There's no place like somewhere to call home....

So after a long day of waiting my move did not occur once again.  This is becoming the never end saga of my failure to move into my flat.  As recounted in my previous post, I spent the entire weekend waiting and most of Monday until the hotel staff informed me they had someone checking into my room that evening and no other rooms to move me to.  The frantic search to get a hold of someone, anyone in my organization before I get kicked out the hotel ensues.

Knowing what you do about African timeliness from my previous stories, I'm sure you can only guess at what comes next.  Yep, I was sent packin from the hotel.  In their defense, the staff was incredibly helpful and tried repeatedly to get a hold of any of the office contacts to no avail.  I finally got a call from the person who originally told me he'd meet me at the hotel at 2pm then again said he was on his way at 4:45pm telling me that he wasn't coming after all and I needed to call the person who was on leave for the next two weeks.  I was then able to skype with the UK office and they began working on it from their end.  So after an hour of back and forth and unanswered calls and no one giving me any kind of idea what was going on my friend picked me up from where I'd taken up camp in the staff offices and brought me back to her house.

After some much needed destressing over red wine and red meat at Kengeles I came back to the house to happily discover an email from another person in the office trying to track me down.  She had apparently shown up at the hotel only to discover I'd checked out and was confused to where I'd disappeared.  At 8pm.  More than 2 hours after I'd been kicked out.  I guess they expected me to sit there in the vain hope that someone would eventually show up and I wouldn't have to camp out somewhere with all of my suitcases.  Again, I count myself so lucky that I am not a first timer to this country or this city and I did have people I could call to help me.  If this had happened to me this time last year I'm sure I would not have reacted so calmly. 

So after all of this, I arranged for her to pick me up from my friend's house at 9am, Tuesday morning, which really means, "I'll head in that direction at 9am, and maybe get there around 10 or 10:30 depending on traffic."  Which did indeed happen but happily we were on our way before 11 and off to the office to meet my new colleagues.  A longer story short, I met everyone at the office and then went to my new flat in Jamhuri to check it out and settle in.  After a shopping spree of the non-fun variety at Nakumatt I have partially furnished my apt AND am happy to announce that I have a guest room that is itching for some visitors.  I hope to see all of your shiny, smiley faces over on my side of the world soon!