TUESDAY 23 JANUARY:

Farid and Saiful take us to look at the 52 traditional wooden stilted Muslim Aid houses that are being built on land given by the Government at Iboih (where Muslim Aid have already built 40 houses.)

MUSLIM AID'S LOVELY PERMANENT WOODEN TRADITIONAL HOUSES AT IBOIH ON THE ISLAND OF GAPANG

ABOVE RIGHT: A HOUSE WITH A HUGE SATELLITE DISH

LEFT: INTERIOR OF ONE OF THE HOUSES (WITH RATHER DASHINGLY COLOURED WALL!) AND SOME OF THE EXCELLENT MATTRESSES THAT ARE PROVIDED AS PART OF THE "FURNITURE PACKAGE" (ALONG WITH BED, TABLE, CHAIRS AND STOVE AND COOKING EQUIPMENT)

The houses are really lovely. They are pretty spacious at 48 square metres (as compared to the 36 sq m Ides temporary houses in Teunom, or the 42 sq m Muslim Aid brick and cement houses we were shown in Banda yesterday). Half the space is open plan and there are 3 small separate rooms. There are lots of windows and the back and front door face each other which is good for recreation. There is plenty of room for each family to build a really nice balcony under the back eaves, and some families have even chosen to give up a bit of room space and have a balcony at the front as well.

Particularly lucky

BELOW RIGHT: ME WITH SOME OF THE MUSLIM AID WOODEN HOUSES IN THIS NICE VILLAGE SETTING - MANY OF THE HOUSES HAVE LOVELY VIEWS DOWN TO THE SEA

BELOW LEFT: ONE OF THE "BIOFILLS" THAT PROCESS THE "BLACK WATER" BEFORE IT IS DUG IN

Each house has a separate loo and mandi and a really good “biofill” sanitation system which can join the main drainage where appropriate or which can expel grey water into the surrounding “wetland” with no ill effects. The people who are going to live here are particularly lucky as there is lots of space between houses and beautiful views down to the sea. Hopefully there will be a balai soon for communal activities, and there is lots outside shade as there are some very big, well-established trees.

When we get back to Gapang, Hags goes for a dive and I get through some work.

The Big Boss

Later we go down to the beach for dinner, and suddenly Fadlullah Wilmott (the big boss of Muslim Aid out here, who has arranged our Tour and who is in charge of all the building projects) arrives, so we have a business dinner (tuna, grouper, chips, salad and soft drinks for just under £3 a head!) discussing housing and how difficult it is to make sure it is all done really fairly. Fadlullah tells us of one lady in Sigli who managed to get 10 houses off different NGO’s. Fadlullah will be coming to the Muslim Aid kindergarten show and session we will be doing on Saturday morning, so we can finish our housing discussions then.

Extra show

Fadlullah asks why we haven’t done a show at Kreung Raya while we were on the island. “Well, it wasn’t on our timetable”, we say. “Well, would you like to fit it in?” he asks. “Oh Yes!”, we say. So it is set up for Wednesday (tomorrow) late afternoon. As long as Haggis can fit his 2 dives in, he is very happy to do more shows, and so am I. That will up our total to 33 shows (with 90% of these also getting badge-making and parachute games).

Lots of thunder and lightning and very heavy rain, but we are able to make our way up the 10 minute road to our rooms during a gap in the rain. We sleep like logs again.