Back in Bali

Back in Bali after six months. It’s nice to be back as much as I love Sumbawa. The house here always seems smaller although it not that much smaller in terms of square meters than the house in Sumbawa.

We’re making the beginnings of the move next year when I retire. The last few days we’ve started renovating the second floor bathroom. Living on the ocean is lovely, but you pay a price in damage to the house (and electronics) from the salt air. And, the house is been empty for most of the last four years and built as it is to be as open as possible, the house does take in water during the rainy season. While we’re here we can clean it up quickly, but as there’s no one here most of the year, the water sits and ruins all the tiles on the floors. So we’re replacing them. I have a friend from Sumbawa who has incredible skills with building things and fixing things and just generally getting things to work right. He’s been doing most of the work for me along with my brothers-in-law, nephews and me.

We’re also getting Mercedes enrolled in a high school here in Bali. A lot of the students who graduated from Junior High in Sekongkang are moving to other islands for high school as a high school close to us just opened but it doesn’t have a very good reputation, and we were advised by several teachers to put Mercedes in high school in Bali. I’m not really thrilled about sending her off, but we don’t have much of a choice as I still have another year to work.

We all came over on the ferries as usual. The trip took 17 hours this time as we had several long waits for ferries in Sumbawa and Lombok. I’m fairly impressed that I can still make what is a fairly grueling trip. Most folks here thought that I overnighted in Lombok, but I hate spending money on a hotel when we can just gut it out some and make the distance in one trip.

The ferry rides were really different this trip. I had a number of extended conversations with folks – high school kids wanting to use English, older folks just wanting to chat about my kids, where I was going and the usual. It passed the time. The ferry from Sumbawa to Lombok was packed because there were four buses on the ferry. There weren’t enough seats for everyone so a lot of people sat on the rather dirty floors. I stood the whole two hours. The ferry from Lombok to Bali was only half full, and I laid down on a mattress on the floor for a few hours which helped pass the time and give me a rest.

So here we are again. I’m looking forward to the next 14 days.