Random normal life things

So for the past year & a half, Russ & I have been sleeping in a tent. A mosquito tent. Perhaps a more appropriate word would be anti-mosquito tent. Having seen the wide variety of large and small insects and small reptiles that Indonesia has to offer, we have been ever so grateful for our tent. Nothing can get in.

Also, for the past year & a half, we have been sleeping on the floor. We're not sure why. It's not that we were ever told we could not have a bed, but I guess we were never told that we could. Everybody was sleeping on the floor. So when our new Country Director & his wife came in and saw that we were sleeping on the floor, they asked us why. We didn't really have a good answer. They asked us if we would like to sleep off the floor. We thought about it and said, "Yes, that would be very nice." So Medair bought us some wood and Russ built it - old school style. There's nothing so great as electric tools here, so he had to saw the wood to size with a hand saw. This worked well for the supports underneath the planks, but it proved to be a problem for the legs. Cause you would actually have to saw them straight, which proved a small problem for Russ. So Russ paid a local guy a few bucks to do it for him. This guy also used a hand saw, but at least he knew how to cut it straight!

Side note: we really think people here live the same, basic way that people in South America lived in about the 1950's. Really crazy.

Here's the final result:

As you can see, we still have to put our tent on top of our mattress, cause it doesn't fit inside, but it's still really nice to be above the ground. :)

While Russ & I still enjoy when we get a chance to use a proper shower and sit on a proper toilet, we have in fact gotten quite used to the Indonesian style. It occured to me that I have never shown you our personal bathroom at our own house and figured you were all dying to know what it looks like. This is a picture of our mandi and a stream of water coming down from the gutter. yeah. The water level is really low....we need rain.

Here you can see the squatty potty too and the scoop we use to flush the toilet and to retreive water from the mandi.

A little visitor came to our back doorstep this morning....

And here is a massive spider that Russ spotted from inside our house. It's about 30 feet away from our house, high up in the tree, and this is how clearly we could see it. We saw spiders like this one up close on Asu Island. They're freaky. and about this size of an adult hand stretched out. This one better stay in the tree, that's all I can say.