power switches off all the time here. And the generator switches must be turned manually, often at 2am. They are located outside the apartment.


7.  Stinky teacher: sometimes the water shuts off for a couple of days. The equation reads: Teacher+ (humidity-shower) = Ewww.


6. Ant invasion: there's a hole behind the water pipe in my shower. The ants pour in. I hose them down the drain. They pour in. I hose them down again. It's a power struggle that I win, eventually. They stay away for a few days and then make another attempt.


5. Just PULL really hard, no REALLY hard. No the other side. Just PULLL!: this is what I have to say to everyone who tries to open my front door.


4. Cat fight!: or cat and monkey. Not really sure what's going on in the middle of the night outside my door but it's not friendly.


3. Party at the Pink Coconut: this is the new club beside my house that boasts loud music out of blown speakers (all the speakers here are blown and fuzzy. In fact I think the static sound has become an important part of East African music)


2. Another day, another peep show: I sometimes forget to close my drapes in my bedroom. I kind of follow that rule "if I can't see them, they can't see me" for neighbours. I just realized two days ago that somehow, those laws of sight angles don't really apply to my bedroom window and that it's easy to see into my room from the back courtyard. I should also mention that 2 of my students live back there. Sorry kids! Didn't mean to scare you!


1. Carl. (Just kidding Carl. You're only, like, number 7 or something)


Top ten things I like about Shopper's Plaza (an overpriced grocery store here on the peninsula in Dar)

10. Open late hours: Not since Wal~mart has a store been open until 10 on a Sunday.
9. Pumped A/C: hot days don't seem so unbearable when you are blasted into the tundra on your shopping excursion
8. Crazy-wheel shopping carts: last I checked, the purpose of a shopping cart was to drive straight down aisles of the store. These ones will pivot 360 and spin out of control if you're not all that particular about the way you push them.
7. Friendly tellers: they smile and don't judge you on your purchases, even when 70% of it is junk
6. Loads of staff: this can be said for many stores here (Mr. Price takes the prize for this I think). There are so many staff in the store at any given time it's not uncommon to have to push by people in every aisle during your excursion. And you must say hi to all of them.
5. Wall o' milk. Need I say more.
4. The 'specials' shelf, boasting all sorts of expired treasures. Nothing like stale crackers!
3. The majority of the food doesn't taste like moth balls (a flavour infused into most of the stuff purchased at certain other stores...Shrijees, for instance)
2. Kraft Dinner. 8900 Tsh per box (that's about $8 Cdn)
1.  Cheese counter. Seriously, the selection is improving all the time. Soon we'll have havarti!