a new pink toilet!

Pictures: our front door and apartment building.


Our school is very nice with a beautiful courtyard garden. The building itself is in great shape and is 5 stories with around 12 classrooms and a small library.
Good news! At about 7:10 tonight there was a knock on our door. Abdul Karim (the housing manager) told us that he got us a new hammam (toilet). A couple of guys, cheeks stuffed with qat, brought us a nice new pink one. So...they are currently in our bathroom pounding away at concrete. Imagine finding a plumber in the states willing to work this late at night let alone what it would cost. People here on average make about $4 a day so even if these guys make $20 they will probably be pretty happy. I guess "god's will" worked quickly today.



Other observations about our new city: The streets here are covered in trash; people just throw their trash wherever they happen to be. There are many Somalis who live here that clean the streets, our stoop is swept at least twice a day. Other good news, we have a maid! Apparently in our $300 a month rent she will come in whenever we want. Pretty sweet.



I was just outside talking to some little kids--they are so adorable. They started with the normal "allo" then "what your name?" followed by the compulsory "flus?" (money). Then this boy told me that his brother had problems with his eyes, I look down at the boy whose eyes were of course perfectly normal until I looked down and he crossed them for me. Quite the racket indeed. Our little "business" meeting was interrupted by rain that came out of nowhere. The main street here is sunken, and it serves two functions: 1st a highway, and when it rains like this a river. All of the cars get off the "highway" and jam into the local streets causing a huge traffic jam in the Old City. The rain lasted about 5 minutes and was gone. And while we’re on the weather, it’s not bad at all, it gets warm in the day and it is a little humid but I can’t imagine that it got above 85 today, although I'd be more accurate
if it weren't for their silly metric system and the confusing Celsius nonsense. The director of the institute Mohammed told us today that it doesn't get above 30C which apparently is a lovely temperature.