THE HOUSE SEARCH

We are four volunteers plus one husband in the middle of Suva desperately seeking a home for one year. Our party of five are reluctant to separate into different households out of convenience, cost and companionship. The criteria that we set for our home sweet home were:

• Needs four bedrooms (at least)
• Furnished
• Clean
• Close to work or transport to work

Pretty straight forward right? Mmm. Yeah.no.
The search began on Monday in the last week of July. The first real estate agent shows us two units (one and two bedrooms), a two bedroom unit which made the housing commissions in Melbourne look like palaces and a three bedroom place which was half decent but apparently someone had just died there….

Tuesday showed us an awesome four bedroom apartment with polished floorboards, plenty of space to move around and central to all of our work places. There was a slight problem in that it was in the notorious suburb of Raiwaqa (pronounced “Raiwanga”). For those of you who aren’t familiar with Raiwaqa, they recently moved a whole bunch of squatters to another area, but some have stayed behind. Apparently they’re not a friendly lot and might be responsible for the rise in violent attacks in that area.

Wednesday looked slightly better with a five bedroom house, but this one was neglected and dirty. I also managed to acquire three mosquito bites in the space of 10 minutes – Mr Dengue, this is Amanda. Amanda, I’d like you to meet Mr Dengue. Amanda dislikes Mr Dengue.
Thursday we started to venture further out of town. Surely there’d be something on the market for us all.

Thursday exceeded our expectations. A house we dubbed “the palace” was found. Three rooms plus maids quarters, plus upstairs mini-apartment plus sky level room via a spiral staircase. The interior was kitted out with antique furniture, top of the range whitegoods and smelt like a hotel. Oh, and they threw in an amazing view of Suva harbour for free. Even the rent was affordable. The catch? A steep uphill climb for 10 minutes through a rough neighbourhood which was poorly lit at night to catch the bus. We were also concerned about the impression of absurd affluence we’d portray to our colleagues who are probably earning pittance for what they actually deserve.

Friday saw desperation. We had exhausted all the options from the listed real estates. Our in-country manager, drove us randomly around the streets of Suva for three hours looking for places that either looked big and vacant or had a “for rent” sign on it. One house only had three bedrooms. That house was too far away from the city. This house was not in a good neighbourhood. The other house has fallen into disrepair. The construction of those apartments had not even finished.

By this stage the five of us were in hysterics. We had the giggles and our concentration had hit the wall. We were exhausted and frustrated. Stress was building up and manifesting itself in fits of laughter and insignificant oddities. At one point, our ICM drove past a dog with four puppies. He slowed the car down and rolled down his window. What he did next completely flipped us over the edge. He proceeded to talk to the dog with four puppies:

“Excuse me, we are looking for a four bedroom house in a good area.”

The mother dog charged at the car, barking aggressively to protect her puppies. Our ICM continued in his thick Fijian accent,

“Since there are four of you, you should have a four bedroom house. So if it is okay with you and your four children, I think we will move into your house?”

Now these dogs were looking rather unhappy, growling and baring their teeth at us. I was convinced one of them would jump into the car through the window and have a feast of us all. Our ICM rolled up his window and started to drive away and concluded:

“She will not be a reliable landlord.”

The weekend passed and Monday finally came around. Our ICM remembered a house that he looked at with the last intake of volunteers. It was a set of two, two bedroom units, with the partition yet to be inserted into the house. He had located and contacted the landlord over the weekend. Inspection time was arranged and what we found was:

• Four bedrooms, each of a good size two without cupboards
• Two sets of kitchen and two bathrooms
• An excellent and fair location for all of us to get to work
• A good neighbourhood with friendly neighbours
• Massive living area that I could hold ballroom dancing lessons in
• BUT….UNFURNISHED.

The deal has been sealed with this house and I’ll tell you more about our new home in the next post from Mobilised Manda.