Having had a second visit to the doc recently re. my never-ending sore throat, I left with his final touching words “don’t worry, you’ll be back”. What he was referring to was bowel problems.

I was speaking to the owner and chef of one of the expat oriented bar/restaurants recently and he suddenly said “they will kill some one”. I replied “who?”.

He mentioned the main 2 supermarkets which are the central shopping points for the vast majority of the expat community. He specifically mentioned the well-known fact that most foreign foodstuffs were either approaching or past their use-by dates. He singled out the frozen foods as the worst culprits, citing use-by dates, the temperature of the freezers and the even nastier habit of thawing and re-freezing of these items. I also suspect a lot of the food lines have been market failures somewhere else and have been dumped. I also suspect production runs of sub-standard goods or labeling errors etc. to be amongst it all as well.

I must admit that I knew all this prior to arriving and was worried but you tend to forget about it after a while. Most of the expat bar/restaurants struggle to get staff to adopt basic food hygiene standards in food handling. You occassionally cross your fingers and eat out at a more local restaurant (usually run by Indonesians, Chinese, Indians, …)

You always hear stories about so-and-so is sick after eating at “…..” restaurant 2 days ago.

Lets not even mention those who have come down with malaria or dengue fever. A close acquaintance has been bed-ridden for 5 days now and dengue is suspected.

But the doctor was right, like everyone else, I’ll be back.

Life is actually quite a bit different now. Living in a house now means access to all that stuff I waved goodbye to 6 months ago. But apart from footwear, I am still wearing the same old clothes I have been rotating for months.

It means no more hotel breakfasts and it means buying food in order to have it to eat it. The first shock is the financial one when you spend US$400 on food and end up with … well, not very much. And I had already pretty much given up on any snack foods. I had also thought I had put on weight but I actually sent over a set of scales and to my amazement, I am 5 kgs lighter than 6 months ago.

Note to file : I have to start local market shopping rather than this expat supermarket stuff.

To be honest, I have been suffering from some unknown health problem of late (presumably bacterial infection), but must wait until the doctor gets back from his 2 weeks out of the country. Perhaps this is the real reason for the weight loss (or the self-prescribed anti-biotics).

Back to the house. I guess you have to expect teething problems when everything is new, but the wooden doors are cracking, there have been electrical problems, shoddy plumbing, no water pressure, cockroaches, really bad rising damp in the walls and we still lack a bathroom basin and gas cooker. When we decide not to eat out, we use the temporary gas cooker on the front porch. And we are still waiting on some key furniture deliveries for the living areas.

As I type, there is not one drop of water emerging from any tap. The tank is full, the pump is on. I don’t know. But one day, it will be sorted.

It has rained the last few days and after this, the mosquitos have come out in force around the house. It is almost impossible to remain unbitten unless you become a walking insecticide vehicle. But there are enough local stories of malaria and dengue fever to convince you that you just have to do it.

If you are into organics and the non-use of pesticides, me thinks you will not survive here. It is pretty difficult trying to impress with the latest eau de cologne, perfume or macho deodorant when you must by necessity smell like a roach bomb (ie insect spray).