Johnny come lately and Old Houses

I seem to be the only one amongst my friends that still lives in a house built before 1994. I guess that gives me carte blanche to mourn about it so I will. If you are lucky enough never to have lived in one of these houses, you should be glad and thank your stars. You might be unfamiliar with the daily joys of rising damp aka humidite, compulsory reverse parking and receiving your guests through the backdoor. Well, those are perks that come with home designs ala EX- AHOR, that’s with a French accent mind you. It stands for EX-Association de Home Owners du Rwanda. Whatever happened to them, I wonder. They must have disbanded when they finally lost the war of building affordable housing to Caisse Sociale not using Rukarakara. It was precisely stated in their articles of Association that it was beyond all human intelligence and ability to do such a thing.I have had the privilege of living in not just one but 5 different houses built before 1994. This is a synopsis.House 1– a 3 bed bungalow with beautiful views of Kigali by night located near sonatubes junction in Kicukiro. It’s unique features included only one parking spot in the form of compulsory Garage parking whether you intended to stop by for 5 minutes or less. When the gate opened you drove straight to the Garage; no if or buts. Strangely, this was at the back of the house. You then either entered the house from the garage straight to the living room or through the kitchen, dining room then living room. The house had a beautiful porch that overlooked a vegetable garden with several Avocado trees. Talk about rural subsistence meets urban comfort.House 2– a 3 bed maisonette with a simple layout whose only let down was porky windows that made the house so dark during the day, you had to turn the lights on. For a change, guests actually arrived to the front door before they saw what you were having for diner later on.House 3– literally 5 feet from a busy main road, you had to count cars instead of counting sheep to get to sleep. It had one of those raised parking spaces that if you came home after one too many drinks, you risked driving onto the roof. To avoid reversing into the main road in the morning, you had to reverse park every night. A 3 bed bungalow with just the one toilet and bath, you skipped breakfast and enjoyed a clean bathroom or enjoyed breakfast and cleaned up after everyone. Walls were so thin that you could chat with someone in the next room from the comfort of your bed.House 4– a split level apartment on a block of 4 apartments surrounded by a perimeter fence, getting a parking spot was akin to playing a daily game of musical chairs. You had to scheme and out manoeuvre neighbours making sure you got home before them. If you had to leave the house when everyone has parked, your hostage negotiation skills came in handy. You had to beg and plead and promise all sorts of niceties to get someone out of their house to give you a way out. The sweetener was that you needn’t subscribe to a gym. The staircase to the upstairs level was at an incline of close to 60 degrees with chunky stairs that must have had their design copied off a marine training obstacle course.House 5– my current residence and favourite of the 5. I generally have no qualms with the place. That does not mean it’s perfect. I still have to reverse park every night and when it rains, the rickety tin roof threatens to do a “gone with the wind” on me. I have a switch for every light but for some peculiar reason, some of these switches are such team players that they will not work unless you have some other switch on too. It may have been a novel idea back then to have lights on in tandem but in the age of Cash power that’s a no, no! The plumbing is atrocious. When EWSA water is on the toilets leak and when it is off, the flow from the reservoir tank is like a 90 year old man at the urinals.My consolation though, I have about the most amazing post card quality cityscape view from my balcony every night.