School provided housing

My last post might have left you wondering where we get all our furniture and other things that fill a house, if we only take what can be packed along with us.  Well, the answer to that is pretty easy...often it involves school provided housing.  Of the three schools I have worked at, at two I had school provided housing.

School provided housing is not a bad thing at all.  When you arrive in your new country, you get taken straight to a house or apartment that will be yours.  There is already furniture there, there are already dishes, pots and pans, and often there are even towels and sheets.  There is a tv and dvd player, and if you're very lucky, an internet connection that already works, and often even a stereo (though, I imagine those will be disappearing as ipod/mp3 player docks replace them!)    

The best thing about school provided housing is that sometimes you don't have to pay any bills that go with your house.  Sometimes you do- when I lived in China, I had to.  But, here in Angola, it's all included, and we don't pay anything.  When you live pretty much as far away as you can from both sides of your family as possible, you deserve some perks, no?  

But there are downsides to school provided housing. For instance, if you're a person who actually enjoys fashioning your own home, too bad!  When we moved into the apartment we live in now, we were met with a whole lot of brown.  Brown towels, brown sheets, brown kitchen towels (that seems like not that much, but when you think about how it affects the house- the whole bedroom is brown, the whole bathrooms are brown...).  Some people might not mind that at all, for me, it's not a color I would choose. Our living room furniture (couch and arm chair) is gray- the same fabric covers the dining room chairs.  The gray I don't mind so much.

The hardest time I have had with not being able to fashion my own home, was when it came to the nursery.  As a first time mom, I spent hours looking at nursery furniture and fashions online.  I would have loved to have been able to decorate a nursery.  But, when you only have 6 suitcases to bring stuff back into the country, you choose baby clothes, toys and necessities over nursery decorations.  So as it is, our nursery has furniture that the school was able to buy on our behalf from a family that was leaving Angola, but, nothing on the walls, no special pictures or carpets.  I bought my own crib sheets and breathable bumper, but then, we've never used the crib... oops! More on that another day.  That's the thing about living abroad...sometimes you have to pass up some of these very normal parts of life.

Another tough thing about school provided housing is that you get the basics- which is really all you can expect since the housing is used by someone before and after you- they certainly can't cater to one person's tastes (unless you're the person ordering all the stuff in the first place and your favorite color is brown!).  However, if you're like me, and happen to have a hobby that has anything to do with the house, it can become tricky!  I happen to love to cook and bake...the kitchen is one of my favorite rooms in the house to spend time in.  My dream kitchen would be VERY well stocked.  And if I was back home, living in one place for quite some time, or moving from place to place able to take all my stuff with me, I would probably be well on my way to a well stocked kitchen.  As it is, there are a lot of things I'm missing.  I don't have a crock-pot/slow-cooker, I certainly don't have a stand mixer (drool!), nor do I have half of the right size pots and pans, baking dishes, ramekins, or small fun kitchen utensils that I would like to have.  This is my hobby, so it is not ridiculous to think that if I were back home, I'd have these things. But, as it is, they don't come with school provided housing, and in case you were wondering, there are a whole lot of things like that that you can't get your hands on in places like this.  They're just not for sale.  Or, if by some chance they are, they cost anywhere from 2 to 3 times what they would in the States because of heavy import taxes.  So, most of the time, it feels not worth it.   Also, it comes back to the 6 suitcases...if I buy nice kitchen stuff while I'm here, I'm going to want to take it with me!  But, can I justify taking up space with a cookie sheet or muffin pan, when there are so many other things that also need to go?  Or, my cast iron skillet...well, it's packed in one of those boxes in my sister-in-law's attic!  How can you justify a 25lb skillet, when that is literally HALF your baggage allowance?   These are the things that I just think, "someday...we'll probably settle down someday, and then I'll get a...." 

In Laos, we will receive a housing allowance, not school provided housing.  We have already been sent links to housing agents, and have been checking out the possible accommodations.  These houses will also come furnished with the basics.  However, when we get there we will be setting up our own internet, cable, etc.  I'm guessing that we'll also have to buy a bit of this and that to fill in the gaps around the house... most especially in the kitchen. :)  I'm still debating how much of my kitchen stuff is worth sending from here... ah...decisions, decisions...