Since the container had arrived yesterday we planned for today to be the day we unpacked most of the house. We woke up quite early and had our tea and coffee before heading across town, following Lesley, to get to the new house. Lesley was having a meeting in the morning, and Joe had to be at work, so they left us almost immediately after arriving at the property. Justina, their maid, was at the house when we arrived and would be helping us unpack for the duration of the day. The task at hand seemed pretty large so we decided to start with the items that we knew where they lived, mainly all of the large furniture.
We unpacked the tv cabinet, dining table, sofas, side board, liquor cabinet, coffee table, chairs and book shelves. In the process we created a massive amount of paper and plastic waste which we simply threw out the back door of the house. Jenny knew where all of the furniture was supposed to go so Justina and I moved the pieces where she instructed. We hadn't really thought about what we were going to do with all the rubbish until Justina had a suggestion. She told us that she only lives a short drive away and near her house there is a large pit where the locals burn most of their rubbish and she offered to show us where we could dispose of ours. Jenny continued unwrapping some of the small items while Justina and I filled the land rover to the brim with wrappings and drove round to the burning site.
When we returned to the house we found that Jenny had moved another large pile of wrapping to the front of the house for another trip to the fire. When we returned to the pile of rubbish we left the first time we found a couple of the local men neatly folding up some of the waterproof covering to use for something, presumably in their house, and they were delighted to see us arriving with another car load. Proof that one persons trash is truly someone else's treasure. When we arrived back at the house Lesley came home shortly after and we set to work unpacking the kitchen and all it's utensils. Lesley had a much larger kitchen in Scotland and it was going to be a challenge to fit all of the goods into the smaller space. Lesley knew where she wanted everything so Justina and I unpacked box after box and Lesley found a home for all the contents.
Joe stopped by during his lunch break from work and was impressed with the amount o fun packing we had managed in a relatively short period of time. I informed him that I had fitted the stove, and despite my best efforts to cut a hole in the back panel to accommodate the electrical outlet it still sat away from the wall; once I get some small wooden blocks it will sit slightly raised but flush with the kitchen wall. Joe was only home for about half an hour and headed back to work, leaving the rest of us to continue unpacking. We took another car load of rubbish to the burnning area around 15:00 and found some kids routing through the pile just like the men before. Once we had found a place for most of the items in the kitchen (which took bloody ages) we chose to call it a day and headed back to the other house around 16:00.
When we got back to the house we had a few well deserved drinks after our day of unpacking and watched some tv while we waited for Joe to come home from work. Joe phone and told us he would pick up some chicken for dinner on his way home and so we had a few more drinks while waiting. He hit awful Lusaka traffic on the way home and didn't arrive until 19:30, but once he did we all had a hearty dinner and some more drinks before calling it a day.
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