R and J Abroad: Our second Gaborone apartment

Rishi and I moved to our second Gaborone home, a town house centrally located near the University of Botswana, at the beginning of November 2014. I haven’t yet posted any pictures of the not-so new home where we’ve already spent four months, so I thought I’d show family and friends who are following the blog what the place looks like.

Our home is one of six town homes in the development, which also includes a well-kept garden and a small pool.

The garden at our development.

We’ve got quite the international group living here, with neighbors from India, Italy, Slovakia, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. Two of the families have young children, while two others have older teens living at home or university-aged children. It’s nice and quiet, which I greatly appreciate because the previous place backed up to a busy road with traffic noise most of the day.

We learned of the vacancy here back in September, when a friend connected me with another expat who was leaving the country. The departing woman was looking for someone to take over her lease and also needed to sell her furniture, all of which was nearly brand new. Rishi and I took a look at the place, a 2- bedroom, 1 and a half-bath that’s slightly larger than where we were before, and decided it would meet our needs. We also purchased nearly all of the apartment’s furniture: two sofas, two queen beds, a TV, and a coffee table (which is now re-purposed as a table for the TV). In other words, we had enough to get started and could gradually pick up the other things we needed.

The view of the townhome's interior from the front door -- the ground floor
is basically one large room, with the kitchen area at the back.

Here's the opposite view, from the kitchen looking toward the front door. The sofas, TV, and the TV table were the previous tenant's. We acquired everything else after moving in. We're especially enjoying the dining table for six, which allows us to host dinner for friends.

We needed to outfit the kitchen, though we had shipped a few kitchen things from the U.S. I also shopped for linens, curtains, rugs, and other odds and ends to spruce up the place. I’ve been volunteering one afternoon a week at the Botswana SPCA resale shop, where I’ve been able to pick up a few choice items at bargain prices. I’ve also found some departing expats who had good kitchen wares to sell. All of that kept me busy through the end of November, but then we were all set.

The kitchen is slightly larger than the other apartment. I’m also happy to report that the stove is better, with glass top burners that are fairly responsive for an electric range.

Because most landlords in Botswana don't provide appliances, we also bought the previous owner's refrigerator and clothes washer. If we have company coming over, we can close the red curtains to hide the washer and brooms.