Renting out Overpriced apartments while people are Occupying Wall Street

I know our stuff is not forever, but for an aspiring minimalist I'm pretty attached. There's freedom but also some feelings of loss and uncertainty, as it's all very complete, down to our plants and soap and dishes. I even feel attached to Eug's stuff. His college assignments.  And what is one supposed to do with wedding guest registries? Look at them?

We recently got a tenant for our apartment, using a property manager (hence many, many, many prospective tenants passing through.) Our apartment is expensive. Too expensive for us to stay in for any length of time. We have it through grace and the gift of a downpayment before Eug and I were married.

So when recent grads or grad students passed through and desperately wanted to live in the place, I felt like staging an intervention. I wanted to tell them: "Save your money!" "You can't afford to live here!" "You think you can, but you'll be spending your life energy to pay for silly rent!" I felt very old.

I sensed some element of entitlement amongst the prospective tenants, which may be imagined on my part. But it was a strange juxtaposition, as we followed young people protesting on Wall Street- citing very real issues- and at the same time had young people passing through who believed that right out of college, they should afford a nice apartment near the center of Boston. Different people, different circumstances.

A Glimpse of Eritrea, In Pictures

Recently, when I'm in a  place (right now, Myrtle beach) I find myself wondering if I will ever see it again. It's a strange thought- before I was married, before Noah, it wasn't something that crossed my mind. But it's not an altogether negative thought- change is ok. 

Anyway, a couple of years ago I shared some pictures of Massawa, and as I was throwing stuff away I came across an old CD with photos of Asmara. They're not super good photos, as I'm not one to take photos in the center of the city, but I thought they give some sense of the life of an expat in Eritrea. 

This housing complex is called Sembel, and nicknamed "Korea", after the architects who built it. After visiting Korea this year, I know why. Although the high-rises in Korea are much, much taller, the basic structure of the complex is very similar: many, many identical buildings. For the most part, university staff and other expats lived here. This was likely some of the best housing in Asmara, if you don't consider the beautiful colonial houses, which are luxurious but in short supply.

If you don't mind me romanticizing Eritrea for a moment, one of the most amazing things I saw was as you leave Asmara, you get to the edge of the escarpment and it just drops off, sharply and suddenly. You can walk into clouds.

This is the main market in Asmara, which makes me think of zero waste and food aid all at once. Much of the food being sold had "USAID: Not for Sale" stamped on the side. I don't know the full story of the food, but food availability was not something one could take for granted. The zero waste part is not quite zero waste (there are the sacks, which get reused to death) but it's pretty close.

There were all these finches that are super-expensive if you try to buy them as pets in South Africa, so we were always taking pictures or stalking the little guys as though they were ours.

The steep landscape between Asmara and the coast has been home to stepped gardening for thousands of years. This is Ghinda, which is very fertile because it's around the height above sea level where the clouds hit the mountains and produce rain. Rain is scarce in the rest of the country.

On Stopping Full-Time Work

Tuesday was my last day as a full-time employee. It was anti-climactic because the next day, I started working as consultant- essentially doing many of the same tasks I was doing the day before, but remotely. Writing from Myrtle Beach still feels very different from the State Lab. Eug is working across the room, Noah is napping, and I'm able to work as fast as I want to, without interruption (and watch the ocean at the same time).

While I was working and taking care of Noah, our lives were very rushed. We felt strongly that Noah should not be in daycare, and we also could not afford any kind of moderately ok Boston daycare. We were hugely blessed to both have work we liked, where we're treated well, and where we're doing things that are quite fulfilling. With Eug working from home, we also got much more time as a family than many dual-income families. But Eug and I both got very little time when we were not either solo-parenting or working. I woke up at 5am, rushed to work, tried to focus during work, rushed home so that Eug could rush through his work, while I took care of Noah and cooked, and then we cleaned and got ready to start over the next day.  Living in the U.S., the very high cost of health insurance means at least one person in a family absolutely needs to either earn a ton, or work full-time in a benefitted position. (or have a low enough income to qualify for state health insurance; obviously having an income that low is no picnic, either) The cost of healthcare seems like such a strange thing to plan families around, but it's a reality.

Despite feeling that it was unsustainable to keep going as we were, I feel decadent not to be working full time. It's been two days and already I wonder if I'm a slacker. And I've been writing a journal article! I want to redefine what work means for me, so that it isn't the arbitrary how-many-hours-did-I-spend-in-front-of-my-computer-at-the-office measure. It felt unsustainable, but so many people in the U.S. and elsewhere go as fast as we were going for thirty or forty years. I consider it the result of unfair blessing, more than extreme frugality (though we tried) or genius planning (though we tried), that we've left that incredibly fast pace of life.