It's true--my four-room house with a hallway, a small area that was formerly an indoor bathing space but is now a storage closet, five windows and two doors, would be large for a typical family, and I live alone with a 3-month-old kitten. Another PCV asked me once, "What do you do with four rooms?" Had I been quick-witted, I would've replied, "A lot of cleaning."
The house was not built for me; it was vacant when the community was preparing for a PCV--months before I knew I was coming to Zambia--and the families who live on this compound (really just a cluster of houses behind the soccer and netball fields) were willing to have me as neighbor, daughter, sister, friend. Nonetheless, a lot of work was done in preparation for my arrival. The dirt floor was covered with concrete; the walls were smeared with white limestone to ward off termites (and spread light into what can otherwise be a very dark space), the thatch roof was lined with black plastic (like that used for trash bags in the U.S.) to minimize dust and termite waste descending inside. The open-air windows have wooden shutters that lock securely, as do both the front and back doors.
An insaka, which resembles a gazebo but has a thatch roof, was built outside so I can host visitors. (It's not culturally appropriate for visitors to enter in some cases; as a single woman it would be untoward of me to have a male guest in the house.) Though I assisted, two of my host family members--a married couple in their 30s--built my grass bathing shelter within a few days of my arrival.
When we were nearing the time to move in to our new homes, one of my friends exclaimed, "I'm a homeowner for the first time!" It's true--though some may see (from American views tainted by the extreme frivolity projected by Entourage and Sex and the City and, let's be honest, any of our myriad television shows and films) our accomodations as simple, a lot of work has gone into them, and as Peace Corps volunteers our houses are still nicer than those of at least 50% of our community. I recently sat out part of a rainstorm in a two-room house where the matron said she has raised 10 children. Ten children over the years, growing up in a two-room house, without so much as a curtain dividing the sitting room from the bedroom, the family's few dishes displayed on a shelf made from a split log. Indeed--I live in a mansion.
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