My home in Lombok

Hello semua,

I thought you might be interested in my living-situation here. I live with Panca, a man who works in the Oasis, his wife Sulis and his daughter Tia. They are pretty wealthy compared to the most people here because Sulis has her own business. A Spa! How great!

When I arrived in Lombok and we were driving to Panca’s house we had to pass through many poor villages and I was always thinking “Ok guys, please keep driving…” -fortunately we did and when we finally arrived at the house I was so surprised at how big and fancy it looked between all the little run down houses. I was happy that it didn’t look like I had to bath in the river! Well it turned out that the big white house only looked fancy from the outside. From the inside it neither has ceilings nor did it have a lot of furniture. The living room consisted of a matrass, a small table, and a TV which runs 24/7.

When I asked Inge about why the houses here are so spartaniously furnished, she told me that it is normal for the people here. They usually don’t have the money to effort more comfort and they just don’t find it necessary. Inge and Ade, too, keep arguing about the coffee table in the living room. Ade finds it completely unnecessary while Inge thinks it helps to create a cozy atmosphere.

But hey, I was happy anyway because I got my own clean room with my own bathroom!!! Isn’t that awesome? And the non plus ultra was the WESTERN TOILETTE I had in my bathroom! Of cause I still have no toilet paper, but you can’t really wish for more here. I am already really glad that I don’t have to put up with a pit toilette at home, too!

So in my room I only had a cupboard and a matrass. It looks a little bit cozier now, after I hung up a big map of Lombok and my mosquito net, bought a trash can and so on.

fortunately I was spared from this at home

Oh I forgot two persons of the household, Fakur and Dina. Fakur is a very skinny guy that studies English in Mataram and has been living with Panche for quite a while now because renting an apartment would be too expensive. à who now thinks, ’Oh good, that means Lara had someone to talk to in the beginning’ is wrong because Fakur started studying English without being able to speak one word of English. Makes people wonder…

Dina moved in after me. She works with Sulis in her beauty salon and I have never seen her real face under the tons of make-up without which she never leaves her room. While it is fashionable to be tanned in Europe, all women in Indonesia try to stay as white as possible. That explains why there are so many people wearing jackets, long pants, hats and hand shoes while it is 100° Fahrenheit (ca. 40°c) in the sun.

That would make 6 people and two dogs (Ipang and Upin) in the current household. I quickly discovered that this is not close to the truth; since many of Panche’s and Fakur’s friends are here so often that they could just as much move in. Mina, the babysitter is also here all day and takes care of the house chores too.  It is always extremely busy here!

Luckily Panca learned in a hotel and can cook very well. So it happens that sometimes I wake up and he surprises me with delicious apple pancakes. Apples are extremely expensive here, so it is a very special breakfast. Even though I have to get up at 8 o’clock during the week I always wake up from the buzzing of hot fat at 6 o’clock.  The Indonesians usually cook in the morning and eat whenever they are hungry. They always fry tempei, tofu or meat and make rice.

So this is where I live now. I hope you all got a good idea about this place. I like it here and I am pretty happy about having a full house all the time.

Love,

Lara



Panca and Tia





Not yet tidied up. But hey, not bad right?