“Looking for a roommate who is clean, courteous, and compassionate.”
– Sanserino’s Craigslist ad
Senior Alex Sanserino cares about “the three C’s” and made that known when she posted her ad for a summer sub-leaser on Craigslist last spring. She knew she could get scammed or that a psychopath could show up at the door on move-in day. Nevertheless, Sanserino needed to find a roommate for the other two seniors she shared a house with on the east side of campus, so she wrote the ad and waited for the phone to ring.
In Tanzania, Doroth Kokushubila Lwelamila needed a place to live for a year as she studied and taught at IU as a Fulbright Scholar. Not knowing where to start her search, she relied on an American friend for help. The friend stumbled upon Sanserino’s ad, then contacted her and asked if she needed a roommate for the full year. Lwelamila recognized the risks. Not only would she be coming to a new country, but she’d be living with two girls she had never met.
“Are you sure?” she asked her friend, skeptically.
Now Lwelamila calls her house on Roosevelt Street – the one she found from across the world – home. “I don’t have to think of my family in Africa while I’m here, because I have a family here. They are my family.”
