Beyond the Fale — The start of a new life
Week 2 — I’m still very reluctant to eat much as I recover from the ‘spew bug’ and the husbands’ mad rush of a shopping trip meant that we still didn’t have much in the house to cook a proper meal. The children are behaving remarkably well, maybe even too well — I get the sneaking suspicion they are planning something or building up to an almighty emotional outburst, considering we have just relocated to a new country, one that is so drastically different to white middle class suburban Australia, I am predicting the mother of all meltdowns very soon.
The house is ‘basic’ only in relation to the brand-new houses we were shown that are obviously marketed to the high-end expat community — unfortunately I don’t think we will ever be high end I just don’t have the OCD to maintain that lifestyle, hell I can’t even be bothered shaving my pits or waxing my mo anymore!
I am calling my house charmingly rustic.
There are high lofted ceilings with fans in every room so that the heat can escape, louvered windows which we were told ‘you only close these when there is a cyclone’ (cyclones, I keep forgetting about that, mental note read the handbook on preparations for cyclones), 3 bedrooms, open plan kitchen dining and living area with basic furniture and two bathrooms. Thankfully the landlord agreed to leave a few items such as beds, couch, dining table and the following:
· 1 saucepan
· 1 fraying pan
· 1 wooden spoon
· 4 glasses
· 4 mugs
· 6 plates
· 4 bowls
· Knives, forks and spoons
· And 1 rice cooker! (he later drops of a kettle — now I can make a nice cup of tea).
The bathrooms are a bit on the run-down side of things.
Just like any rental property, I have a shit load of cleaning to do. Let’s all go on a shopping trip! To buy cleaning supplies! We find the two major supermarkets Farmer Joe’s and Frankie’s and spend a fortune on cleaning products, basic food supplies and bottled water. The supermarkets have an interesting combination of clothing, furniture and food products. I get distracted by the 20L tubs of lard, surely restaurants are buying this? Buying fresh fruit and vegetables in the supermarkets is very expensive and limited. They stock imported goods such as apples, broccoli, lettuce etc are usually from New Zealand. So not only are they expensive, they have seen better days not to mention food miles. We still need to figure out where the local produce markets are because there is no way we can keep this up, and we want to buy local fruits and veg. The area where they keep the chilled goods is …. hmm how do I say this in the politest terms …. it is different. The frozen goods, eggs, dairy goods, fruit and vegetables are in the same area as the butcher, so the smell is an interesting mixture of raw meat and earthy vegetable smells. I am so sensitive to smells right now my stomach does a flip and I have to evacuate the area, but the bakery certainly makes up for it….. someone get me something deep fried and covered in chocolate!
After a couple of days, I notice that the toilet in the ensuite (I know fancy right! An ensuite) is leaking … from the poo evacuation pipe. That can not be good for our health. Ok everyone stop using the toilet in the ensuite! I wonder, what part of stop using the crapper because it is leaking don’t children understand? Also why aren’t they using their own toilet? Maybe I need to order some police tape to cordon off the area because they is not understand the words that be coming out of the mouth.
As the house hasn’t been lived in for a while, I spend a long time cleaning and eradicating the swarms of disease carrying mosquitoes. Ok I might be overreacting here, but for me I would rather have a house full of cockroaches right now than the swarming mass of potentially deadly mosquitoes in my house. The children still haven’t registered the fact that these bastards are killers and that getting bitten by one isn’t just an itchy annoyance like back home. I feel like me running after the kids with insect repellent will be a constant — must I use shock tactics to get them to listen?
The landlord replaces the toilet after a couple of days. We had to wait for a new toilet to be ordered in as there was no toilet with the appropriate pipe connection on the whole island, lucky we have that second bathroom right?
