Landing in Kenya; house hunt (cont...)

Upon landing here in Kenya I encountered a few things that I did not particularly like.
There are many positive things to say about this country and although I am most of the time a sunshiny positive blind child some of the negative things were so in obvious that they couldn’t stay unmentioned; have to be blogged about.
Of course, I know that I went to a developing country and of course I know the majority of people have different concerns but still… some things were, and still are too strong not to rise and eyebrow. Sometimes it is just because I don’t understand it.

Upon landing here I went to stay with friends. Great guys who opened their guest room for me and that's a great stepping stone into the new world.
These friend have a nice house (understatement), great staff and all the comfort one could wish for.
They have a different income schedule than I have.
My stay with them is temporarily, I will have to find my own place. I thought I was one of the creative kind who could, with a little luck, a little networking and some smiles get a good place for an OK price.

Wrong!
OK prices in this town are for not OK places.
Not OK prices are for places where I’d like to stay.

For several days I went around with a driver and I saw some 40 apartments. Those of you who have read my dutch blogs have heard about this before, but still, I will do it over again. The point was (and is) I don’t know what I want amnd I hate that. bloody choices I have to make while I can not oversee the consequenses. Do I want a house with garden, an apartment with a terrace, just a small cheap nothing thing? Where? In Lavington, Hurlingham, Westends or all the way in Karen? Do I want to live on my own or with friends? Do I want an office space in the apartment or will I be working at the co-producing company? Do I want a nice house with a daily traffic jam or do I want to live easy and close by my work (and where will that be?)… thousands of possibilities and all with a price tag; either in money or in effort, either in comfort or in traffic.

Some years ago I was living in Asia and for quite some time I shared a house with friends. Actually guys I didn’t know too well but they became really good friends afterwards. We had a huge villa with a pool, some bedrooms, a living with a TV and a pool table, had staff and a fridge with food and plenty of drinks, a car park with practical and funny cars and a guard that kept his eyes closed and never saw at what state and with who you walked in. That place didn’t come cheap, but among 3 or 4 guys it was a bargain. That Jakarta experience is my standard.

I dreamt of getting into a place like that again, so through friends, colleagues and others I started asking around. I had a meeting with an old grumpy German journalist who smelled like beer at 4pm, had a meeting with a Ghanaian woman who was looking for a someone to share her (ugly) house with including the sharing of her bedroom. I went to see a Spanish diplomat, his apartment was tiny and expensive and it turned out that he was doing parties 4 nights a week…
I guess I have reached an age where people I would like to share houses with are either married with children or gay. The left overs are demanding drunks, desperate women and me.
The option of a shared house was not really realistic on this short notice, maybe later I come across that ideal partner to share with (or I ask the Jakarta gang to come to Kenya).

A house with a garden would be nice too. There are numerous placed like that, either recently built townhouses (too many smallish built on too little terrain but within an enclosed compound). These places don’t come cheap. €1200 monthly is a very good price. Often they are furnished and that is a good reason for the owner to ask for some €400 extra per month. Furniture is never your taste, and you will have to accept that. But it is quite hard to sit on a dirty sofa that is bigger than the living, with Persian print cushions, curtains in clashing colors and with dust collecting draperies on the wall, a dining table of the weirdest ironwork with unmatching chairs that must have been made by the 15th century blacksmith in Iceland. In the kitchen we find a collection of plates, cups, glasses and cutlery that doesn’t match, except for the ugliness and the bad design. Some of the places had bedlinen and towels too. That was never new, often used and seldom washed.
After a while I strated looking out for something in each interior, that one single thing in each house, that I wouldn’t like to throw away immediately. And I decided that it wouldn’t be a good idea pay any money to sit in a place where nothing is not ugly. Knowing myself I would start throwing away stuff and in the end having to pay for he replacement on top of the rent.
These furnished houses were not really inviting to start a new chapter in life.
Townhouses are supposed to be nice because there is a garden. Kenyans don’t like gardens. They like places to hang their laundry and they like places to put their barbeque, but I guess they don’t like to sit outdoors.
The houses are big considering the plots they’ve been built on. Every inch is used and the few small spots that have been left over are in the shade and not really to sit in. Sometimes there was this fruitless attempt to grow some grass, really can’t call it a lawn. It is raining every now and then and it’s all red mud.

A nice old house with a nice old garden? Sounds nice, doesn’t it.
The rent was not the problem, but it is the costs that come with it: Security companies know their business. They apply nice iron fences, electric wires, camera’s and supply Masaai or others guys who don’t care sitting by a gate all day and who don’t care not doing anything al day. (and seem not to be able to speak). Next to the security, a guy for the garden is indispensable. Stuff grows like crazy here and there is this great machete technique to shorten everything; slashing style. I don’t like gardening (except for the herbs and weeds that can be eaten).
It seems that I will be traveling quite a lot and therefore I don’t find it reasonable to have such expenses for a place that will sit empty a lot.
It would have been wonderful to share a place like this but not with a smelly German journalist, a partying Spaniard or a yearning Ghanaian.

What is left is the apartment. As I said before I saw some 40 of them. From very chique to plain East German quality. Here the same funny thing happens as with the townhouses. Too big on too little land. Shitty detailing and most of them have this smell of cheapness to it, which is not reflected in the price. (I think it would be a good idea to go into real estate development here; can’t be expensive to built). After having seen all these places I concluded that it wasn’t them who were funny, but me who is crazy. Of course, it all comes down to decorating the places; if an apartment is badly built you won’t feel or see it if it’s full with these Iranian rugs (not Persian), if you put up a lot of draping curtains up and if you can’t look around because you have to concentrate to eat and drink from badly designed glassed and plates.
In the end I saw 2 or 3 nice apartments. Nice wooden floors, nice terraces, nicely located, good and practical lay outs… I decided that I could see myself living there and wouldn’t be irritated and aggravated all day by bad design, wrong colors and tasteless interiors. I could see myself living there and even enjoying it.

Then the bargaining started. At least I thought it should.
These apartments are owned by rich people. They buy it as an investment and they want their money back, as soon as possible. I think that is a good economic principle. But if your apartment sits empty for a month or two, then you will need quite some time to cover up the loss; you could also give a nice discount to Alexander to get some rent. Immediately.
I think it might have something to do with transparency or with a funny local law, maybe a loss of face or I don’t know what, but my attempts to bargain didn’t really help. After I offered a considerably lower price then the owner wanted I didn’t hear anything anymore. Just silence on the other side of the line, just unanswered e-mails. I was hanging there, anxiously waiting, preparing for the next step in my new life. While thinking that we had just began with a long up and down calling of amounts and conditions, I was visualizing myself in that livingroom, imagining what kind of bed and towels would fit the rooms, checking nearby shopping malls for plates, glasses and cutlery (and finding out why everybody had the same ugly stuff; there is not too much choice), I went through all the scenes and dreams of living there, but there was no answer anymore. Dead lines.
Two apartments were gone because I thought the price could be lower. Me arrogant mzungu.

Now there is this one apartment left. It competes with all others because the terrace is so nice; it is really huge and has a great view. That terrace almost compensates a garden. The apartment is not too big, but quite practically designed. I can have an office at home and there is more then enough space to give shelter to friends and other guests. (with whom we can have nice terrace parties, when I went to look here there were empty champagne bottles everywhere, that partying comes with the house I guess, or did that German journalist live there before he went on a searching trip for a drinking mate?) I tried a bit on the bargaining and the price came down a bit, to my surprise.
Today I have received the contract. A very official piece op paper from a law firm. But in this paper it said that I have to rent if for at least a year. So I called he land lord, a lady with really high heels, and she answered saying that if I want if for that price, I have to put my signature for a longer term. Will I be biting the dust again? Hope not!
Tomorrow is Sunday and I will see if I can convince her that probably 12 month is a bit steep, but that 3 could.
Tonight I will dream and see myself sitting on that top floor terrace overlooking the city, smelling the nice flowers of the trees and seeing the birds of prey circle the trash dump on the other site of the road.

Then when I wake up I will decide that it could be very nice living there, but it is no way as nice as this house here, with this great garden, lovely staff. Every step I take will be less comfortable then where I am now. It’ll be hard to leave.