Through the keyhole, Nairobi style

House hunting has been a major preoccupation for me for the last couple of weeks in the hope that we can find somewhere affordable that we want to live, that is near enough school and work (an important factor given the traffic and wider road safety issues), has enough out door space for the children to run around in and for us to make the most of the climate here and is secure enough. We will inevitably need to compromise somewhere on this wish list but have not yet reached family harmony on where - the boys would much prefer a vast acreage of wilderness to run around in and build a football pitch than their parents' apparently dull worry about the cost of building, maintaining and electrifying suitable perimeter fencing. They also have a fondness for some of the very bling finishings in the newer properties out here - huge sunken baths for every room and some extraordinary fireplaces in sitting rooms. Nearly every house I have seen has more bogs than bedrooms and any mother of sons will know the future cleaning implications, particularly in the heat.

So I'm still looking. I've seen about 20 places so far, across the whole spectrum of 3-4 bedroom options from an exquisitely decorated, immaculate, massive (and unaffordable but they didn't make that clear from the outset) place with manicured garden through to a collapsing 3 bed bungalow in a wilderness garden which would take months of work to make good. And loads of very new builds where the houses are massive, and not to our normal taste (but we are only renting) and the gardens minuscule and unacceptable to the kids (and us). Heres a flavour of those that merited pictures.....

There are a couple of places which would suit us so fingers crossed one will come off in the next few weeks. And in the meantime, it's quite fun getting a sense of how wealthy people here choose to live and it's a good way of learning my way round. It's also giving me some interesting insights into the way society works here, both in terms of the very informal networks that are used to link tenants to owners - I have more numbers in my phone now for random folk who are in some way linked to people who might have a house available than I do any other group - and the layers of people involved in making any deal, all with their cut of the commission most of which is not at all transparent. In some cases it's not at all clear that they are even showing me a house that is going to be available but it's all a learning experience and I'm getting quite adept at filtering out most of the dross or repeat viewings on the phone. And, comparing notes on my brother's house hunting in North London where he observed that there is not much around and everyone seems to have got very greedy so crazy asking prices, I realise that some things really are truly global.

And for now we are still very happy in our central apartment where life is very easy.


And looking forward to the Easter holidays, although Katie is a little anxious that if the Easter bunny comes too late in the day his chocolate will all melt! Have good recipe for hot cross buns in afore mentioned baking handbook. Now just need to source Easter eggs......
Anne