Accommodation is still a problem, with my stay at Jane’s due to run out in a few weeks when she begins a run of planned visitors, and I really need to get into a routine in my own place…. So far I’ve asked to look out for something for me:
- the office worker whose job description includes looking for accommodation
- SIM missionaries
- Missionaries from other missions
- Alfred who wheels himself in his bike/wheelchair around the suburb selling souvenirs
- Jane’s gardener
- Jane’s next door neighbour’s son who is unemployed and wanders around the suburb looking for little jobs to do
- The local pastor at the SIM-related church
- The local deacons
- The students at IMS
- The students at the evening Bible college
- The doctor I asked about my tummy troubles
- The wife of the owner of Jane’s house here on visit
- the owner of the little stall selling bread and small grocery items at the end of the block where SIM is located
- Even some of the local sort of real-estate agent who usually gets a proportion of a month’s rent as his commission from the renter
I’ve also walked the streets looking for “for rent” signs
- On the way to shops while living in the guest house
- Taking different routes on the way to photocopy while living at Jane’s
- Taking different streets to the mission while living at Jane’s
- Taking different streets to and from church
- Walking for a few hours early in the morning Saturdays before the heat hits trying to cover other streets on the other side where I don’t usually have any errands (the mission is about half way in the square of walking distance and Jane’s is on the west side of the square).
So far I’ve looked at (some only from the outside)
- A mission apartment attached to a main house that is one bedroom and a tiny lounge/dining and been told no prospect of expanding or putting on a secure porch as an alternate living room but with a good location and useful sharing of guard/house help/internet
- Half of a 2-bedroom duplex that is way too far to walk from the mission, and though near a main road it’s not one that is near either the mission or IMS, with only one mission couple next door; internet available
- 1,2 and 3 bedroom “furnished” apartments with tiny kitchens and small rooms but no space for any eventual car or motorbike
- a house that is already rented for the next two weeks and won’t let anyone in to see what it looks like, and at twice what the mission is willing to pay
- a narrow duplex which is essentially two small studio apartments and no through airflow for over twice the mission rental rate on a nearby street
- the outside of a house approved of by mission staff but that doubled in price (to almost twice the mission rate) from morning to afternoon as the old tenants moved out and the owner “would rather have it empty than negotiate on the price”), not too far away from the mission and local church (pray for a change of heart by the owner?)
- a nice new house slightly further away than planned 30% above the mission rental with the possibility of a flat (for short-termers) above the garage (but the mission didn’t want to take up), and disapproved of because of it’s location opposite a large empty lot and cinema which would give security problems.
- Some rundown houses without security bars on windows, or screens, some without kitchens at all or about 1sq.metre in size, without secure outside walls, some well outside the ‘walkable zone’ I’ve specified to help searchers…
I’ve spent a long time at the end of my time in Benin thinking about this whole issue and in talking it over at length at home and I know that I need a place where I can feel secure, have access to company and the mission when needed, have others over easily for hospitality and drop-in visitors, and so far nothing has turned up. However, in the past year or two others like Jane and Robin have found ‘miracle’ places in this suburb where there is rarely anything to rent let alone affordable places, so I live in hope and keep trying although my deadline is getting REAL close.
