Rumah Tinggal /Home

I have now settled into my three areas or rooms or more precisely, 4 areas including my "kamar mandi" toilet and bath room. As I sit here on my one chair at my little table I use for eating, writing, computer work etc - you get the picture, at the foot of my bed -queen size and new! - I am running water to fill the concrete tub in my kamar mandi as this is the water that runs every two days - I thought once a week so this is great! The water in this tub is scooped to "flush" my squat toilet and also to dump over me for bathing usually at bedtime and in the morning as I'm pretty sweaty most of the time. It always feels a bit cool to start with but as my body starts to appreciate the cool down I can dump more over me!

My sitting room is inside the front door and is 6 feet by 9 feet long. It is a narrow room just inside the door and I sit there after work with the door open as sometimes there is a bit of breeze and I don't like running my fan all the time. It already goes all night blowing across my bed. Thank goodness for it as my bedroom is the next room beyond the sitting room and has no windows and the rooms are concrete, which is a bit close in this heat. Even though it cools down outside it doesn't get below 27/28c in my rooms. Leaving the door open as long as possible helps a bit if it rains and cools down but then all the flying things come in as it gets dark and that is at 6:30pm.  The bed/eating/and room where my fridge sits is about 13 feet by 9 feet and is my big room. Oh, it also has a wardrobe for my clothes. That is my total storage for those of you who know of my walk-in closet at home!
Then through another door to the back of my home is my kitchen. I have a little table for my dishes to sit on and a bit of space left for food prep. My one burner stove sits on a concrete slab and operates on canned gas which is used is less than a week but they tell me the bigger bottles are not always readily re-fillable - don't understand why and the seller wants me to get an even bigger one but I have no room for it. Another problem to solve but will in time. Everything takes time, supplies are bought at several different spots, which I have trouble finding without help and several trips. Just to find chicken pieces was a chore but my fantastic landlady of 25 years old came home tonight after phoning to tell me she was out looking for a bigger gas canister for me and found chicken pieces that I can trust, instead and wondered if I could settle for that and she would just pick up another small bottle of gas for the week for now. That is how it works. You go looking for one thing, don't find it, but something else you looked for days earlier pops up. All in good time!
Back to my rooms! Off my little kitchen at the back, which has my one other window besides the front door and window beside it, is the kamar mandi - really small for us big North Americans - I feel like a giant here - stand at the back when we have group pics! The photo is dark but you can make out the tub of water and the pink scooper I use for flushing and bathing.

I am adjusting to such changes in living and starting to venture out beyond my one little street. I am walking to work about 15 minutes and other staff couldn't believe it. Most in the shad so bearable and it feels so good to move. I now have 3-4 of them joining me to walk home and I may have started my own little walking club. Usually many of them hitch a motorbike ride but they think maybe this walking thing is kind of fun. We all stop at our rooms, mine and my landlady Berti's who is a colleague as well as we are the first home to reach and sometimes share a drink of water and someone runs across the street and buys deep fried bananas for a treat. Ok, enjoy the pics friends and family! I have survived a month today, and must say there have been times I wasn't sure I could. sure there will be more but one day at a time! I have lots of support from these lovely people who try so hard to understand the culture shock I am experiencing.
I have included the scene from my front door - looks a LOT quieter than it is! The brown doors on the yellow building are the various doors to the rooms and mine is the furthest to the right, at the end behind the white wall, which is good as it shields me from the street. looking out my door I see the green house across. Usually this street is wild with motorbikes, bemo minivans blaring music to get the public riders for this interesting transit system!