MUDDY HYENA: The Muddy Hyena Got a New Den

Well it’s been a long time since I last blogged and lots has happened over the past few months. So, in an effort to try to get caught up, I thought I’d give you at least a partial update of what’s been happening in our lives.

One of the biggest events is that Paul and I (finally) moved into our (new) house. I say “finally” because we actually purchased it in 2008 but have been renting it out ever since given our crazy travel schedules (which don’t actually look like they’ll be changing much in the next few years but we figured now was as good a time as any to move in). I say “new” because it is a small 1933 bungalow style house so while it is “new” to us…it is certainly not “new” and it has all the charm and quirks that go with that statement.

Paul arrived in early February and we began the “adventure” of purchasing all that is needed to outfit a new home. While I had a bedroom suite and kitchen table converted into my office desk from my previous life…I didn’t have much else. First order of business… washer and dryer (no more Laundromat for me!). Poor Paul – he had no idea what he was getting into. You see, in Botswana, when you need an appliance you go to the store and buy the only one they have available. Not here – there’s Lowe’s, Home Depot, shops that only sell appliances, Presidents’ Day sales, rebates, extended warranties, Consumer Reports… if you’ve ever made such large scale purchases you know what I’m talking about.

Once that decision was made (to be delivered the day BEFORE we made the big move – I was not messing around with that one), we were off to Ikea for furniture shopping. We “pre-shopped” first at local furniture stores to get a sense of prices and style options then headed to Atlanta (3 hours drive from here) to our first Ikea outing (yes, there was more than one, three in fact). Tape measure, “map” with measurements of the rooms in our house and the will to sit on as many couches as we could, we sized up shelving, scrutinized styles and spent an ungodly amount of time on the top floor of Ikea. Exhausted we retreated to our hotel for the night lacking the energy to find a good restaurant to eat at we walked to "The Varsity”, a well known burger joint in Atlanta, to be yelled at by counter workers saying, “What’ll ya have?” and drank our Frosted Orange and let our brains rest in a post-Ikea fog.

After a mind-rejuvenating trip to the High Museum to see the Picasso to Warhol Museum (thanks to Martha and David for this brilliant Christmas idea), we made one last stop to Ikea to confirm our selections and figure out how delivery would work to Greenville.

You have to understand, neither Paul nor I are shoppers. In fact, I’m in principle quite opposed to most consumerism so the task of outfitting a house puts both of us on edge. On a recent safari a client said to me, “I would have guessed you were a bit more “medium-maintenance” than Ikea.” I should have responded, “I prefer to spend my money on airplane tickets, coffee and red wine” but was having difficulty getting past the “medium-maintenance” comment.

In any case, on our return trip to Ikea Paul sat on a couch he hated the day before (and I liked), and forgetting his previous distain claimed, “I really like this one! Why not this one?” I almost lost it! Fortunately, we retreated to the cafeteria and ate Swedish meatballs and lingenberry sauce. Crisis averted.

Learning that Ikea actually doesn’t deliver from Atlanta (even though we were told they did when we called – ugh!), we left with a long list of things we liked but not knowing how we’d get them to Greenville. Fortunately, the Ikea in Charlotte (2 hour drive from Greenville) does deliver to our area so we made one additional trip to North Carolina to confirm our choices and place our order. On the following Wednesday, 35 boxes arrived and Paul began assembling. By the time I came home from work that day only 10 remained – amazing!

By March 14 Paul was on his way back to Botswana (after organizing the garage to within an inch of its life…we had purchase the contents of our friends’ David and Deb’s garage as they are selling their house so we had about 20+ years of house stuff instantly!). I left for Cuba on the 17^thfor a couple of weeks that were part of the Latin American Study Away Program (another blog to come, I promise).

I returned the Wednesday before Easter weekend and my sister came down from Massachusetts the next day for the weekend to help me settle in. Almost instantly upon her arrival, after seeing the hideous wall paper in the hall, she started ripping it off. I had the bright idea to use a bunch of maps of Southern Africa that my friend Erik gave Paul (thanks!) and my sister had the skills to make it happen. So while I carefully selected some of my favorite locations (including where Paul asked me for “10 minutes” on our last night of the 2007 safari which changed our lives forever to where we camped in the Transfrontier Park between Botswana and South Africa), Kelley got it up on the wall. It’s kind of fun! You should come by and see it sometime.

She also painted a bright green accent wall in the kitchen and a wire for some birds cut out of a place mat to perch on and helped me hang some things Paul and I have gathered in our travels around Africa. By the time she left, it started to look like a home. And while I was excited to be heading back to Botswana for summer break, I felt like I was leaving “our” house in a way I hadn’t before.