House Update

February 15, 2011 (posting delayed thanks to Cyclone Atu, then technical difficulties involving my laptop)

 

Yes, I am in the Banks, and yes, I really am using the internet! It’s pretty awesome. We have internet in two places:

1. At the clinic (which I mentioned in my last post), which is about a half hour walk from Sola. Here it works for about two hours out of the day – one in the early morning, and one in mid-afternoon – on about half of days.

2. At 2 offices in the Provincial Government building – the Tourism Officer and the Save the Children office. This is called E-Government, and comes in from a massive satellite donated by China (raise eyebrows). From what I understand it technically isn’t public, but because I’m a foreigner, it’s part of the Tourism Officer’s job to let me check my email every once in a while using his computer.

I’ve heard talk of transferring the E-Government” by cable up the hill from the provincial office to the education office, but I don’t know how quickly this will happen. I’m sure spreading it to the other offices in their own building is their top priority.

 

Supposedly I have a move-in date now, which is REALLY exciting! The plan is to move into my unfinished house on Feb 26 and just start camping out. The bedroom is completely done, the kitchen is functional, and the toilet is attached to the septic tank, so it really won’t be bad. Just not quite done. Something’s going on with the piping to attach the water tank to the toilet and all the faucets, but I’m not quite sure what the issue is – whether it’s a problem with the pipes not arriving on the ship or what. At any rate, I have a couple buckets, so that’s an easy fix that I can be patient for. Lack of a food safe worries me a little bit – hopefully they’ll have built one or have found me one before the rats realize I’m living there.

 

Speaking of rats, I found a kitty! I named her Kitty. She thinks my lap is her throne. It’s cool with me, as long as she catches my rats! I don’t actually know if I can keep her yet… she technically belongs to one of my Aunties, but got chased away by dogs. So she showed up in my room about a week ago and has stayed around our property ever since. I have to ask the Auntie if I can keep her and then hope that when we move to my new house she stays. She’s quite cuddly and meows VERY loudly. She enjoys gato (fried bread, sort of like a doughnut). Good thing this isn’t a Spanish-speaking country. Even if she doesn’t move with me, I don’t mind too much because my host siblings are nicer to her than the average Ni-Vanuatu treatment of dogs/cats. In fact, Georgie hopes she’s really a girl (we think she is) because then there will be more kitties eventually!

 

So why am I being such a brat about having my house finished? Why do I complain about it all the time?

 

What’s wrong with where you live now?

Right now I live in a little room that’s approximately seven feet by seven feet. It has a tin roof (creating an oven) and two windows on adjacent walls (for minimum airflow). During the day it’s probably 120F inside, and at night it might cool down to 90, as long as I don’t turn the light on. I’ve still been living out of my suitcase, except for books and toiletries, which are weighing down the little table so much I think it might buckle. There are 6 other rooms frequently rented out to visitors of Sola, and I have to share the toilet and swim house with them, which is really annoying when the house is full. When Jenni visited, she said, “So this is your cell. It’s… lovely.”

 

So what’s so good about your new house?

It has a thatched roof and high ceilings (drop 10 degrees), six windows (drop a few more degrees) including a three that face the ocean, which is the direction the wind usually comes from, and enough space for a person to walk around. I will have a moderate amount of privacy, and will have the freedom to do my own thing.

 

You live in Vanuatu. There’s no such thing as privacy.

True. However, my bathroom is my own, and is inside my house, so my digestive habits will no longer be known to the entire village and I can walk to the shower in a sarong without being stared at by the neighbors (they don’t care when anybody else does it! Hmph).

 

But won’t you have to cook for yourself?

Yes. I will have control over what I eat and when I eat it. I won’t have to eat just a plate of white rice for lunch and dinner in the same day. If I’m not hungry, I won’t be forced to eat. If I’m starving, I won’t have to wait for dinner to be ready or risk offending people if I choose to cook for myself.

 

But you’ll have to buy your own food now.

Yeah, that part kind of sucks. But I have lovely neighbors (50% of my coworkers) that have already brought me food across town. I won’t get fish or prawns or eel (surprisingly tasty), because let’s face it: I’m not going diving for them. But I will still have an 11-year-old host brother who would love to go diving for them if I ask.

 

You won’t have power.

I know. I won’t have insomnia from the deafening drone of a generator. It’ll be awesome.

 

You’ll have to wash your own clothes ALL the time instead of only part of the time.

And I won’t have to fight over one clothesline for ten people… so my clothes will mold half as fast. Maybe even only a third.

 

If anyone wants to add any other reasons I shouldn’t be excited to move, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll refute those too.