New Home

Isn't it always the way? After weeks and weeks of waiting for the teacher's house to be finished for me, and problems with the electricity connection (they didn't want to connect a foreigner), and arguing with the workmen, another school suddenly realised that they too had a house to offer me, and I could move in almost straight away. Although losing all the money I'd spent on renovating the first house was difficult, I decided to move to the second house instead, the benefits including being a short walking distance from the hot springs, and having three bedrooms instead of two. The hot springs was the more exciting benefit, I'll admit.

So. It's a kampung house, a village house. Kampung houses are stilted and wooden, with slatted windows, leaky pipes, bizarre bathroom arrangements, and sinks hanging out the back window. Really. They are usually quite beautiful (if it's not you living in it...) but mine is not.

That's okay. Inside, it's lovely. When I got it, it was pretty dingy, with yellow walls and lots of graffiti. Malaysian graffiti artists are as imaginative as western ones - my favourites include "I love you" and "Hello". The floors were raw wood, and the doors, which were once made of cheap plywood, were now made of splintered cheap plywood. The former owners had nailed wire to the walls of one room as a laundry, and the pretty netted shutters had lost most of their nets, letting in bugs and moquitoes to breed in the nooks and crannies.

The doors are still splintered wood. I'm not that fussy. I did get them to nail some new plywood onto the worst ones, but brand new doors can wait.

What couldn't wait were the floors and walls. Now, Malaysian men are not particularly macho, really, if we're being honest. Which is why it was so humiliating when the workman - who was originally only hired to tile the bathroom - gently removed the paintbrush from my hand and proceeded to do the painting himself. Put in my place, I agreed to pay him extra to complete all the painting. I think he took the same time as I took to paint one panel, to paint four and a half rooms.

BUT I did varnish the floors, so I feel a little more dignified now.

I'm still living as a bit of a camper, but just look at those beautiful floors:

I have kept a lot of the furniture, some of which is better than others, like my kitchen cupboards, which are fronted by, yes, mosquito net, and which are now playing home to my Semporna fish.

Round the back I have a bit of a garden, which hasn't dried out once since I moved in, but which offered up the gift of a sprouting palm nut as compensation.

 

The cat is less than impressed; the fact that palms are sprouting in my backyard does little to distract him from the fact that I now require him to use said backyard (yes, the damp one) for his littering purposes.

 

The local kids have already discovered the two cats, calling to them through the fence and giving them the adoration they so rightly deserve. I'd invite the kids in to play, but I forgot to ask the workman to build a gate into the fence...

It's a quiet little village... actually, make that a little village - it's not quiet at all, with the roosters and dogs and people and babies and scooters... but there's not really much going on. The highlight of most of the boys' days is the football match that gets played in front of my house on the school field every evening at 5. The team can be told apart easily - Team A wears shirts, Team B doesn't. It's a change from the inside-out-division.

I have a lovely view over the hills of Sabah towards the second-highest mountain in the state. The highest one is directly behind me, looming over Poring Hot Springs. It's a pretty awesome little spot, really :) I do hope you'll come to visit!