Day 266 - The House Next Door

View from the embassy parking lot of the house next door.
 Our Nissan Stanza is at the far left.

Five months from the expected end of our stay in Moldova, the owner of the house next door to the embassy came to see GSO David to offer to rent his house to the embassy. At that point, everyone was situated in either a house or in the Hotel Codru suites so we didn't need to rent another house, but it was clear that we couldn't afford to let some other embassy rent a house that literally overlooked the embassy grounds. The challenge was that the house was much larger than most in our housing pool at that point. It wasn't large enough for the ambassador, but it was too large for the next employee we expected to arrive - Selina, the ambassador's secretary, a single woman.

The balcony of the house next door

Becky's house was an appropriate size for Selina, but Becky was also five months from the end of her tour. One of Becky's objections to her house was that it might be too small for her successor if her successor was married and had children. So one option would have been for Becky to move from her bungalow into the house next door. Her successor hadn't been named yet, so whether the house was too small was still theoretical. But no one wanted to take on the complaints that asking Becky to inconvenience herself with a move so close to the end of her tour was bound to raise. Besides, at this point we all had a pretty good idea that Becky wasn't spending her evenings in her bungalow anyway. She and Bob had gotten quite cozy. We preferred that Becky stay in her bugalow and Selina stay in a hotel room. Selina could move into the bungalow once Becky left.

Alex, Mary Ann, Selina, and the ambassador outside
 the house next door, with the exterior staircase
 in the background.

Bob also had five months left before he planned to leave. He was in the Moldovan singer's house which his successor would move into. There was no point in moving him from one house already big enough for his successor and his family. GSO David and his wife were in a house and they planned to stay for an additional year. Their house was not within walking distance, so it didn't make sense to ask them to move. Jim was about to move into an apartment which made his suite available for Selina to move into until Becky left. Sarah was already in a house. Johnny was in a house.

Eventually, all eyes were on Alex and me. We had resigned ourselves to staying in the Codru until we left Moldova. We didn't want to have to move again. And I so did not want to live next door to work. I imagined that we would get phone calls at all times of the day and night asking either Alex or me to come back to work. That had happened already many times while we lived several blocks away from the embassy. But the pressure was on for us to move. Reluctantly, we did.

Our living room with embassy furniture and our furnishings

The house next door had two stories with living room, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs. There were two stairways between the floors, one outside and one inside. The inside stairway was one of the steepest set of stairs I have ever seen and it made a sharp 90 degree angle turn with the stairs arranged as a spiral staircase in the middle. As strange as it seemed, it was more convenient for us to take the outdoors steps, even in the middle of the night, when going between floors. But that was the only disadvantage of the house next door.

Our last five months in Moldova were our best.