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Published: November 13th 2008
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4 weeks later……
Been here 4 weeks nearly and feeling quite settled - funny how things which were so strange to start with I now don’t notice. In my first week I was terrified of falling down a hole in the pavement into a storm drain -now I’m used to jumping holes, dodging scooters in the road and have abandoned the foreign concept of a safe pavement. Can’t say that about the rubbish strewn everywhere - Kupang is one massive fly tip zone. Folk keep their private patch clean but no one cleans up the public spaces and where locals once tossed banana skins that wrapped their food and rattan baskets they now toss plastic wrappings and bags.
Colin and I live in a room in a small compound within the hospital complex. We virtuously reuse what we can (food waste goes to the local compost goat) and with reluctance we put some waste in the wastebasket. Each morning our Ibu (the maid - get that I have a maid) tosses the contents of our wastebasket out the window!!! We come back from work to see our papers blowing around the compound. Periodically she gathers some rubbish to a random spot
Compost goat
Neraly castrates himself on his tethering rope each morning as he rushes for his fruit skins.
Goat was never seen again after UDUL FITRI think he was the celebration supper. and has a small bonfire but mostly it is remains strewn around. Given there is no central refuse collection you’d think folk would see the sense in a tin drum style incinerator where the rubbish went in the first place. BUT I may be missing something here because there does not seem to be any problems with rats or other vermin - so perhaps scattering rather than concentrating is better - who knows - it just looks dire. Enough of rubbish!!!
Onto my nearly hospitalising Colin (again).
It's impossible for the Smiths to go long without a drama
Poor old Colin got up in the night with a migraine, in the dark he reached for a mug to take his tablets put a drop of water in a cup, slugged it down with the tablets and recoiled in horror. The mug he’d used had neat toilet cleaner in it - I was soaking it to remove some stains in the bottom of the cup.
He’d slugged down a dollop of ‘Bayon naCIO’ and was not in a good shape. As soon as I heard him shout I knew what he'd done and jumped out of bed to warn
Goat with waste disposal
Our yard with evidence of recent waste disposal fire him he'd just drunk neat bleach or so I thought because the labelling was in Indonesian
He drank copious amounts of water to relieve the burning in his mouth and throat and to dilute the chemical in his gut but not knowing the poisonous effects on his internals of what he had swallowed we went in the middle of the night to the computer room and ‘Googled’ ‘naCIO - Sodium ’.
Going to Accident and Emergency here is a last resort. Anyway suffice to say we found out on an American web site about Poisons that it was household strength bleach he'd drunk and he’d not drunk enough to cause damage so we made it back to bed as the cocked crowed feeling relief. Thankfully he has had no after affects. Given my track record on all things household it’s rather ironic that I should nearly get him with a cleaning fluid.
Well I’m off to bed early as tomorrow is the first day of the course I have been designing. It is a 5-week course but could all unravel in the first week as I get to know the students I may be redesigning it
Choosing our fish
Every day Colin and I have a lunch of fish and rice - here we ar eselecting our fish from the cold store. on the fly. It is already considerably different from the brief I was given before I left the UK.
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Ger-Jan
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Shortest summary of Indonesian cuisine
"Rice with bits soaked in volcanic strength chili sauce". Both Eveline - who loves spicy grub - and I - my attitude is more one of awe and respect - agree. Selamat makan!