Another One of Those Annoying Tropical Maladies

After five weeks of having a golf ball sized lump on my ankle after an encounter with a flying rock while cutting my lawn, the doctor here in townsite decided that it was time to do some cutting. So we’re waiting to see how things work out. Just one of those little things that happen when you live out in the jungle using less than safe equipment to do what is generally a routine job back in civilization.

So today I’ve been laying around the house resting the foot. Everyday now we go without electricity for at least a few hours, and often for most of the day. If there is no electricity then we also don’t have water because the town water system needs electricity for the pump to work.

With no computer access and no electricity to watch tv, I spent the day doing some reading. Today I went through the book, To the Spice Islands and Beyond. The book is a collection of excerpts from travel writings from the 16th century up through the 20th. I love historical travel writing partly because it gives the reader insight into some of the prevailing social and ethical values, as well as a take on what the culture was like at the time. Reading through each extract, I wanted to buy the books that they came from. I found an excerpt from a book that I read 18 years ago in Tembagapura, In the East My Pleasure Lies. That book was written by an English aristocrat who traveled around Indonesia in the 30’s. She was fairly unusual for the time – taking buses with the locals as well as hanging out with government officials, scientists, and other interesting characters. I always wanted to steal the book from the Tembagapura library as I figured that it wouldn’t be read much and the chances of me finding the book anywhere else would be slim. I let my moral scruples get the best of me though, and I didn’t steal it. Hopefully, I’ll find it around somewhere.