My Own Private "Beit al Ajaib"

I've decided to borrow the name of the Zanzibar National Museum to christen my new apartment. "Beit al Ajaib" is Arabic for "House of Wonders," and every day I wake up here, I'm in awe.

Here's what's it's like. In the 1995 remake of the Shirley Temple classic, "A Little Princess," the main character is the daughter of a wealthy British Army Captain who gets sent to an exclusive boarding school right before Papa has to go fight some battle in Africa. The evil head mistress, Miss Minchin, totally sucks up to the Captain and treats his daughter like...well, like a Little Princess. That is, until word gets back that the Captain has been killed in the Battle of Mafakeng.

Oh, SNAP!! The Minchin Bitch does a sharp 180 when she realizes Papa won't be paying those exorbitant fees anymore. She promptly evicts the Little Princess from her comfy lodgings and forces her to move to the drafty, dank attic, where she must work from dawn to dusk cleaning and serving her former school chums to pay her debts.

But one morning, through a bit of magic, she wakes up and the gloomy attic has been tranformed into something out of "A Thousand and One Arabian Nights." There are vivid, sumptuous fabrics and beautiful clothes draped everywhere, along with a table groaning with delicious food. She and her fellow urchin friend have to pinch each other to make sure they aren't still dreaming, but when they confirm it's all real, it is on and CRACK-A-LACKIN' up in that attic!

That's how I feel in my new "House of Wonders." Each morning, when I wake up to the the vivid orange silk pillows and the jewel toned wall hangings, I feel blessed, and lucky, and sort of like "A Little Princess." Okay, not so little anymore, but I am still Princess Rachella, after all.

Anyway, check out some more shots of the fa-BU new crib in my Facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=101190&id=772031562&ref=mf

Kenyan Internet access is nightmarishly slow lately, so the album is a work in progress. It'll probably take a week to get all the photos posted. But by that point, I'll be back in DC.

Oh, wait did I forget to mention? I'm headed back to the U S of A next Thursday!!! WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!