Chez moi: La Maison Tidjani

Before you ask, Tidjani is the family's name.  And today, I'm going to give you a tour of the house.

This is the outside and front door:

This is the view of my street from the front door.  I live in SICAP Baobab.

This is our front door.  Though the street may not look nice, the Senegalese take pride in the entry-way.

This is the view from inside the unit.  If you were to walk twenty feet inside and turn around, you would see the front door again.

When you enter the house, there's a pretty little courtyard with a mango tree and lots of potted plants.

If you turn right after walking in the door, you'll see this pretty little patio.  I eat breakfast there.  If you keep walking straight forward in this photo, you'll enter the kitchen (read below).  If you take a right, you'll get to the living room (also below) and two bedrooms. If you take a left, you'll enter the courtyard.

Had you taken a left above, you would've seen this small entry way off the courtyard.  The doorway leads to my room and Angelica's room.  That tiny door in the far left corner is the bathroom.  Notice how the ceiling stops there.

This woman is sitting on the patio.  She comes every Friday to sell fish to the family.  It looks and smells pretty gross, especially with all the flies.

My bedroom!

My dresser and bed with mosquito net.  I tend to get tangled in it when I sleep at night.

Behind the door, my chair and garbage cans.  Apparently, I'm lucky for having a garbage can in my room.  Most students do not.

The bathroom

The sink.  Very exciting!

The tub (with all my American products).  Also very exciting!

Last, but certainly not least, the toilet.  My host mother nicely puts toilet paper in for me.  The watering can is for the rest of the family.  Again, very exciting!

If you go outside the bathroom, there's a nice little open area and stairs to the roof.

This is where the laundry and dishes are cleaned.  For dishes, Angelica sets up three buckets of water: one for soaking, one for soaping/scrubbing, and one for rinsing.  I think laundry is done in a similar manner.

This is my very open roof.  I like to tan up here because it's quite private.  I'm surprised that my family doesn't use the roof for anything else besides drying laundry (the white lines are clotheslines).  It's quite big and open.

This is the edge of my roof looking onto the street in the morning.  There are huge metal panels that look like they used to be shutters or something.

 So let's pretend you kept walking straight when you got to the first courtyard...

Straight ahead would be the kitchen.  Lots of funny kitchen utensils and cookware you've probably never seen before.  Notice the lack of microwave, toaster oven, and coffee pot.  I do miss those things a little... but mostly just the coffee pot.

If you walk out of the kitchen and turn left, you'll enter the nicest area of the house.  Senegalese families take very much pride in the quality of the living rooms.  It's the central room of the house.  The family and their guests spend a lot of time in here, and it always smells like incense.