The Perils of Living on a Volcanic Island

622 days ago
	Well, the move has been made and Kiky and I have done our best to make ourselves feel at home in our new house. The journey over to Jakarta was nice, seeing as we were bumped up to first class. But living in a city where the streets are akin to a giant parking lot will take a bit of getting used to. As for the house... coming from my veritable mansion in Makassar, this thing looked like a hotel room. It is very quiet in the neighbourhood however and so that will be nice coming from a place where the rooster's crow is beaten by the street vendor's calls. There is also no mosque in the immediate vicinity, but I see they are planning on building a big one right nearby. So far, all three of my houses have been well within earshot of a mosque and I don't think the islamic faith has given up on me yet... if they can't convert me they may as well wake me up at 5:30. The largest issue with the current house is the water quality. It is sometimes ok, but more often than not stinks of sulfur and has a black silt in it. I found out that we were on a pump and so it may just be that way for a while. I guess thousands of years of ash from voclanoes is not so easily buried under concrete. I am now in Batam, waiting to go to Singapore. I realize now that Singapore's clean image is partially due to the fact that they have moved all of their sinful activities onto this near neighbour. And what an advantage that has.... the streets of this city are said to be rife with whores, gamblers, and other misfits. Uchi, a friend from Makassar, is making a good wage just singing (she said she was tipped 100 buckaroos to sing Britney Spears... sick) so I can imagine that this place must attract desperate people from all over Indonesia. After today, I am off to Singapore for a day... I have a ton to do as I tried to go to the embassy on the 4th to get some more pages added in Jakarta, but they were closed. I felt very stupid being told by a security guard outside the embassy that it was my country's independence day. I felt like getting into a philosophical debate on nationalities, but decided against it. So I have to add some pages and then I have to get my visa... I am using an agent to get the process expedited. Wish me luck!