Arrested Development

It's been over a month since my last update. I wish I could say that's because I've been so busy moving in to our apartment.... but that's not entirely true.  I'm writing this now from the exact same hotel room I was in a month ago, but we have made a lot of progress recently. In the past few weeks I've spent a lot of time waiting around inside my apartment for things to be fixed, curtains to be hung, and cable guys to show up.

Here's the progress:

• We have staff! We now have our own driver and stewardess. Both of whom we really like a lot so far.

• We have electricity! Someone finally paid our "service charge" to the complex and the electricity in our apartment can be kept on even when we aren't home.  It's really luxurious not to have to wait for our apartment to cool off every time I arrive with boxes. Cause, ya know, it's hot in Africa.  This means we can start putting things in our refrigerator and making ice cubes! 

• We have appliances! A refrigerator, a microwave, water dispenser, and a currently-broken washer/dryer combo.

• We have cooking gas! This was another several day process that concluded on Monday. I'm new to cooking with a gas oven with actual flames at the bottom, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. The only thing I've baked in it was a Pillsbury funfetti cake that I brought to Ryan's office Monday, and, since I've had 0 reports of food poisoning, I'm calling it a success! Thank you to the person who advised I bring a Fahrenheit oven thermometer over!

• We have entertainment! We have a working tv in our apartment, a satellite AND wireless internet!

• We have curtains! They are beautifully uneven at the bottom, but who's looking down there other than people sitting on the floor (I've been sitting on the floor a lot lately since we didn't have furniture). 

• We have a car! Well, actually we've been driving around in a used SUV with a cracked radiator the past few weeks. But our permanent car finally arrived today! Apparently, Nigeria has been fresh out of Toyota RAV4's until today. Hooray!

• We have OUR STUFF! Our air shipment arrived last week and it's been really exciting to look through all the stuff we packed up last year. Thankfully, once it finally got the "okay" to leave Houston, it made it to Lagos and into our apartment in  < 2 weeks. Can't complain about that! Everything arrived in perfect condition, with the only exception being my special french press for iced coffee, which I dropped while taking it out of the box. Whoops! It's weird to see things that we thought we'd need over here, and then to realize that we don't really need any of that stuff after living without it.  But it is nice to have frivolous stuff again!

• We have 1 couch, 1 love seat, and 2 living room chairs! The rest of the furniture will supposedly arrive next Wednesday, supposedly. 

I'd been harboring grandiose plans to move into our flat tomorrow, but after our disappointing furniture delivery today, that clearly won't be happening. Tonight is American Night at the hotel and I was really hoping we could make it our last meal here. No such luck! To say that we're incredibly frustrated doesn't even begin to describe this ordeal. From the beginning, we've said that all we need to move into our apartment is a mattress, electricity, a fridge and tv/internet. We are so, so, so, close to getting to that point. We just need that darn mattress!