Nothing is Standard

It's been a couple of beautiful and frustrating days here in Malawi. Once you get used to having water, it goes out; the same is true with internet and electricity and everything else.  It still is vastly better than what I remember years ago, but it is a great reminder of how things happen on their own time overseas.

This is the latest project I've been working on that has taken a week and a half to resolve.  My bed is too short and has a footboard.  Footboards are the equivalent of steel traps to tall people.

It feels like this.  Seriously.

So it was off to find a place that would construct just the perfect bed. We found it.

Now this is more like it. 

However, what we thought was standard, isn't.  Europeans and Africans use different bed sizes than those in America.  So I needed to first get a mattress custom made and then have bed made around it.

All the calculations we had to make.

Place where I put in the order for the custom mattress.

Random car accident that happened that blocked traffic to the bed place for a day and a half.

I finally made the deal for the bed with Franco Bizzaro at African Habitat.  He's a wonderful man, but I believe I just entered a handshake deal with the Italian Mafia (where he hails from).

He didn't have a card, so he gave me his wife's.  Hmmm....

Franco and I became friends.  This might be the only known picture of him. 

It took one week to get all of this done.  When will all of this be completed by?  Not sure.  For the mattress they are saying 2 weeks and the bed 2 months.  Those seem like guesses. Whenever it is, it will be worth it.