Bonjour Geneva!: Housing Headache

Finding suitable housing has ended up being the second most challenging thing for this trip (the first, of course, has been funding), and even when I got off the plane in Geneva I didn't know where I was going to stay, and neither did my program coordinator actually which is not the best feeling in the world after traveling for over 24 hours.

It didn't start out being such an issue. In fact, we were lucky because within a week of both of us being accepted into the internship program we were placed with a family within out budget and for months we were comforted by the fact that we knew where we would be staying and how much it would cost. In late April this all changed.

By the third week of April, about three weeks before our scheduled departure, we found out that the family who had originally agreed to house us had forgotten about some of the summer obligations and would not be able to keep us after all. This is not a great thing to hear just weeks before take off. Our program coordinator worked to find others to replace them, and about a week later sent an email letting us know about two options. One was within our budget and one would only be within our budget if we shared a room. One issue, however, was that Jess was only planning to be in Geneva for the first month because then she would be heading to do her grassroots project in the UK for 6 weeks.

After a week of confusing emails and me not wanting to agree to anything above my budget, I decided to start looking for other options as well. I thought this would be helpful since they didn't seem to have too much time in their busy schedules to work much more on the search. This was my first mistake.

Housing in Geneva is EXPENSIVE, and by this I mean that most apartments of less than 1000 sq/ft run for at least $2,000. If you want a place with 4 - 6 bedrooms you will pay between $3-7,000 each month. I tried to find my own housing and found some student housing that was under $800/month, but the school semester doesn't end until the mid-June, so NOTHING was available.

The first place I stayed, The Bonny family, was actually for Jess, because we weren't able to get in touch with my family so they let me stay with them and helped me reach them. The Bonny's are the nicest people, and they only speak Spanish and French, so we had fun playing charades with them to try and communicate with our limited French and basic Spanish. Here are some pictures of their home and the apartment complex, Avanche, that they live in:

Part of one of the buildings in the Avanche apartment complex

Our View from the Bedroom


The fountain in the apartment park

One of the main roads leading around the complex


The Bistro/bar in the complex;

This is a better view of much of the complex

The living room

The view from the kitchen patio

The hallway leading to the bedroom

The bathroom we used most


Jess packing in the bedroom - this really is how wide the room is!

We spent two night with the Bonny family and then moved into a room at the home of Mary Balikungeri who is the founder and director of the Polyclinic of Hope in Rwanda (www.rwandawomennetwork.org). She is an amazing woman who has done great things to help Rwandan women after the genocide that happened in her country. Unlike many humanitarian organizations, she works from a holistic approach.

Mary's apartment is smaller than the Bonny's but it is closer to the UN and she has better space for us, so we really like it. We will be living here until the end of June because Jessica will leave for the UK at that point and I am supposed to spend two weeks in Zurich and then the last two weeks of July in the UK. Here are some pictures of her place: