Our house is a bit limited: no running water (but there's a pump), a squat toilet (standard), and the shower is a 'mandi' - the traditional bath set-up where you bathe yourself with a ladle from a water basin. It's fine though, we don't need hot water in this weather - it's really hot and humid. We have pay tv though so we can see what's going on in the world and keep up with all the latest hip hop from the states...
There are only a few ex-pats here - I met most of them last night. We had a bit of a bonfire and dinner bash last night at our place. Mark, Paul and Natasha work for ARC (although Natasha leaves in a week for BA), Chigusa and Noriko for Japanese RC, Nam for Cordaid, and John & Jolene for Care. There are apparently a couple of others who live here too that I'm yet to meet.
Our neighbours like putting loud music on at 7am every morning. This morning was a techno version of 'happy birthday'. boo!!!
Before I left BA I went on a driving tour of the place. The path of destruction from the tsunami is definitely still there! A whole swathe of countryside and houses totally wiped off the face of the earth. We saw a boat, and a barge that is a power station, left loftily on top of people's houses... mangroves ripped out of the ground.... whole areas of houses totally destroyed. The infamous mosque you saw on the news that was the only building that survived is almost repaired and back to its former glory. A guy that works for ARC lost his entire family. Really sad but also completely amazing. There is a cement factory near the beach that is about 30m high, and apparently the tsunami totally washed over the top of it. I think I had my jaw dragging along the ground for most of the drive.
What makes me mad is the terrible workmanship involved in the construction of new houses in the areas worst hit. Terrible construction (concrete structures, one brick-width walls), half of them look totally shabby and falling apart already, some are built in the swamp (and won't need a tsunami to flood them, just possibly a high tide?!) and most of them are painted bright orange or pink (this could be ok by the residents, who knows...).
Here in Simeulue they have a brand new airport and there is also much construction going on around Sinabang. I will see more of it on Monday when I go in the field with my WatSan team to Salang, the subdistrict in which I'll be working. On Friday I met 3 of the 4 main staff I'll be managing: Denden and Aduma (senior engineers, one of whom has very limited english!), Anton and Frida (Hygiene Promoters). We also have 4 construction supervisors. We have a newly built, and unfortunately newly vandalised house in Salang that everyone stays in, including the Community First Aid team as well (that Mark manages). They are about to build a badminton court for it, to give staff something to do!
This arvo "the expats" are going for a bike ride down to the beach. Crazy s$&t in this weather, but at least i'll get some exercise! Mark also has a kayak, so I'm hoping to get out on that sometime, the bays here are beautiful.
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