1.12.2011

economics

Our steward starts tomorrow.  Therefore I just spent the last hour picking up the house...

I have to admit I am a little nervous letting someone into our home unsupervised.  But she seems really nice, and came with a recommendation letter, so we're going to give her a try.  I mean, if she works out it'll be the most amazing deal of the century.  She comes every weekday morning and does the dishes, makes the bed, picks up all the clothes, and lets the dogs outside.  Then two days a week she also deep-cleans and does the laundry and ironing.  Oh, and if we need her to go to the market to get us anything, we just give her money and she goes to get it.  Which also means we pay less for things at the market since our steward is buying them and they don't know its some "Oyibo's" money.  And we pay her $100 a month.  Total.  Joey and I felt guilty paying her so little, but its about the going rate around here, which is apparently considered a really good job.  The average wage in Abuja is only $1 a day, so I guess since she's making six times that and gets free rent, she has a good gig.  Regardless, we did lock up everything valuable just in case.



So the job I am working now is the one I applied for back in DC, as an accountant.  

I have about a million things I want to blog about and I just keep getting side-tracked and its 11:30 at night here, so I suppose it'll have to wait for another day.

pictures are up

I finally posted my pictures - they took all day to upload because the connection is so slow (but I'm not complaining because we aren't supposed to have internet at all during the day) - go to the "pics" page and click on the link.

The pictures include scenes from the Mogadishu Fish Market, Wuse Market (where the picture of our pasty white selves was taken, which led me to lay out without sunscreen, thinking the dust from the Harmatan would provide shield enough - bad, bad idea), Garke Market (stories to come about watching a chicken get hacked up), the Farmer's Market in Maitama, and the requisite lizard shots.  Enjoy.