We're official! We're on Google Earth.

Courtesy Google Earth, taken some time in 2008.

Well, we made it onto Google Earth. Or should I say our Dawhenya house has made it onto Google Earth. Finally.

Dawhenya house, from the front, taken March 22, 2009.

As some of you may know, while we’re living here in Ghana, we’re building our “dream villa” – a 14 room home located in the Tema suburb of Dawhenya or Dawenya, depending on which signpost you're passing. In any event, its a part of the Prampram tribal area. When we first bought the property, oh about 15 years ago or so, we bought each plot for the equivalent of $50. Each plot measures 100 x 80 and we bought 8 plots. Combined, the lot is just shy of an acre of land. About 5 years ago, a developer bought a boat load of land nearby and began readying the property for housing. They started selling the individual plots – land only, no improvements – for $15,000 a plot. That was priced in USD, by the way. You do the math.

So, we’ve been diligently working on our property, but the truth is it’s a very slow process. We do what we can when we have the money to do it. Just recently, we finished putting terrazzo down in the entire house. We figured it was a lot cheaper than trying to tile the property, and it looks pretty nice. It took forever. And it cost about $3,000 (personally, I think the terrazzo guy underestimated his labor costs, but that’s not really my problem).

What will be the front porch, floor unpolished.

What will be the dining room, unpolished floor.

What will be the dining room, floor finished.

What will be the living room, unpolished floor.

What will be the kitchen, unpolished floor.

What will be the kitchen, floor finished.

Our bedroom balcony.

View from our bedroom balcony. This used to be entirely farm land.

In those pictures, some of the floors weren't yet polished, but that was finished just this past week. You'll have to use your imagination to envision how it might look, but you should be able to see from the size of the rooms, that the house is pretty big. Big enough to play soccer in -- for now anyway, but if Sean tries that when its done, he's gonna be sorry.

And I know, its a sad commentary that the windows are barred like that, but no matter what security precautions you have in place, there will always be armed robbery in Ghana. Beside the "burglar proof" we'll have barbed wire on top of the walls (Sly originally wanted an electrical fence -- kikiriki as they call it here -- but that idea fortunately dissipated) but we'll put up bougainvillea to beautify it, at least.

All told, we’ve probably sunk somewhere between $300,000 and $400,000 into the house. That’s in cash. We don’t have any loans or liens on the house. The mortgage loan or home improvement loan sector of this country has never developed to the extent that it has in the United States. And I’m pretty sure that that’s not a bad thing, given the crap going on in the rest of the world. But even if we did want to get a loan, the interest rates here are closer to unsecured credit card rates rather than a secured loan; we’re talking like 25%.

Picture of the back of the house, taken April 12, 2006

Picture of the back of the Dawhenya House, taken May 26, 2007.

Picture of the back of the Dawenya house, taken March 22, 2009.

So, where we are with the work on the Dawhenya house is windows in, floors finished, roof on, burglar proof up, electricity working, water running. Next stop door frames and doors (we used to have door frames, but decided we didn't like the quality of the wood so we pulled 'em all out, that's why the entrance ways look so raggedy), ceiling, plumbing, electrical fixtures. And then we're in. And I'm so ready.

The road in front of our house is a main inter-country highway; it’s supposed to, some day in the future, connect North Africa with South Africa. But it was a red dirt road for the longest time and only in the past 3 years did it finally get tarred. Up until a few months ago, Google Earth still showed a dirt road, and our house was just a vacant lot.

But now, at least you can see the whole lot, house and all, courtesy of our friends at Google and Nasa. And that’s really good news, because I think a lot of my family thought this house was merely a figment of our imaginations.

Courtesy Google Earth. Finally.