Home Sweet Home

Our house sits on a portion of Flexon’s ground (a Christian in Vila).  He has allowed us to use it with no strings (money) attached, which is very gracious.  He has also given the local church permission to erect a building on the other half.  We are just south of the main road, with the primary school located on the north side of the road.  Jean Claude and Leisande live just a stone’s throw further south, as do several of Jean Claude’s brothers (with families).  They have taken us in as part of the family, and it is neat to experience that sense of community and camaraderie.  It’s very different from what we’re used to, even in Vila, but we’re starting to warm up to the idea of communal living (what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is ours).


The house is approximately 18’ x 18’, with a small porch in back.  We plan to have a large, thatch-roofed veranda on front, but that has not materialized just yet.  The inside of the house is divided into two rooms - one a bedroom and the other a kitchen/everything else room.  The rooms are divided by bare studs for now - I have paid for masonite but the truck hasn’t had a chance to deliver it yet.  The house has a concrete floor, with the exception of the bathroom which is dirt, then sand, then large stones.  Our walls are half cement block and half woven bamboo.  The bamboo allows some airflow, and we have four wide windows that swivel to open either out or in.  We quickly learned that a fully-open window was actually an open invitation for the entire village to come stick their head in and look around, so now we only prop them half way open most of the time.

We have a small bathroom at the end of the back porch.  We have an RV (cassette) toilet, that has to be emptied about once a week (not my favorite job, but someone has to do it!).  We are in the process of building a “long-drop” local style toilet that we will use as much as possible, but the RV toilet in the house will be much more convenient for the kids and any night-time urges (too much information?!?).  We have a large, round plastic tub that the kids bathe in (like a bath tub), while Shawnda and I stand in said tub and pour water over us with a tea mug from a bucket. 

We have a corrugated iron roof, which serves to fill our 1,100L water tank in back (at least in theory, as it hasn’t rained in the village since we arrived).  For now I have to carry water in 25L plastic jugs from Jean Claude’s house, as they have a tap that is fed from a fresh water spring on top of a nearby mountain.  Carrying in the water makes me realize just how much water we use.  We are very conservative and easily use 100L per day, more on clothes-washing days (40L/day on cooking/dishes, 35L/day on bathing, 25L/day on drinking, 50L/week on clothes and 20L/week on the toilet).  Makes me wonder how much we use in Vila, or worse yet in the States!

The life-saving feature of our house is the two 90-watt solar panels on top.  This provides us with enough power for our two lightbulbs and an oscillating fan.  We turn on the fan during the kids’ afternoon nap and for an hour at night before we go to sleep.  It feels almost like we are cheating, as we turn the sun’s heat into a nice, cool breeze.  We are also able to charge my laptop, cell phones and batteries with the system.  We do still have the generator I used to power my circular saw and drill during the construction, but I am thinking about selling it once everything is in order.

I had enough timber left over from the house to make a bed for Shawnda and me.  We have two 15cm foam mattresses that lay side-by-side on top.  I made the bed unusually high so that we could fit all of our Rubbermaid containers underneath.  As soon as I can get some more timber cut, I will make the kids a set of bunk beds.  For now, their mattresses are just on the floor.

Last but not least is our kitchen.  I made cabinets in Vila and shipped them disassembled to Malekula.  We have a sink that empties into a 20L bucket.  Our “faucet” is a 25L jug with a plastic tap.  All of our food has to sealed up, so as not to invite any unwanted guests (rats, cockroaches, ants, millipedes, etc.).  I will mention here briefly that we have been very richly blessed by our neighbors, who have given us lots of fresh produce from their gardens - corn, peanuts, snake beans, green beans, cucumbers, lemons, bananas, tomatoes, papaya, and nous (similar to a green apple) just in the first week.  Shawnda made a nous cake in her Dutch oven and shared it with several neighbors - it was a HUGE hit and they were all very impressed with her culinary skills.  Closely akin to the kitchen, we have adult soursop and mango trees in our yard, along with some very young orange and papaya trees, and a watermelon vine.