New Home?

18 November 2008

Well we made it to Rote this morning and eventually to the hospital. The island will soon be voting for the Bupati - the head of the local regency government. Today there was a rally for supporters of one of the opposition parties. It seemed as if every lorry on the island had been commondered to carry supporters to a rally in the centre of Baa - we were trying to travel the other dierection and failed.

We discovered the housing arrangements we though we were coming to had fallen through. I should have been sharing with two doctors but the access to water there was so poor they were struggling with 2 of them in the house and did not feel it would work with a third person as well needing to wash etc. John and I therefore had to move into the other sparsely furnished 2 bed-roomed hospital house together. It has 2 beds, one wardrobe, one TV (which is not connected to the cable so does not work) on a small cupboard, a desk, fridge, two folding chairs and kerosene stove. It does have a porch with two wall on which we can sit out. Unfortunately it gets the full afternoon sun so is rather hot. It has running water for about 2 hours a day but the well is almost immediately outside so water is relatively easily available at all times. The hospital staff had found a room to rent in a house immediately opposite the hospital which is well furnished with sofa, table, chairs and cupboards but has shared kitchen and bathroom and no private outside space. We spent quite a bit of time deciding which we would prefer and then negotiating as we both had the same first choice but for different reasons. We then went to both saying we would move to keep the piece. We however managed to have a very sensible discussion about it and eventually it was decided that John would move. We have a spare room and we will accommodate whose ever guests visit here. The house will be my home but our house - to give John a bolt hole if needed and access to football once the TV cable is sorted. Although the hospital staff had done some cleaning areas like the kitchen sink still needed a lot of work. The big ratan bush in the front garden was decimated by hatchet and fire.