Saturday, September 7, 2013

Home Away From Home–September 8, 2013

We have had four homes away from home.  The first is when we were first married and moved to Oklahoma/Texas, the second was in England while serving our mission in the Europe West Area, third was in Hong Kong while serving in the Asia Area and fourth now in Fiji while serving in the Suva Fiji Mission.

Our home away from home in Fiji is a very nice place with two bedrooms, one bath, a nice living room and dinning area and a nice kitchen with a gas stove. We’ve not had much experience on a gas stove, but we are getting it down.  We have an electric security gate and when we moved in we had a security man who spent every night sitting outside under our bathroom window – guarding the place.  It gave a whole new meaning to getting up to use the pottie in the middle of the night.  But he has moved on now, something we are both sorry for and happy for.

We live next door to our landlord who is Indian and his large extended family on one side and a large extended Fijian family on the other.  And our apartment has glass panes in the middle of each window and metal louvers on the sides which keep out (and in) absolutely no sound.  We hear the baby next door cry and the lady next door brush her teeth.  And we wonder what they hear from us.

The furniture is very uncomfortable but looks very nice.  We purchased a rocker for $200 Fijian Dollars that is the most comfortable chair in the house.  We have four channels on the television. One is a Christian channel, another comes out of New Zealand, the third is a Fiji station and the other is primarily cartons.  Not much of interest on!

There are three units in our complex.  An upstairs unit which is very large and has a spectacular view of the ocean, and two on the lower levels.  Elder and Sister Hogg live in one and we live in the other. 

Our apartment is open to bugs and we have a serious war going on with some very small ants to see who will rule the cupboards.  And every once in a while a friendly gecko comes in for a while and then leaves the same way he got in.  And we can’t for the life of us figure how they get in.

We have a cleaning lady who comes in once a week to clean our apartment.  It is so fun to leave in the morning and return to a sparkling clean house.  And all this for only $12.00 American.  I could get used to this.

We live in a very eclectic neighborhood and there is always a surprise waiting for us.  We have rugby players who play down the street and use our hill as their exercise road, we have people who sing and they have religious classes every so often and their music is nice.  We have Indians who live across the street and every so often they have a drum ceremony on a Sunday morning.  But my favorite is the early Sunday morning drummer.

About 4:30 or 5:00 am on most Sundays you will hear drumming begin.  Nothing too loud, just quietly and they continue off and on for most of the morning.  I love to hear them.  And there is a Primary School just down the street and there are weddings and other meetings held there on and off and we can hear just about everything that goes on.  It’s like living in the middle of a park and we are beginning to really enjoy it.

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